I have absolutely loved this series on Joseph. For the last six weeks, we’ve followed Joseph as he’s grown up, dreamed dreams, navigated betrayal, endured imprisonment, and rose to power as Pharaoh’s right hand man. In Joseph’s story, we’ve been challenged to be slow to anger, quick to listen, and to remain faithful to God even in the most difficult of times. 

This week, we reach the conclusion of our Joseph series, even though Joseph’s life continues on after this story. I have struggled with this week’s story because forgiveness is such a difficult topic. In this story, Joseph looks his brothers in the eye, tells them who he is, and he embraces them–even after all they did to him. 

Joseph had spent 20-30 years in Egypt. He didn’t get to grow up in his father’s house, and our passage this morning shows us all of the emotions Joseph has been carrying inside. He has been worried about his father. Would he ever get to see him again? He missed his brother Benjamin, his father’s youngest child, and Joseph’s only brother by the same mother. 

Three chapters before today’s story, in Genesis 42, the famine in the land has become so desperate that Jacob sends his sons to Egypt to buy food. All of the sons travel together, except for Benjamin, who it sounds like has become nearer and dearer to his father after the loss of Joseph. While the brothers are in Egypt, Joseph recognizes them, but they do not recognize him. He speaks to them through an interpreter, and he struggles to hold back his emotion as he talks to them. He even has to excuse himself so that he can weep without them seeing.

Joseph struggles with how he should relate to these brothers who sold him into slavery so many years before. On one hand, he speaks harshly to them. He intimidates them, and he asks them all kinds of questions about their father and their youngest brother. They are afraid of him. Joseph asks them to bring their youngest brother to see him, and the brothers panic. They know how much their father is clinging to their youngest brother, and they know their father will never agree to send Benjamin to Egypt.

As the brothers are discussing this, Reuben, the oldest, and the brother who had tried to talk the others out of harming Joseph in the first place, tells them, “Did I not tell you not to wrong the boy? But you would not listen. So now there comes a reckoning for his blood.” They do not realize that Joseph can understand their words. Joseph is so overcome with emotion that he has to leave the room to weep. He has his brother Simeon bound and he tells the other men they cannot have Simeon back until they bring their youngest brother to Egypt. 

And yet, once he has sold them food, Joseph makes sure all of their money gets put back into their sacks. For all of the pain Joseph is carrying with him, he still doesn’t want his brothers to have to pay for the food they need to stay alive. This is a complicated story of complex emotions and dysfunctional relationships.

In this story of Joseph, we learn what forgiveness is and what forgiveness isn’t. We get an up close look at the struggle of a man who has been terribly wronged, and his internal conflict about if and how to forgive the people who had hurt him. I’m thankful this story is in the Bible. It is honest about how messy our relationships can be. Even after decades have passed, Joseph still struggles with forgiveness when he comes face to face with his brothers. 

Take a moment to think about people who have wronged you or hurt you in some way. You don’t have to say anything out loud, but take some time to think about–or even write down–the emotions you feel as you think about these people and situations. As I was thinking about my own list of emotions, I came up with words like hurt, sad, angry, and small. I wonder how similar our lists might be if we compared them. With your list of emotions either in your mind or on your paper, think about the way you instinctively wanted to respond when you were first hurt or wronged. Did you want to retaliate or get revenge? Did you want to respond by hiding and grieving? Or, did you feel some kind of mixture of multiple responses? 

English poet and artist William Blake once wrote, “It is easier to forgive an enemy than to forgive a friend.” Do you think that’s true? It has been true for me. And maybe even more difficult than forgiving a friend is forgiving family. Forgiving friends and family is tough because these people have seen us through times of difficulty. They’ve celebrated with us. They’ve mourned with us. They’ve laughed with us. These are people who were supposed to have our back, not stab us in it. And, unlike an enemy, when you forgive a family member or friend, you have to deal with the question of reconciliation, because forgiveness does not automatically mean the relationship can ever go back to what it once was. 

From the story of Joseph, we get a window into the messy, human process of forgiveness. And this messy process reminds me of the Fourfold Process of forgiveness Desmond Tutu and his daughter Mpho describe in their book The Book of Forgiving. The four parts of the process are telling the story, naming the hurt, granting forgiveness, and renewing or releasing the relationship. We see all four of these in some form in our passage from Genesis 45, and these four parts of the process invite us to consider needed forgiveness in our own lives.

Joseph tackles the first two parts of the process at the same time. He tells the story and he names the hurt. We don’t get his whole story or the full hurt in this passage, but we do get pieces of them. Joseph says to his brothers, “I am your brother, Joseph, whom you sold into Egypt.” He doesn’t detail every part of the hurt he experienced after they betrayed him, but he does start with the story and with his pain. He tells them who he is. He reminds them of their relationship to each other. And he tells them of his hurt.

His brothers react the way many of us are inclined to react when someone shares with us how we’ve hurt them. They reacted with fear. In this case I think their fear was a combination of their feelings of guilt and shame, and their utter dependence on Joseph. If he did not show grace to them, he had the power to let them starve during the famine. 

Joseph moves quickly to the third part of the process–granting forgiveness–but we have to remember a few things. Joseph was in Egypt for at least 20 years before he saw his brothers again. He’d had a lot of time to work through his hurt. He also didn’t react with grace and forgiveness immediately. He was harsh to them. He manipulated them. He even planted a cup in their bags so that he could detain his youngest brother. Forgiveness and grace did not come immediately for Joseph, and they may not happen immediately for us either.

In The Book of Forgiving, the Tutus write this, “Evolutionary biologists suggest that we are hardwired to seek revenge and hurt back when we are hurt. This is how our ancestors survived when confronted by a threat, and this is our nature now in response to a threat. What can we do but retaliate when it is in our genes? If we are hit hard, we

must hit back harder.” In other words, there is a part of being human that is inclined toward revenge. It is an impulse rooted in our desire to protect ourselves. But, there’s more to it than this because we know that we were created by God in the image of God, which means our original inclination was not for revenge, but for connection.

The Tutus continue, “Whenever we are injured, we face the choice of whether to retaliate or reconnect. When we seek retaliation or revenge, it does not satisfy us; in

the sentiment of Mahatma Gandhi, when we practice the law of an eye for an eye, we all end up blind.” We cannot always help our first reaction. When we are wronged, we may overflow with anger and start plotting ways we can get the person back. We cannot help that our blood boils the moment we are hurt. But, we can help how we respond. As people created in God’s image who long to do things God’s way, we can feel a lot of guilt and shame when our first reaction isn’t a godly one. When we look at Joseph’s reaction, we see his first reaction isn’t a godly one either. But, he stops himself–not before he does some hurt, but he does eventually realize retaliation is not God’s way. The more we practice grace and forgiveness, the sooner we can stop ourselves from responding out of self-preservation. We cannot always stop the first thought that comes into our minds, but we can learn to stop before we lash out and hurt others.

Joseph tells the story, names his hurt, and then he grants forgiveness. “And now do not be distressed, or angry with yourselves, because you sold me here; for God sent me before you to preserve life.” Joseph chooses to forgive, and he chooses to see how God has used the situation for good. I struggle with the language Joseph uses because I don’t believe God causes people to do bad things to us so that God’s will can be done. I believe his brothers acted out of their sinfulness. But, God can take the mess humans make, and God can work through it. 

The fourth part of the process of forgiveness in The Book of Forgiveness is renewing or releasing the relationship. I love the way the Tutus describe this because forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. Sometimes relationships have to remain broken, but we can still offer forgiveness, and so release the pain and anger from ourselves so that healing is possible. In the story of Joseph, Joseph forgives, but his brothers remain afraid of him and distant until after their father dies. I think they were unable to really receive Joseph’s forgiveness. Perhaps they couldn’t forgive themselves, and they thought the grace he gave them was too good to be true.

When Jeff and I were first planning this sermon series, we called this week’s sermon “Joseph the Restorer” because Joseph was in the position to forgive his brothers and restore peace in his family. Yet, the more I study this story, the more convinced I am that God is the one doing the restoring. Joseph, in all his humanness, struggles to forgive. His brother’s actions irreversibly changed his life. He lost out on those years with his father and brother. He spent years imprisoned. But God worked in Joseph’s heart to forgive his brothers, to take care of his family, and to protect the people from famine. 

May God help us become people who live the fourfold pattern of forgiveness because we are people who have received the abundant forgiveness of God.