Sermon Text: Genesis 50:15-21
Date: September 17, 2023
Event: Proper 19, Year A (The Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost)
Genesis 50:15-21 (EHV)
When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and will pay us back in full for all of the evil that we did to him.”
16They sent the following message to Joseph: “Before he died your father commanded us, 17‘You are to tell Joseph, “Please forgive the offense of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ Now, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father.”
Joseph wept when they spoke to him.
18His brothers also came and fell down in front of him, and they said, “See now, we are your servants.”
19Joseph said to them, “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? 20You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring this to pass and to keep many people alive, as it is this day. 21Now therefore do not be afraid. I will nourish you and your little ones.” He comforted them and spoke to them in a kind way.
Love Forgives Sin
Last week we talked about the often uncomfortable but necessary work of lovingly confronting sin. We noted that we need to have love as the motivation for such work because we recognize the danger of sin to the person trapped in it and the danger of the model they are displaying for others. Sin is dangerous and unrepentant, cherished sin harms or destroys saving faith. While sin will be a part of our life while we are on this side of eternity, the Christian will not want it to be there. A life of repentance continually feels sorrow over sin, trusts that Jesus has taken that sin away, and seeks to change course away from those sins and toward a life that is in keeping with God’s will—to thank him for that forgiveness.
Our focus this morning continues this thread. Last week we noted that love confronts sin; this morning we have the focus that love forgives sin. On one level, that goes right along with lovingly confronting sin, right? If you’re confronting sin with love, you’re rightly going to have forgiveness for that person as a part of it—or at least a goal. But our sinful natures can warp things. We can distort even addressing sin to think we’re doing enough just by getting someone to stop a sin, rather than going the whole way to assure them of their forgiveness before God and, if applicable, our forgiveness for them as well.
So, it’s worth making this point very intentionally: as sinners who have been forgiven all our many sins by our God, we will want that same spirit of forgiveness to dominate our interactions with others. It is worth considering that we are not God, and our forgiveness may not be the light switch that his is for Jesus’ sake. But forgiveness ought always to be our goal, and this morning we have a few models to follow in that lovingly forgiving work.
Our First Reading is perhaps one of the biggest and most amazing scenes of person-to-person forgiveness in the entire Bible. Our First Reading takes place way at the very end of the story of Joseph, the very end of the book of Genesis. It will help us to review what happened between Joseph and his brothers leading up to this event.
As a child, Joseph was inappropriately favored by his father, Jacob. This created resentment among his brothers. It also didn’t help anything that (perhaps as a result of this favoritism), Joseph was a touch cocky with his family.
There came a time when the brothers saw an opportunity for sin but what they thought would bring relief. Jacob sent Joseph to check in on his brothers as they were away from home, finding grazing areas for the flocks. Initially, the brothers hatched a plan to kill Joseph and dispose of the body, but eventually, they changed their minds. “Why shouldn’t we profit off of getting rid of him?” they reasoned. So, instead of killing Joseph, they sold him to some nomadic slave traders.
Joseph was taken to Egypt and purchased by a man named Potiphar, a high-ranking official in the government. God blessed Potiphar’s house through Joseph’s work and soon Joseph was essentially in charge of the whole household because his master trusted him with everything. But, after Potiphar’s wife made false accusations of sexual assault after Joseph refused her advances, Joseph ended up in prison. He was in prison for years, for a crime that he did not commit; God still blessed everything Joseph did and he ended up as a trusted servant in the prison as well.
Fast forward a few years, and eventually, Joseph has the opportunity to be useful to the Pharaoh, the king of Egypt. As a result of God giving Joseph the ability to explain Pharoah’s dreams, Joseph is essentially made second-in-command in all of Egypt, storing up grain during seven good years so that they were well prepared for seven years of famine that were coming.
Later, there was a reunion as Joseph’s family came looking to buy grain from Egypt. After some back and forth, Joseph was able to bring the entire family—70 people—to Egypt to live with him. Joseph’s brothers were scared to learn that their brother was not only still alive but an immensely powerful person in what was perhaps the most powerful nation at that time. But Joseph assured them that he loved them and forgave them.
So, in the end, God saw to it that Joseph, even earthly speaking was blessed. But he suffered a great deal because of his brothers’ hatred which resulted in a whole string of difficulties: cut off from his family, forced to work in a Gentile’s home as a slave, thrown in prison though innocent, and being forgotten about in there until God brought about the opportunity with the king. His brothers did not forget this, and while Joseph was very kind and generous to them, they thought that might come to an end once their father, Jacob, died. And that’s exactly where our First Reading picks up: When Joseph’s brothers saw that their father was dead, they said, “It may be that Joseph will hate us and will pay us back in full for all of the evil that we did to him.” So, they fabricate a story to try to get Joseph’s love for his father to transfer to them: They sent the following message to Joseph: “Before he died your father commanded us, ‘You are to tell Joseph, “Please forgive the offense of your brothers and their sin, because they did evil to you.”’ Now, please forgive the offense of the servants of the God of your father.”
This request causes Joseph to cry, I imagine not because he’s thinking of his father, but because he knows this didn’t happen and that his brothers don’t trust that he’s actually forgiven them. His tearful response seeks to reassure them: “Do not be afraid, for am I in the place of God? You meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring this to pass and to keep many people alive, as it is this day. Now therefore do not be afraid. I will nourish you and your little ones.” He comforted them and spoke to them in a kind way. Even though Dad was gone, Joseph’s attitude toward his brothers would not change.
We often use the phrase “forgive and forget” which I often feel is a real distraction from actual, God-pleasing forgiveness. Forgetting is really, really difficult. Maybe we don’t dwell on something, but that is fundamentally different than not remembering the event at all. Did Joseph forget what had happened? No! “You meant evil against me,” he said. It wasn’t as if Joseph’s forgiveness led him to ask, “What are you talking about? Slavery? Prison? I don’t remember any of those things…” No, he clearly remembered them, but the key is that Joseph was not holding this against his brothers.
Our forgiveness probably follows a similar trajectory. We’re not likely to forget something that someone did or said that hurt us, but we can work to not let it control our attitude toward that person, to not hold a grudge against them, to not harbor anger in our hearts because of this sin. Forgiveness means that I actively and willingly do not hold the wrong against that person and move on. Perhaps not forgotten, but certainly left behind in the past.
In our Gospel this morning, Peter was looking for the limit to this forgiveness with his question to Jesus: “Lord, how many times must I forgive my brother when he sins against me? As many as seven times?” (Matthew 18:21). But Jesus’ parable of the unmerciful servant essentially points to the goal of an unlimited forgiveness. The question that Jesus teaches with the parable could be summed up this way: “Have you forgiven someone else as many sins as God has forgiven you? No? Then keep forgiving.”
Jesus teaches us this principle in the Lord’s Prayer. When was the last time you slowed down and thought through the 5th Petition—“Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”? Is that really what you want God to do? Do you want God to forgive you like you forgive other people? I would think probably no. I often hold grudges or don’t confront someone who has sinned against me. I find it easier to just be upset and push that down rather than addressing the problem and resolving it with forgiveness. Is that the way I want God to treat me? Hardly!
But is that the way God treats me? No. God’s forgiveness for us through Jesus is complete, absolute. It is ironic that while we, who have sin-corrupted memories, have great difficulty forgetting sins committed against us, God, who knows all things, says that for Jesus’ sake, he actually does forgive and forget. Through the prophet Jeremiah, God speaks about how he views us through the lens of the coming Messiah, “I will forgive their guilt, and I will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:34). That means every sin that we commit, even our refusal to forgive that brother or sister who has sinned against us, is forgiven in Jesus’ blood.
As you consider your relationships with other people, be it family, friends, neighbors, coworkers, classmates, or whomever else you might interact with on a given day, consider Joseph’s treatment of his brothers. There are not too many ways that his brothers could have wronged him more deeply or disrupted his life more completely than they did. But how did he treat his brothers? Forgiveness.
Maybe this leads us to think of someone in our life that we need to assure of our forgiveness; maybe this leads us to think of someone in our life that we need to apologize to very directly for past wrongs; maybe this leads us to think of both. Whatever side of the equation we find ourselves on, Jesus’ perfect life and innocent death in our place means the forgiveness of every sin and the relief of every penny of debt owed to God. It is with that confidence that we can approach these difficult issues in our earthly relationships. When I forgive someone, there’s no doubt that God forgives them as well; when I ask for forgiveness, I know that God has wiped that and every sin off my account. My ledger reads “Paid in full,” written in the scarlet blood of my Savior.
Whatever the sins are, brothers and sisters, no matter how great the hurt or long-lasting the wound, let us work toward forgiving one another like Joseph forgave his brothers. Let us see no limit to this forgiveness for each other and let us rejoice in God’s forgiveness for them and for us! Amen.
