Genesis 45:1-15
Charles J. Tomlin, June 6th, 2021
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
Series: The Roots of God’s Justice 9/20
In August of 2000, vandals attacked the fieldstone St. Peter
Lutheran Church building located in rural South Dakota. They broke windows, smashed light fixtures,
flipped over the baptistery, slashed a large "Jesus the Good
Shepherd" painting, scribbled and carved obscenities on the sanctuary
walls. The golden altar cross had been
swung like a bat to gouge pews and walls. In the basement, kitchen dishes were
broken and objects flung hither and yon. The vandals caused more than $40,000
worth of interior damage to the congregation's building. Services
were held outdoors that following Black Sunday. "There were many tears.
Everyone was so devastated and shocked that someone could do this to a
church,"
Three months after the vandalism took place, police arrested two
area teenagers, ages sixteen and nineteen, who confessed to the crime. When the boys, let out of jail on bond,
returned to apologize publicly to the congregation before serving their
sentences, they were shocked to be received with love and forgiveness.
As the nineteen-year-old left the lectern to return to his seat,
a member greeted him and hugged him. Others
stood to shake his hand and, after the worship, members surrounded the two
boys, saying they forgave them.
The act of forgiveness shocked the two families so much that
they joined the church, and the church in turn has experienced a revival. Worship attendance has tripled in two years
and membership in this 117-year-old declining country church is growing. “We had been separated from organized religion
since our oldest daughter died of cancer," said the father of one of
the boys. "We rejected the whole religion thing. This event has pulled us
back into the church."
The Pastor Terry Knudson, likened the dramatic episode at St.
Peter to the Old Testament story of Joseph. "The vandalism was one of our
darkest moments," he says. "But God can find a way to bring good
from evil."
Dear people, we
are continuing to unfold the words of Micah 6:8; do justice, love mercy, and
walk humbly with God. To do this, we are
reflecting on some of the most important key stories from the Hebrew
Bible.
Today’s story follows
on the heels of Judah’s repentance, following Joseph’s reaction to all the wrong
that had been done to him by his brothers.
In Joseph’s merciful act of forgiveness, we see a preview of God’s love on
the cross. Joseph own forgiving mercy
toward his brothers should cause us to ask ourselves how we should love God’s mercy
so much, that we might determine to forgive those who have deliberately wronged
us.
DO NOT BE DISTRESSED, OR ANGRY... (5). Forgiveness as a gift
Joseph’s cry is among
the most dramatic scenes in the Bible. From
the beginning of Genesis there is noticeable tension between siblings— Cain and
Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Jacob and Esau, and then Joseph and his brothers
too.
After Joseph’s brothers
sold him into slavery, you would think that forgiveness and reconciliation
would never be possible. Yet in the
Bible, Joseph becomes the hero, not because he rises to power in Egypt, but because
he embodies forgiveness (Heb. Selicha).
Interestingly, this is
the first explict instance of repentance and forgiveness in the Bible. The reconciliation between Jacob and Esau comes
close, but lacks the details given here.
Leo Tolstoy, the great Russian novelist, who wrote several beautiful novels
worthy of the Nobel prizes including War
and Peace and Anna Karenia, once said
that the story of Joseph is one of the most beautiful stories ever told.
The most captivating
part of this whole story is that Joseph, although hated by his brothers and sold
into Egyptian slavery, ends up in a position of prestige and power over them. It’s one of the most incredible stories in
the Hebrew Bible. While in Egypt, Joseph
overcame all sorts of odds to rise up in the ranks of power as one of Pharaoh’s
court officials. He was finally put in charge
of managing Pharaoh’s grain and food supplies during a seven-year drought, that
had brought great scarcity to the entire region. Joseph not only handled this job most
successfully, but the drought also brought Joseph’s entire family to Egypt, searching
for food. This was the dramatic setting of
how Joseph’s encountered his family again.
Scholars have warned
us not to rush through this story of forgiveness and mercy. In fact, Joseph never actually says to his
brothers, ‘I forgive you’. It is
only later, in chapter 50, after their father dies, that the brother’s ask
assurance that Joseph has indeed forgiven them.
Although the translates does translate this as a request for forgiveness,
the word in the original Hebrew doesn’t mean to forgive, but it means to lift
up, or ease a heavy burden.
Understanding forgiveness
as a release gives us an interesting insight into what forgiveness meant to
ancient minds. It also helps us understand
what loving mercy and forgiving another still means today. In the
Hebrew sense, forgiveness is the conditional release of the sin or burden
of guilt. Joseph doesn’t immediately forgive
up front. He waits to see whether his brothers’
attitude toward him has really changed.
After all, they were jealous of him because he was different. Now, serving as an Egyptian official, Joseph
is even more different from them than ever before.
So now, in this story,
although Joseph may have already forgiven his brothers in his heart, he is cautious
and careful in how he offers this gift. This
idea of conditional and careful forgiveness brings up an
interesting issue. While Joseph’s move
to forgive depended upon the genuine remorse and repentance of his brothers, his
will and desire to forgive was already present in Joseph heart.
Think about what
happened in Charleston, SC back in 2015, when Dylan Roof, the self-proclaimed
White Supremist, deliberately killed seven innocent people in the Mother
Emmanuel Church during a Bible study and prayer meeting. Almost immediately afterwards, one of the
members of that church announced publicly that she had forgiven Roof of killing
her mother, even without him showing remorse or repentance for his evil deed. Her logic was that since Jesus demands
forgiveness of his followers, even to love our enemies, she felt compelled to
let go and to give all the anger and hurt to God.
This may all sound
premature, rash, and overly optimistic.
And it could be. Even God doesn’t
forgive without a sincere and repentant heart.
But God’s desire to forgive and to restore is already there first, calling
us to repentance and reconciliation. Just
like Joseph in this text, God doesn’t rush to grant us his forgiveness either, but
it’s not because God is withholding his mercy and love from us. No, just
like that daughter in Charleston, the desire of forgiveness is already there. The love of Jesus Christ always makes the
first move to forgive because God’s loves mercy.
While Joseph waited to
test the heart of his brothers, Jesus already knows our hearts, and he has
already moved in love and mercy toward us.
However, Joseph must be cautious
in forgiving his brothers, just like we must sometimes be careful and cautious
too. As Jesus himself instructed his
disciples, ‘Don’t put your pearls on pigs’. For forgiveness to have meanings, we too must
never cheapen what it costs to forgive.
But this care and
caution we take, should never mean our desire to forgive is any less. While the actual gift of forgiveness is
conditioned, our willingness to forgive does not depend external
circumstances. Our desire to forgive and our love of mercy
always has much more to do with what is going in our own hearts.
IT WAS NOT YOU, BUT GOD... (8)b
Whether Joseph
brothers proved to be sorry for what they did was the key to whether or not the
door of forgiveness opened up for them, but it wasn’t opened the door of Joseph
heart to want to forgive them. The love of mercy was already at work in
Joseph‘s heart because of God’s mercy and faithful love for him. This is what Joseph means when he tells his
brothers, that it wasn’t their act against him that dominates his thinking, but
it is that ‘God who sent him ahead of them to preserve ‘all’ their lives’. Because of Joseph trust in God, he doesn’t
see only see they did to him, but he also sees what God is doing through
him. That is why and how Joseph can
forgive.
For us forgive to each
other too, we must look beyond what people have done to us and ask what is God
doing or what does want to do. This
doesn’t mean that what they have done doesn’t matter, or won’t have negative
consequences, but it means that because we trust God, we are able to trust that
God is also at work in our lives. This
is how we can learn let go of our natural desire for vengeance and judgement. We learn to trust in what God is also doing
for us, and in what God is going to do next.
Only when trust God are we able
to let go and take hold of the future with faith and forgiveness, rather than
holding on to bitterness and what still offends us.
An old story tells of
two monks, walking in an ancient town.
When they came upon a woman standing in front of a large puddle of
water, unable to find a way to get accross, one of monks broke their sacred
vows not to touch a woman, picking the woman up and carrying her across a
flooded street. After the incident happened,
the monks then continued on their way.
After a long period of silence, the other monk reminded his brother of breaking
his vow and making contact with the woman.
To the complaint, his companion responded, ‘Dear brother, I put her down way back there,
but in your heart, you are still carrying her.’
The story of Joseph
reminds that there is no real way forward until we learn how to let go, and trust
in God’s goodness beyond what happens to us in life. Joseph
is able to love mercy and give mercy because of his complete trust in God’s
goodness and providence. This is trust
is most eloquently expressed in chapter 50, when Joseph gave us those amazing,
hopeful, and trusting words, “Even though you intended to do harm to me, God
intended it for good, in order to preserve a numerous people, as he is doing
today. (Gen. 50:20 NRS)/.
Here, we can clearly
see that forgiveness and trust in God’s grace and goodness doesn’t remove
accountability and responsibility. We
can also recall that even after David confessed his own sin, God forgave him and gave him a ‘clean heart’,
but there were still consequences that God didn’t remove. In the
same way, God later did not remove the consequence of Israel’s rebellion so
that an entire generation had to wander in the wilderness.
There’s a great Persian story about two Arabs friends named Nagib and
Moussa who are travelling through the dangerous mountains of Persia. One day Moussa loses his footing and falls
into a swirling river—and just in time Nagib leaps in and saves him. The grateful Moussa carves these words into a
nearby rock: “Wanderer! In this place Nagib saved the life of his friend
Moussa.”
Months later the two
friends get into a violent quarrel. Nagib slaps Moussa across the face. The pained Moussa takes a stick and writes
these words in the nearby sand: “Wanderer! In this place Nagib broke the heart of his
friend Moussa.”
When one of Moussa’s
companions asks why he did this, Moussa replies, “I will remember the courage
of my friend in stone, and his unkindness in sand.”
I love that story because
it reminds us that it is normally the one who we love the most who can also
hurt us the most. The greatest hurts
in the world are not us against the world, but it normally use against our own
families and friends. These hurts are
the hurts that cut the deepest. This is
also why we must trust in a love that is greater than ourselves. In trust and hope, we must learn to write our
deepest hurts in the sand, rather than in stone.
AND
HE KISSED ALL...AND WEPT (15).
There is no doubt from
this story, that what Joseph’s brothers did to him was only written in sand in
Joseph heart. Because God was his rock,
not their evil deed, Joseph was able keep loving mercy. This
is what made Joseph one of the greatest heroes in the Hebrew Bible. It’s also what makes him forerunner of what
God has done for us, by forgiving us through blood of Jesus Christ on the
cross.
What
Joseph did, because he trusted God, we can do too. Because we love mercy more than hate, rage,
and vengeance, we can practice forgiveness in our lives too. We can make the first
move toward restoring broken relationships in our lives.
As I was working on
this message, a news flash reported how
a man had killed his wife’s forbidden lover and then forced her to decapitate him. Now,
both of them are charged with murder. One
only wonders, in such a situation of rage and vengeance, what did that man
really accomplished? What strength did
he really show?
Folks, even the most
difficult, impossible situation, forgiveness, is the only positive way forward,
even when we are right. The only way to
move through the hurt and find God’s healing, is through the process and
potential of forgiveness.
To end with a much
better example of making the choice to forgive, rather than to seek vengeance
comes from Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. Sacks
beautifully articulates the legacy of repentance seen in Joseph’s brother Judah’s
and the legacy of forgiveness that is observed in Joseph. He writes: “Repentance establishes the
possibility that we are not condemned endlessly to repeat the past,” In other words: “When I repent I show I can
change. The future is not predestined. I can make it different from what it might
have been. My repentance is about what I can do differently
the next time around.
On the other hand, Sacks
says, “Forgiveness is what completely liberates us from the past. Forgiveness breaks the irreversible reaction of
revenge. It’s the undoing of what has
been done. Forgiveness is the power of faith; faith that
rest firmly on our faith in God. When we
trust in him, we can turn away from the hurt and believe that future begins right
now, when forgive because I trust in God.
What we all see in
this story is that the whole story of humanity was pointed in a different and
better direction on the day Joseph forgave his brothers. When we forgive, we prove that don’t have to
be prisoners to our past, but we can become children of the future; children who
are destined to live in hope of a new day that can start, right now with us. Amen.
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