"What if Joseph still bears a grudge against us and pays us back in full for all the wrong that we did to him?" (Genesis 50:15)

“Non! Je ne regrette rien”

“Non! Je ne regrette rien!”

“No! I regret nothing”. Really? There have been times when I’ve done things in my life that I’ve regretted. The things I’ve regretted most are when I’ve let someone down. Or when I’ve hurt someone’s feelings - when I’ve said something without thinking, when I’ve been so focussed on myself that I’ve forgotten somebody else’s needs. And you know something; maybe I’m mingling with the wrong sort of people, but I don’t think I know anyone who’s managed to get through their entire life without doing that. 

When I’ve let someone down, or I’ve said or done something that’s caused them pain or trouble, the hardest thing is that time where you’re getting ready to face them again. How will they react? What will they say? Can you repair the damage to your relationship you’ve caused? Will they forgive you? That’s what’s going on in the first part of our reading from Genesis. Joseph’s brothers sold him into slavery. That’s not the sort of thing someone’s likely to forget. Here they are now, in his power - power enough to execute them if he bears a grudge, as well he might, or to make them slaves as they had enslaved him. I’m fairly sure the brothers regret their actions. How will he react? What will he say? Can they repair the damage they did to their relationship with him? Will he forgive them?

It’s a big ask. Being sold into slavery is something that’s hard to forgive and impossible to forget. Yet Joseph does forgive. I want you to take a moment to think on what a generous act of forgiveness this is. I want you to put it alongside Christ’s teaching in our Gospel reading this morning. Peter comes to him and asks him if he should forgive someone seven times. In doing so he thinks he’s going a bit above and beyond - the commonly accepted social norm was four. So forgiving someone seven times is generous, right? Jesus’s answer is radical - not seven times, but seventy times seven. Now, there is some argument as to what the actual number here is but it makes no difference. What Jesus is saying here is, how often should you forgive? As often as it takes.

Sometimes forgiveness is portrayed as a bit weak, as a bit feeble. I’ve seen enough films where the central character revenges himself on folk who have done terrible things to him to know that they are invariably played by action-hero type actors. The message so often is that forgiveness is for wimps; for those who aren’t tough enough or strong enough to seek their revenge. I tell you that revenge is easy. It’s forgiveness that’s hard. It is forgiveness that requires courage and strength - not strength of body, but strength of heart and soul. Joseph was one of the strongest, most powerful men in Egypt - he could have had his revenge with a snap of his fingers. Instead he offered his brothers forgiveness. You think that was easy?

No. The demand that Christ makes on us in the Gospel reading is one of the hardest challenges of the Christian life, because forgiveness isn’t easy. It isn’t cheap. When someone hurts you, when you are in pain - especially when that pain is emotional - forgiveness is the last thing on your mind. When someone has hurt you, betrayed you, treated you carelessly and thoughtlessly, the last thing you want to do is forgive them. Instinctively, as an animal lashes outré when it is wounded, you want to get back at them. Forgiveness costs. It means foregoing that desire for revenge and letting go of your anger. This is where I really object to the phrase, “forgive and forget”. You can’t just “forget” when someone really hurts you - we’re not made that way. What requires real strength and real courage, what requires real love and grace is what we actually have to do - remember, but forgive.

Forgiveness costs. It’s hard and it’s difficult. Do we think God doesn’t know that? We are gathered here, this morning, not as perfect, flawless beings who never cause anybody else a moment’s grief, or who have never put a foot a foot wrong, or who have no regrets. We are gathered here, this morning, as forgiven sinners. We are gathered here, this morning, in the shadow of the Cross. Sometimes folk ask me, if God wanted to forgive humanity for our sins - for all the times we have messed up and done stuff we knew to be wrong, for all the times when we have hurt one another and caused him the kind only a parent can know when their child goes off the rails - why didn’t he just do it? Why did it take the pain and the suffering of the Cross. Because that would have been cheap forgiveness and there is no such thing. Forgiveness is hard. Forgiveness costs.

But it’s also the most powerful thing in the world. Perhaps because it’s hard. Perhaps because it costs. I want to go back to the brothers of Joseph, worried about their meeting with him. Among them is Judah, Jacob’s second son. It had been his idea to sell him into slavery. He’s had the thought, why should we kill him when we could sell him? Imagine his thoughts. Imagine his wretchedness. Imagine his guilt. Perhaps more than any of the brothers Joseph could revenge himself on Judah - have him taken away and executed. Even Judah, though, is forgiven. Which is just as well.

Joseph’s descendants don’t amount to much. One of Judah’s descendants, though, was David who, effectively, built the kingdom of Israel. If Joseph had not forgiven Judah there would have been no David. And one of David’s descendants was Jesus. See what one act of forgiveness can, in the hands of God, do?

Forgiveness is powerful. The forgiveness we have through the grace of God and through the Cross of Christ isn’t meant to simply erase our guilt. It’s means that we can have a fresh start whenever we need it. It means that yes, we are flawed and fallible beings, and sometimes we do stupid, thoughtless, careless things; but we are not defined by those things. We can regret them but we do not have to be bound to them. We can be better tomorrow than we have been today. We can learn from our mistakes and let them go, because God lets them go.

And if God does that for us, then we can do it for each other. When people close to us hurt us, cause us pain, they know it. It hurts them. It causes them guilt - that’s why “Non! Je ne regret rien” is nonsense. You know it. I know it. Refuse them forgiveness and yes, it will hurt them. But it will also bind you to their wrongdoing. Why would you do that? Forgiveness is hard. It costs. But it also strengthens and it rebuilds relationships

And it is also the only way forward for a humanity too often at war with each other. Does that seem weak and fragile? In the last few decades I have seen peace made in conflicts that had gone on so long that all the clever and wise people said that they were intractable. I have seen peace come to Northern Ireland. I have seen peace come to South Africa. In both of those places a time came, not to forget, but to forgive. To let go of the past, to let go of the hurts that had been visited upon the peoples of those places. Forgiveness is the central theme of the Christian faith. That’s hard sometimes. It costs. But it’s also the most powerful thing in the world because when we do it we reflect the image of our Father. We are truly children of God.

Lord God, your son taught us to forgive as we are forgiven. May we strive to be as generous in our forgiveness of each other as you are of us

Preached at Gretna