On Forgiveness

The scripture passages this morning come up with one theme: forgiveness. So, we get the moment where Joseph forgives his brothers paired up with the Gospel of Matthew where Jesus says we should forgive the sins of others. A command that finds its way in the Lord’s Prayer we’ll recite later in the service.

The fact that it is in the Lord’s prayer, this call to forgive, indicates how central forgiveness is to the Christian faith and yet precisely because it is so central, the term is freighted with many meanings, many different usages, some good, some helpful, some not so much. It may carry too much as a term.

For instance, there are moments I have instantly forgiven another person. They are sorry for some incident I just didn’t see the situation as a problem. There was no genuine harm that happened, in fact I would be embarrassed to have someone worry that they had done some wrong. So, I forgive them on the spot.  Say someone showed up 5 minutes late for a meeting.

I wish to absolve them, to make sure they are not worried, but without a genuine wrong that happened, I’m not sure I have forgiven them. It may be just words we say to put somebody at ease, but in the Gospel of Matthew and in the story of Joseph indicate, forgiveness follows a wrong.

Another occasion and use of the term. When I was in foster care, at 8 years old, my foster brother tied me up to some post in the barn and left me for hours there. My foster parents freaked out and punishment was meted out to my foster brother. But I protested on his behalf.

I thought we were playing a game and that is how my foster brother descried it. In any case it must have been a misunderstanding and I forgave my brother, why were my foster parents punishing him?

I was under the mistaken belief that forgiveness absolves one of consequences. As a society we do that often. Criminals still go to jail, someone who failed to do their job at work may lose their job, you may still get in trouble as my brother did. None of this precludes forgiveness.

It may because forgiveness is how I take up the situation, how I let it affect my heart. So maybe I held no grudge but that doesn’t mean that my brother would escape the consequences of his actions.

Looking back, I’m not sure that was forgiveness though, because while a genuine wrong had occurred, I didn’t realize it was wrong. I didn’t understand the nature of the act itself, so my response was not proportional to the act itself.

I wonder in abusive family situations, when the abuser is forgiven, if family members are forgiving this person or do, they simply fail to understand a genuine wrong was committed against another person.

The abused may believe they are worthy of this treatment, or the abuse could be directed as someone else, and a family member steps in to forgive. In that scenario the person was not directly experiencing the harm and therefore misunderstands the wrong that was committed.

Sometimes it can be tempting to forgive because that keeps the peace in a conflict situation, but it may not be in our place to do the forgiving. If the wrong is not acknowledged as a wrong, if it is does on behalf of another person, who did not ask for that forgiveness.

Then there are moments of forgiveness where no genuine wrong occurred, but it was still taken as a wrong. Because of my birth family situation, I had to leave my first foster family in Billings. My birth mother was trying to find me, so they sent me to a home in Sidney to hide me from her.

But I didn’t want to leave. For years I resented the fact that I was forced to leave that family but only later learned that it was the state that made the decision, not them. So, my anger had been misdirected.

But when I learned of what happened, something curious happened. I still had the feelings that I had been wrong. I had misdirected my anger but when it was not clear who did the wrong or even if it was wrong or for my good, I still had these feelings of resentment

That surprised me. By nature, I’m an amiable person, and a peacekeeper.  In my head I knew my feelings did not have a proper object but somehow deep down, they would surface now and again.
A moment of forgiveness I thought that deep was within me I realized, had not been forthcoming.

When I teach Ethics at MSUB I often go to Aristotle who gives us this standard of conduct:

Having the right feelings at the right times about the right things towards the right people for the right end and in the right way is proper to virtue. Same holds for our actions.
 
In every scenario of forgiveness, I have mentioned so far one piece of this formula was missing.

In the first scenario, forgiveness was not the emotion, because no harm had happened. In the second and third scenarios, genuine harm did occur but I didn’t realize it at the time so I did not know the situation properly or the feelings I should have towards it. In my last scenario, harm happened but there was no proper object to direct my feelings toward.

But let’s suppose that everything lines up, the situation was harmful, we are aware of who did the wrong and so we develop proper feelings towards that person and that situation. I would think the Joseph situation could be a good example.

Some background:

Joseph was the most loved son of his father, Jacob, given the famous robe of many colors. When Joseph reported having dreams of his brothers, and even the stars and moon, bowing before him, their jealousy of Joseph grew into action.  The brothers sold him into slavery to a traveling caravan of Ishmaelites who took him to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar, the captain of Pharaoh's guard.

In Egypt, Joseph finds favor with Potiphar and the keeper of the prison.  With God's help, Joseph interprets the dreams of two prisoners, predicting that one of them will be reinstated but the other put to death.  Joseph then interprets the dreams of the Pharaoh, which anticipate seven years of plenty followed by seven years of famine. Pharaoh recognizes Joseph's God-given ability and prompts his promotion to the chief administrator of Egypt.

Shortage of food in Canaan forces Jacob to send his sons to buy grains from the Egyptians.  Joseph then tests the character of his brothers by placing a silver cup in the sack of Benjamin and falsely accusing him of theft.  When Judah offers to stay in place of Benjamin, Joseph knows that his character has changed and reveals that he is their brother.

 Joseph explains they need not feel guilty for betraying him as it was God's plan for him to be in Egypt to preserve his family.  He told them to bring their father and his entire household into Egypt to live in the province of Goshen because there were five more years of famine left.  Joseph supplied them with Egyptian transport wagons, new garments, silver, and twenty additional donkeys carrying provisions for the journey.  Jacob is then joyously reunited with his son Joseph.

There’s a clear wrong. His brothers leave Joseph for dead. That wrong Is recognized by both Joseph and his brothers. And yet Joseph provides a test to ensure the characters of his brothers had changed. After being left for dead, Joseph wasn’t prepared to be hurt again. The test reveals genuine repentance of the brothers and knowledge that he could safely bring them back into his life.

That is not always a given but it is a good place for forgiveness. When one side genuinely repents and has changed, you are safe interacting with them, and a reconciliation becomes possible. Some may say this is the model.

Unfortunately, live doesn’t always give us models. Which is why the Gospel of Luke and what Jesus says is so important. “love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High; for he is kind to the ungrateful and the wicked.”

There we don’t assume the reciprocity that Joseph’s brothers give. All the action is in the person doing the forgiving. And there is no talk about feelings or warm regard. It’s hard to command feelings as I noted earlier, even if your head tells us otherwise. Instead Matthew gives us what we find in Paul

1 Corinthians 10:24 Let no one seek his own good, but the good of his neighbor
Romans 13:10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.
1 Thessalonians 1:15 See that no one repays another with evil for evil, but always seek after that which is good for one another and for all people.

I can seek another’s good and this in no way means I must like or be warm to someone or I must put myself in a vulnerable situation or continue to accept mistreatment. In fact stopping such mistreatment could itself be an expression of love, for one’s self and the other person. All we’re asked is not to inflict evil on others, to seek what is the best for them and ourselves, if that is in our power or to pray to God.

There have been occasions where I didn’t know what the good was when I was harmed but I prayed to God that this might unfold. In their lives and mine. That may be the purest expression of Christian life that I know of and our calling and privilege to live into as a church. For that we give God thanks, amen

Dwight Welch is the campus minister at United Campus Ministry at Montana State University Billings