Is there an end to forgiveness? Genesis 50:15-21; Matthew 18:21-35

Our Gospel lesson for today focuses on Peter’s question to Jesus. It reveals the flip side of the passage from last week. Remember that I reminded us that it is not only about helping another believer to see their sin but it is also about seeing our sin and being willing to make amends.

Too often we do focus on how others have hurt us and fail to see how our actions and words have hurt others. Behind Peter’s question – which seems to focus on him and how he has been offended or hurt by others – lies the other side of the question.  If I am expected to forgive someone seventy times seven, I am hoping that others will offer a similar amount in return.  Of course, the goal is not to simply offend so we can be forgiven or grant forgiveness when a person has offended us and seeks it. The goal is to understand that we all will fail and that we will all need forgiveness in order to amend our lives with the goal of not repeating the offence. However, if we are offended again or offend someone, we are encouraged by Jesus to never stop offering forgiveness or putting ourselves in a position to receive forgiveness.

The saga of Joseph is a perfect example of the response that Jesus was encouraging the disciples to make.   Joseph’s story begins when he is born as the second youngest in a family with ten older brothers. He is the child of Rachel who was his father’s second wife and the one whom Jacob loved the most. As such, he was the favourite son of his father Jacob.   While the other brothers worked hard for their father, they never seemed to gain their father’s love in the same way as Joseph.  Joseph was a dreamer and in one of his dreams, he saw himself as the one to whom his brothers would bow down. In another, he was to become a great leader, and his brothers would be subject to him. Easy to understand why the brothers would harbour jealousy and anger towards him.  The last straw came when their father gave Joseph a coat of many colours.

At first the brothers were determined to rid themselves of him by killing him but none of them could bring themselves to do that.  So, they decided to simply drop him down a well and leave him there to die so as to not directly have his blood on their hands.  Fortunately, some traders came along at the right time, and they decided that making money off of their brother was an even better solution.  They sold him as a slave.  He would disappear into the ancient world, and no one would ever hear of him again.  They spread the blood of a lamb on the coat and told their father that Joseph had been killed by a wild animal.  The old man grieved his loss.

But that was not the end of Joseph.  God had another plan for Joseph’s life and in spite of all that had happened to him – more than enough to make anyone bitter and twisted – he remembered the lessons of his youth and remained faithful to God and to the pattern for life that his parents had taught him.  He acted with integrity and when his virtue got him in trouble, he held firm.  In the end he rose in the society to a position of great power.

When a great famine spread throughout the whole region,  Jacob decided to send his sons to Egypt to secure food for the family. He had heard that the land of Egypt was surviving thanks to a great administrator.  Unbeknownst to him, it was his son Joseph who now was known by a different name.  The brothers came and received food, but Joseph planted a silver cup in the sack of Benjamin – his younger brother born of his mother Rachel and on whom his father doted.  When the cup was discovered, the brothers were fearful for their lives.  Benjamin would have to suffer for his misstep, but the brothers knew that this would be the death of their old father. They pleaded for the life of their brother.  Joseph saw that the old jealousies of his brothers had been set aside and he was moved by their concern for their father.  He then revealed himself to them and encouraged them to return to Egypt with their father.

A great family reunion – one which Joseph had no doubt longed for and yet never expected to happen because he was still under the impression that his brothers harboured feelings of jealousy, envy, and hatred toward him.  But time had changed them.  They were no longer the young brash brothers he had known.  And while Joseph found himself in a position of holding their lives in his hand, his actions showed that revenge was not what he desired.  His desire was to seek for reconciliation and healing. His desire was to find peace in his spirit.  And so, he was once again united with his father and his brothers.  And while there was a lot of history between them - a lot of bad blood - Joseph chose to overcome it and looked beyond what was past to what could be in the future. But the brothers still feared the future beyond the life of their father. They worried that Joseph would only be reconciled to them out of respect for their father whose greatest joy was to see his sons together again and living in harmony. Jacob also feared that Joseph was only being kind and compassionate to his brothers as a mark of his great love for his father.  And so, he had cautioned Joseph’s brothers to be sure that they were truly forgiven.  They were to tell Joseph that this was their father’s dying wish.  They came and begged that they would be forgiven for all the harm they had caused.

Joseph’s answer is one that seems so out of place in a world where revenge and killing were the norm.  In a time before the giving of the 10 commandments, in a time when the path of God was still in its infancy, Joseph chose forgiveness. His response was well out of the norm for that day.  No one would have thought less of him if he had done to his brothers what they had done to him. “Fear not,” he says.  “Am I in the place of God?”

Yes, life did not turn out as Joseph had expected. Yes, he had suffered much but it was not his place to judge or condemn his brothers for their actions.  What was in their hearts at that time and the actions they took were not going to guide Joseph in the decisions he would make.

Whether his brothers fully appreciated his act of forgiveness is something we will never know but we do know this:  Joseph had found peace in his life. His willingness to forgive his brothers was a sign that he knew that he had not given life to his brothers and that he could not take that life. It was also a sign that he could not judge his brothers for their actions. It was for their Creator to judge them. For him, it was to forgive.  That was what God asked of him. That was what his father asked of him.

“How many times must I forgive my brother?” asks Peter.  “Not seven times, but seventy times seven”, says Jesus. That’s 490 times!  Sometimes we believe that a person only deserves forgiveness so often and then they are beyond it.  But Jesus tells the disciples that that is not so. For when we withhold forgiveness from one another, we deny one another the opportunity to find peace and healing in our lives - the chance to make amends and to be reconciled.  Whether or not the other person accepts that offer of forgiveness, we are able to put the matter behind us and move on in our lives.

Let us not forget that when Jesus healed the body, he first healed the spirit and the mind. This reminds us that we are knit together as one complete person – body, mind and spirit. Jesus’ first concern was forgiveness of sin and the restoration of the person’s relationship with God, their family and friends and the social circles in which they lived.  Without that, the healing of the body was only a temporary relief that would never fully address the pain they felt in their mind and their spirit.

We forgive one another because we desire to reveal that this is the will of the God in whom we have faith.  And when we forgive others, it is a sign that we are grateful for the forgiveness we have received from God.  Our acts of forgiveness are the tangible signs that God is alive and with us.

Is there an end to forgiveness? Yes, when all in this world are reconciled to each other and to God. Until then, there is no end – simply new beginnings.

Part of my morning prayer which needs for me to be a daily reminder is this: “O Lord, forgive my many sins that I may start this day anew, and as you forgive me, may I learn to be forgiving and compassionate to others in return.”

AMEN