Completing extra work for a professor, doing more than what is expected of you at work, giving an extravagant gift to your spouse going above and beyond usually brings positive responses. In the gospel today, Peter went above and beyond when asking Jesus about forgiveness. The rabbis would have told him to forgive a person up to three times. Peter wondered if more that double that would be better. That seems pretty generous. Would that be enough? Jesus’ answer, “seventy-seven times,” meant a limitless number of times. His point was that a Christian is to love and forgive with no limits at all.
If you have ever had a hard time forgiving someone—or maybe you’re in that position today it’s good to hear Jesus spell out his expectations for his people. It is also helpful that God has given us today a real-life example of what godly forgiveness is and how it is shown If we learn from this, we can offer true, God-pleasing forgiveness to someone who wrongs us. Today,
The Example of Joseph Inspires Us
1. To Forgive as God Forgives and
2. To Extend Comfort and Kindness
To understand what’s happening here in Genesis chapter 50, we need to have a brief history lesson. The father of Joseph and his brothers was Jacob. Jacob had kind of a bumpy life. Jacob and his brother Esau were very different people, and their father, Isaac, favored Esau. Fatherly favoritism was just the beginning of the family dysfunction.
Jacob took advantage of his brother’s weakness one day and made him promise to give up his birthright the blessings that went to the firstborn son. Jacob made sure to get these blessings by deceiving their aging, blind father. He then fled because his brother planned to kill him.
Jacob knew what it felt like to be on the wrong side of favoritism, but he later did the same thing, clearly favoring one of his sons over the eleven others. This was Joseph. As you might expect, their father’s favoritism caused the brothers to resent Joseph. This describes the relationship pretty well: “His brothers saw that their father loved him more than all his brothers, so they hated him and could not speak to him in a friendly way (Genesis 37:4).” Now, Joseph didn’t help matters by insensitively sharing dreams he had where all of his family members bowed down to him. Then his brothers hated him all the more.
The family troubles intensified to the point that some of his brothers wanted to kill him and throw him in a cistern—a deep hole designed to hold rainwater. The story they would take back to their father would be that a wild animal had killed him.
His brother Rueben at least had some sense. He talked them out of killing him. He still proposed tossing him in that deep pit, but he had plans to rescue him later. So, they stripped him of the beautiful robe his father had given him and put him in the cistern. Pretty quickly a caravan came by and the brothers sold him as a slave instead of killing him. Joseph’s bloodied robe would be the evidence provided to their father along with the explanation that a wild animal had killed him.
The Ishmaelite caravan then sold Joseph to a prominent man in Egypt, and through a series of God-directed events, he rose to prominence himself, ascending to the position of second in command after Pharaoh. In his position, he was in charge of Egypt’s storehouses during the time of a famine which brought his brothers to Egypt seeking food supplies. When they bowed down before the man in charge of the distribution of grain, they unknowingly bowed down before their brother. He provided them with grain. He eventually told him who he was. There was ultimately a reunion with his father, and things were good. But then their father died, and the brothers were afraid of what Joseph might do to them, which is where we pick up this morning.
You see why we need to have that history to understand the fear of Joseph’s brothers? We also need to have that history to understand what godly forgiveness looks like.
To Forgive as God Forgives You
Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us. We say that in the Lord’s Prayer at least every Sunday. We ask God to forgive our many sins of many kinds. We also say that we forgive people who sin against us. We have forgiving hearts that are patterned after God’s heart. This is how God’s people have always been.
So, after all the horrible things that Joseph’s brothers had done to him and all the terrible things he had gone through—we aren’t surprised to see him break down and cry before his repentant brothers…or to hear him say to them to not be afraid of him “paying them back” …or to watch him taking care of their physical and emotional needs. Or are we surprised? Maybe it is more likely that we are!
We’ve all experienced people doing unkind things to us, hurtful things, damaging things, traumatic things, things etched in our memories, things that stir up difficult emotions. Joseph endured some awful things too hatred from his family, almost killed, sold into slavery twice, wrongfully accused, thrown into prison. But Joseph knew that God worked through those things in his life to bring about blessings for him— blessings through bad things.
We can’t always see how God could work for our good through some of our hurt at the hands of others. But sometimes we’re unwilling to see it. Sometimes we would rather hold onto the hurt and the anger we have toward someone. And don’t be mistaken, we don’t have to do that—that is a decision we make. To be hateful in return, to be unforgiving, to harbor a grudge, to want to retaliate those are decisions made by an unforgiving heart.
The word for forgive in this account means “to take away ” Another word that Jesus used for forgiveness means to “send away” or “let go.” Forgiveness is a decision we make in faith. I need to take away that sin done to me. I need to let go of the wrong I’ve been the victim of. Regardless of whether the person acknowledges their sin against me or repents of it, if I don’t forgive if I don’t let it go it is a “me” problem! If I don’t forgive as God has forgiven me, all I’ve done is sinned against him and sinned against the person who sinned against me! Imagine God looking down on two hate-filled people facing off like gunslingers in a duel!
Now imagine him looking down and seeing someone actually repent of their sin against you and you withholding forgiveness, harboring bitterness and resentment and anger in your heart. Not a pretty picture is it? In fact, it is a pretty ugly picture. It’s actually worse than you might have thought. The person who hurt you and is repentant has God’s forgiveness even if they don’t have yours. And there you are, willfully, stubbornly, entrenched in your unforgiveness. That is not a good place to be before God!
We see something better in Joseph, don’t we? Many would say that he had every right to get back at them. He could have wielded his power in the face of their weakness. He could have enslaved them as they had done to him. As they bowed down before him, he could have reminded them of his dreams. Instead of a cistern, he could have thrown them into an Egyptian prison to rot.
But Joseph knew God’s love and forgiveness. He didn’t doubt that God used all that his brothers had done in order to bless him and bless others through him. Put in a position to give in to the sinful nature and retaliate and withhold forgiveness, Joseph forgave instead.
God wants his people to watch him as he extends undeserved love to sinners, and he wants them to do the same for each other. What Joseph did long, long ago was pleasing to God. Peter and others who followed through on Jesus’ instruction to forgive seventy-seven times also pleased God. God was pleased when Christians in Ephesus listened to the Apostle Paul when he wrote what we heard in the second reading today: Instead, be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ has forgiven us. And God is pleased when you and I freely forgive.
To Extend Comfort and Kindness
Actions may sometimes speak louder than words, but how much more powerful is it when words and actions are combined?! If you’re looking for an example of forgiving actions to follow when it comes to showing that you really mean, “I forgive you,” take a look at Joseph again.
You can see his forgiveness in the things he didn’t do to his brothers! You can also see it in the things he did. The brothers acknowledged their evil actions against Joseph. They repented and asked to be forgiven. They even offered to be Joseph’s servants fruits of repentance, you might say.
So, there they were, lying on the ground in front of him, afraid and sorry and at his mercy. Joseph was moved at their repentance and the opportunity to be at peace with his family. What they would not do to him years and years ago, Joseph did to them now: he spoke to them in a kind way With tears in his eyes and forgiveness in his heart, he comforted them: “Do not be afraid…do not be afraid.”
His words and actions flowed from a forgiving heart. He would provide for the entire family there in Egypt. They truly had nothing to fear from their forgiving brother. Just the opposite they could be confident of his love and care.
Could you do that? Really think about having your family turn on you, and sitting in a dusty hole in the ground waiting to die, and tied up and put up for sale, and languishing in a dreary prison. Could you forgive the people who did those things to you?
Well, let’s leave the imagining and face the reality of our lives. We are a collection of people here this morning who have suffered physical abuse. We have endured emotional abuse. Our families have treated us poorly. Our friends have hurt us and let us down. The world has been unkind. At the hands of others, we have paid the price mentally, financially, socially. No one sitting around you has skated through life with everyone they have ever known always treating them well. You are not alone.
Now let’s face this: how have you done at forgiving people in the way that Joseph did? Have you completely forgiven…every time…even repeatedly…as Jesus expects from people who have been forgiven of so much themselves? The Perfect One who endured mistreatment from friends and enemies alike and was unfairly nailed to a cross to die—and who said in his last breaths from that cross, “Father forgive them…” is looking at you with an expectation. What does he see?
I know what he sees when he looks at me. He sees a person who readily takes God’s forgiveness even begs for it and finds comfort and relief from God undeserved kindness. And he sees a person who is not always as quick to forgive others. Oh, I’ll take forgiveness easily, but sometimes have difficulty handing it out to those who have hurt me. I have a feeling you might be able to relate.
It does me good to review the life of godly Joseph and see in him an inspiring example of someone who freely forgave those who sinned against him. It does me even better to review the life and death of Jesus who gave his forgiveness when he gave his life.
Like Joseph’s brothers, I stand before Jesus, asking for him to forgive me. He comforts me and speaks to me in a kind way. I hear him say to me, “Do not be afraid…do not be afraid. You are forgiven.” All of this he does for you too.
Inspired by the example of Joseph and empowered by the love of Jesus, You and I can completely and freely forgive others and assure them that we mean it by the comfort and kindness we show to them. May God helps up to do this. Amen.
Now the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.