Portrait of Forgiveness

Matthew 15: 21-28; Genesis 45: 1-15

FPC; 8-17-08

          In one chapter, Joseph is the favored son of his father.  In another, he is the object of his brothers’ scorn and hate.  In one scene, he is lying in a deep, dark pit of despair.  In another, he is at the top of Egypt’s economic and political ladder.

          As a terrible famine spreads across the land, Joseph’s brothers are in need of food.  Guess who controls the food supply?  The one whose fate at one time was in the control of his brothers now controls their fate.  The whole story turns on these questions: Will Joseph continue the established patterns of malice and envy?  Will Joseph’s behavior be determinded by the past misdeeds of his siblings?  Will he seek retribution or will he forgive?

          “Come closer”, Joseph says to his brothers.  As they stand face to face with Joseph, they fail to recognize him.  “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into slavery.” 

          Suddenly and quickly fear overwhelms the brothers.  They know what they deserve from him.  They know that Joseph has authority to toss them into their own pit of hunger, despair and death. 

          Just at the point when fear is about to consume the brothers, Joseph says to them:  “Don’t be distressed or angry with yourselves. For God sent me here to preserve life, to preserve for you a remnant, to keep alive for you many survivors.”

             Joseph paints for us a portrait of forgiviness. What can we learn from his portrait?  Is it possible for us to break patterns of retribution and revenge and to allow our behavior to be shaped, not by the past misdeeds of others, but by the mercy of God?

          That is where forgiveness originates.  Forgiveness begins with the God of whom the Psalmist sings: “the Lord is merciful and gracious, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love…[The Lord] does not deal with us according to our sins nor repay us according to our iniquities.”  God forgives because God loves. 

“Beloved, since God loves us we also ought to love one another.” 

          During the Christmas season of 1983, a photograph was picked up by the AP wire service and flashed across the world.  The scene was a prison cell.  Two men sat close together on molded plastic chairs.  One was dressed in a white cassock, white cape, and white skullcap.  The other wore a blue crew-necked sweater, jeans, blue and white running shoes from which the laces had been removed. 

          Time magazine eloquently delivered the story behind the scene:“…Last week, in an extraordinary moment of grace, …John Paul tenderly held the hand that had held the gun that was meant to kill him.  For 21 minutes the pope sat with his would be assassin….[as] The two talked softly.” 

          As he left the prison cell, Pope John Paul was asked: “what did you and Mahmet Ali Agca talk about?”  John Paul responded simply, “that will have to remain a secret between him and me. (But I will say this) I spoke to him as a brother whom I have pardoned and who has my complete trust.” 

          Walter Burghardt, the well known theologian, says that the pope’s  magnanimous, almost incredible gesture of forgiveness raises lots of questions.  For example: 1) does forgiveness mean that punishment should be waived? If it does then what becomes of justice  and to the moral order; 2) Is forgiveness another way of saying “forget it?  Then what of Elie Wiesel’s reminder that, for Jews, to forget [the holocaust] is a crime against justice and memory, to forget is to become the executioner’s accomplice? 

          It is easy to understand the prayer of Mary Rose, that devout catholic nun who founded the famed Covenant House, a halfway house for those struggling against addiction:

“I loathe…drug dealers and pushers” she once prayed.  “ I loathe and despise what they do to kids…I hate their cruelty and viciousness.  I know maybe I should find a place in my heart to forgive them, God, but I can’t.  I just can’t”            Forgiveness falls into that category of “easier said than done”.  

          But perhaps forgiveness will be a little less difficult if we could remember...

          “Forgivenss is not the same as condonement…To forgive is not to say that sin carries no consequences…To forgive is not to pat the offender on the head and say, “I forget what you have done…it is erased from my memory bank.”"

           Forgiveness is central to God’s relationship with us.  In effect, God says to you and me: “Your sin is real but I have decided not to allow it to stand between us.”  As we stand before God who controls the distribution of divine grace, God does not allow his actions towards us to be determined by our misdeeds towards him. 

          The good news is that in God’s forgiveness our lives are opened to a new future where our forgiveness of one another is not only possible but becomes a signature mark of our life together.  

    Glory be to the  Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Amen.