Forgiveness
Preacher: The Rev. Heidi Haverkamp
Preached on: September 11th, 2011
Audio:
No recordingScripture Text:
Matthew 18:21-35, Genesis 50:15-21
Sermon:
Once upon a time, there was a young man named Joseph. Joseph’s 10 older brothers were jealous because Joseph was their father Jacob’s favorite son. He didn’t help things much by telling them that he had dreams where they would all bow down to him. First, his brothers talked about killing him. But they’d get some cash out of it if they sold him as a slave to some foreign traders, passing through the desert on their camels. So they did. They took his coat – his coat of many colors – and dipped it in goat’s blood and brought it to their father, and he thought his son was dead. And so Joseph went to Egypt as a slave. But he was a smart guy and lucky, and after having some success interpreting dreams he got promoted and became Pharaoh’s prime minister.
Then there was a terrible famine. Egypt was rich and had plenty of grain and so people came to beg Joseph for food. And one day, Joseph’s brothers showed up. They didn’t recognize their brother… but he recognized them. When they’d had power over him, they’d sold him into slavery. Now he had power over them – what would he do? He was merciful, but not entirely a saint. He gave them grain, but not without playing a few tricks on them first. Here, in the passage we heard from Genesis, their father Jacob has died and Joseph’s brothers bow down before him – just as they did in his dreams, so many years before – and they ask him, again, for mercy and forgiveness – even offering to be his slaves, just as they sold him into slavery. And he deflects their request – instead he says to them, “Am I in the place of God? Even though you intended to do harm to me, God intended it for good.”
The Hebrew says it more concretely, in the language of a tapestry or a piece of fabric: “What you wove for harm, God has woven for good” or “what you designed for harm, God designed for good.” We need to be careful, because we can use those words to diminish the very real power of evil and cruelty, and say that they’re just part of God’s plan. But what is real is God’s real power and constant desire to bring healing and goodness out of even the most terrible, destructive events in our lives.
Today is the 10th anniversary of September 11, of course. People often say “forgive but don’t forget” or “never forget,” and sure, I don’t want to forget all the people who died. I don’t want to forget the danger of terrorism. I don’t want to forget the courage and love shown by so many fire fighters, police officers, flight attendants, and ordinary people on that day. I do think it’s appropriate to stop and take some time this week, to remember, to reflect, to be sad, to give thanks, and not to forget. But at some point, I wonder if we have to forget a little bit if we’re going to heal. If we’re to live out of love and courage, like those amazing fire fighters, than a certain focus and clarity in the present is required. Because a fuzzy, teary, backward glance at the tragedy and valor of the past might cloud what’s in front of us now.
How can we hold onto God’s grace so that we can move forward into the future? Ao that goodness can come out of evil?
Courtney Cowart, an Episcopal laywoman, was almost buried alive in the collapse of the North Tower. But she also became one of about 5000 people who volunteered to serve Ground Zero recovery workers as part of a ministry from St. Paul’s Chapel, a small Episcopal church right next to the World Trade Center. She wrote: “We want to be the opposite of the horrendous destruction staring at us across the street.” Instead of asking, “How have I been hurt?” she was asking herself “How will I choose to respond to this hurt?” and “How do I want to I live now?”
When we hear Jesus telling us that we have to forgive people not just seven times, but seventy times seven times (and seventy times seven was an ancient Jewish way of saying “infinity”), we might think primarily about the person who we have to forgive. When someone has done something terrible to you, it’s hard to think about anything except that other person and all the feelings we have toward them. All our feelings get directed toward the person and we might not notice ourselves anymore in the equation. Ann Landers used to say, “Hate is like an acid. It destroys the vessel in which it is stored.” Nelson Mandela said, “”Resentment is like drinking poison and waiting for it to kill your enemy.” Forgiveness is what can help us preserve ourselves – in the end, it’s not so much about that other person, it’s about us. Now, forgiveness doesn’t mean forcing yourself to trust someone you shouldn’t, or staying friends with someone who has been cruel to you. But if we’re going to heal, we can’t keep our hearts wrapped in barbed wire or filled with poison.
Forgiveness is like taking a heart wrapped in barbed wire and slowly untwisting all those little knots. Forgiveness is adding butter to a heart that’s like a dry, steel pan and needs love so that everything doesn’t stick to it. Forgiveness is like taking a heart full of poison and washing it with water over and over until it can be clean again. Forgiveness is to help our hearts get filled with God’s love again – or at least more love than poison or barbed wire. Jesus is right – we sometimes need seventy times seven times for that to happen. We can’t just decide to forgive and poof, all the poison is gone! Forgiveness isn’t a decision we make once; it’s something we have to do over and over again.
Now, we also often think of forgiveness as something that has to do with other people because we don’t always remember that sometimes that hardest person to forgive is ourselves. And that can be as much a poison in our hearts as being unable to forgive someone else. Sometimes, if it’s hard for us to forgive others, it can be hard to imagine that others and God could be forgiving toward us, too. And so we say, every week, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Every week, we pray the confession together and we’re invited to offer our sins and failures before God, and every week, God assures us that we’re forgiven. Every week, we have another chance to start over because God loves us
In Aramaic, which is the local language that Jesus spoke, the word for “forgive” is the same as the word for “untie.” Feeling anger and resentment towards ourselves ties us to our worst fears. Feeling anger and resentment towards someone else ties us to a person who has caused us pain. Forgiveness is getting untied. Forgiveness is freedom. Forgiveness takes time. Forgiveness is not necessarily unconditional love, being “nice,” or being good friends. It may not change our lives. But it can untie us from fear and pain. It can unknot the barbed wire from our hearts, drain the poison, and coat us with love like butter.
And most importantly, perhaps, it can make space for God’s love in us so that goodness can come out of pain. So that what was a terrible national tragedy was also a day for great national courage, love, and service to others. What human beings design for harm, let God design for good.
Amen.
