Forgiving Families Theme: Forgiveness

Transcription

1 Forgiving Families Theme: Forgiveness Scripture: Genesis 50:15-21 Things I d like to remember from today s sermon: Meditation Moments for Monday, June 1 Read Genesis 33:1-11 This story draws on deep currents of history and emotion. Jacob tricked Esau out of his birthright and his father s blessing, then fled his father s home to escape Esau s wrath. Jacob s descendants, the Israelites, often warred with Esau s offspring, the nation of Edom. Yet they preserved this story, in which Esau forgives his kid brother. Jacob felt a lot of fear as he approached the country where Esau lived (Genesis 32:7), and with good reason. Yet with many precautions, he moved forward, humbly seeking a renewal of the family ties. When has your own fear, or someone else s fear of you, been a barrier to healing? Are there any fears you need to start dealing with today? Jacob showed humility and repentance as he came to the brother he had wronged. Unlike Jacob, people sometimes see themselves as entitled to forgiveness just because I m family. What do you believe does anyone have a right to demand forgiveness? What does it take to bring healing where there has been hurt? Tuesday, June 2 Read Genesis 45:1-15 Joseph was his dad s favorite. In his coat of many colors, he often acted superior to his brothers. Sibling rivalry ran amok, and they sold him to slavers going to Egypt. There, in time, he became second in command to the Pharaoh. During a famine, the brothers who sold him came to buy food from their unrecognized sibling and he was gracious to them. In Genesis 42-44, before he forgave and welcomed his brothers, Joseph gave them some stern tests. In Joseph s place (terribly betrayed by the semen, you now have the power to grant them life or death), what would it take for you set aside a cruel betrayal like theirs? What inner struggles do you think Joseph had before he could forgive? The brothers were terrified at first. This powerful Egyptian official was the brother they had literally sold out! But at the end of the passage, Genesis says his brothers talked with him. What role does open, honest communication play in moving past fear to forgiveness and reconciliation? Is there someone you need to talk with? Wednesday, June 3 Read Genesis 50:12-21 When their father Jacob died, Joseph s brothers were afraid. We saw yesterday that it took Joseph time to work through his feelings before he forgave his brothers. In the brothers, we see that it can take time to receive and trust forgiveness for deep hurts, too. Their frightened, transparent effort to put words in their dead father s mouth moved Joseph to tears. Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 1

2 Imagine yourself in Joseph s brothers shoes. The brash kid you sold to slave traders is now the second most powerful man in the foreign land where you live. Rulers there hold absolute power. Your brother said he forgave you, but the family patriarch, the one person whose moral authority might have held Joseph back, just died. Would you be at all afraid of what might happen? Why or why not? As in yesterday s reading from Genesis 45, we read that Joseph wept. What role does expressing sorrow play in the process of forgiving, or receiving forgiveness from a person you ve hurt? How can repressing sorrow or regret block reconciliation? Thursday, June 4 Read Luke 2:41-52 The gospels only tell us this one story from the thirty years between Jesus birth and the start of his public ministry. Interestingly, it s a story that shows Jesus parents as worried and upset with him. The word forgiveness is not in the story, but it seems plain that Jesus parents had to work through the worry and pain Jesus caused them at that time. Jesus seemed surprised when his mother said they d searched anxiously for him. Did you ever do anything that scared or upset your parents, but seemed logical and safe to you? Can you better appreciate some of your parents fears now? What helps or hinders you in trying to forgive reactions that still feel excessive to you? Every year Jesus parents went to Jerusalem for the Festival of the Passover. That took effort and sacrifice. These good people were raising their son right. Might Mary, like many parents, have hoped that parenting right would avoid any strains with her son? If you have children, are there things you are having to forgive them for? Friday, June 5 Read John 7:1-5, 1 Corinthians 15:1-8 Even [Jesus ] own brothers did not believe in him. That must have caused Jesus pain. One of Jesus brothers, maybe the oldest, was James (Matthew13:55).When Paul lists Jesus resurrection appearances, he notes: Then he appeared to James. Imagine the risen Lord seeking out his dubious brother: James, it s Jesus, your brother. I died, but I m alive again. Now do you believe? And James did. Was there ever a time when, like Jesus brothers, you did not believe? If so, what steps led you from that point to where you are today? If you ve always believed in Jesus, how have you applied that faith in day-to-day life? In either case, how do you keep growing in Jesus, letting his love and grace more and more shape your way of life? Paul wrote Corinth about the year 55 roughly 20 years after Jesus died and rose again. Many eyewitnesses were still alive when he wrote. How does it shape your life and faith that Jesus death and resurrection are facts of history, not just church talk? Saturday, June 6 Read Mark 3:21-35, John 19:25-27 We may picture Jesus family life with no conflicts or need for forgiveness. Not the gospels. Mark wrote that Jesus mother and brothers said at one point, He is out of his mind. They went to take charge of him, but Jesus rebuffed them. Yet amid the awful pain of crucifixion he cared enough to think of his mother s needs. He showed his total love and care for her. What kinds of pain do you carry from your parents? From siblings? From your children (if any)? In what ways have you caused pain to others in your family? What steps can you take to begin (or advance) the hard process of forgiveness and reconciliation in those areas of pain? How can you grow spiritually and emotionally so that you can live beyond pain even if other family members are not yet able to seek healing? Family Activity: Get a different-colored piece of paper for each family member, along with a CD player and CD. On each piece of paper, write the name of one family member. Place the papers on the floor in a circle. Play the CD while everyone walks around the circle, then stop the music. Have everyone stop by a piece of paper when the music stops. Invite each person to spend a moment in prayer for the person whose name is on their paper. If Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 2

3 someone needs to offer or ask forgiveness as part of the prayer time, encourage that to happen. Repeat the activity so each person is able to pray. Theme: Forgiveness Forgiving Families Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 at First United Methodist Church, Durango Scripture: Genesis 50: But now that their father was dead, Joseph s brothers became fearful. Now Joseph will show his anger and pay us back for all the wrong we did to him, they said. 16 So they sent this message to Joseph: Before your father died, he instructed us 17 to say to you: Please forgive your brothers for the great wrong they did to you for their sin in treating you so cruelly. So we, the servants of the God of your father, beg you to forgive our sin. When Joseph received the message, he broke down and wept. 18 Then his brothers came and threw themselves down before Joseph. Look, we are your slaves! they said. 19 But Joseph replied, Don t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. 21 No, don t be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children. So he reassured them by speaking kindly to them. VIDEO Sermon Starter Week 4 Forgiving Families I invite you to take out of your bulletin your message notes and meditation moments. The meditation moments are a chance for you to read the Bible on your own or the next week and go a bit deeper into what I will talk about today. We are going to look at the end of the story of Joseph from the Old Testament today and you will have a chance to read more of his story as you use those readings this week. You will find the Scripture text that we are using at the top of the message notes and a place for you to write things down and my prayer each week is that the Holy Spirit would touch your heart in some way during the service and there is a place for you to write down anything you might feel that is just for you. If you are watching at home or online you can download this Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 3

4 resource right off our website but you could also just take out a pen and paper and write down things you would like to remember. We are going to look at the story of Joseph today from the Old Testament book of Genesis. You probably have heard of Joseph either by reading the last part of the book of Genesis or by seeing the musical, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. It s a great musical about a really mixed up family with lots of problems. We conclude our sermon series with how we might do forgiveness and families, between parents and children and between siblings and between spouses and our most intimate relationships. There is no better place to start and end a sermon like this than to turn to the story of Joseph. We looked at Joseph story and his family history earlier this year because it is such a great picture of dysfunction. The story of Joseph takes up the last 13 chapters of the book of Genesis and his family could ve kept a group of therapists busy, full time for the rest of their lives. This is a powerful story in the Scriptures because it is the first time we find the word forgiveness mentioned in the Bible. The passage that we are looking at today from the end of Genesis is the very first time that word shows up in the Bible and this story is going to teach us something about how we come to forgive and what God can do with the pain that we cause one another, even in our families. Joseph s Story Let s begin by remembering the story of Joseph and it s helpful to remember that his great-grandfather was Abraham and his great-grandmother was Sarah. Sarah was unable to have children early in life and so she gave her handmade and Hagar to her husband Abraham so they could have a child and they had Ishmael. Sarah and Abraham conceived a child later in life which was Isaac. Isaac married Rebecca and they had twin boys, Jacob and Esau. Jacob was the father of Joseph. These are the founding figures of the faith of Israel and the Hebrew Bible. Just because they were the founding figures of faith and they were blessed does not mean their families were perfect, actually it was far from it. Some of you in this room had what you would consider to be perfect families because June and Ward Cleaver where your parents. You had a great home and probably if you had parents like that you REALLY need therapy today, having to live with the rest of us! I really am glad if you had great parents and a great family, the truth is there are no perfect parents and no perfect families and no perfect children. If you Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 4

5 didn t have the perfect family then you didn t miss out because none of us experienced perfection in our families of origin. Since there are no perfect families and no perfect parents and no perfect children and no perfect siblings it means that families would never stay together if it were not for forgiveness. This is why the story of Joseph teaches us so much. Joseph s great-grandfather Abraham did have two sons by two different women. When Sarah was able to conceive a child of her own, she became jealous of Ishmael who was around 11 years old at the time. Since she now had Isaac, she made Abraham send Ishmael away, never to come back again. The Arab world and the Muslim faith trace their heritage to Ishmael, but it was clear that Abraham and Sarah played favorites with their youngest child Isaac. Isaac and Rebekah then had twin boys, Jacob and Esau, and they played favorites as well, which makes sense considering that s the kind of family that Isaac came from. Isaac learned from his parents that you always pick out a favorite and so he chose Esau, who was the firstborn of the twins. Rebecca had a heart for the younger boy who was Jacob. Each parent had their favorite and the boys were vying for their parent s attention and the parents were at odds trying to make sure their favorite child got the most of the inheritance. While that was probably confusing to grow up and at home it was nothing compared to the next generation which was Jacob and his family. Jacob fell in love with a beautiful woman named Rachel and wanted to marry her so he paid the dowry to her father and then was tricked on his wedding night into marrying the older sister, Leah. Can you imagine how confusing that must be to wake up after your wedding day with the wrong woman lying next to you in bed? I still am not sure how he did not notice that he had married the wrong sister, but it makes some of the mistakes we make in our family seem pretty pale in comparison. Rachel s father did have a plan and he was willing to give Rachel to Jacob in marriage if he would just work a little bit longer and pay a little bit more dowry, which he did. Jacob married both Rachel and Leah, one of whom he loved and one of whom he really didn t. Leah did have one advantage and that is that she could have children while Rachel struggled to get pregnant. Leah discovered this was a way to please her husband and hopefully garner his love and they have several children together. Not to be outdone by her sister, Rachel then gives Jacob her maidservant and he has children with her. The competition is not complete because Leah then gives Jacob her maidservant and he has more children with her. Rachel finally is able to Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 5

6 have children and in the end Jacob ends up with four wives and 13 children. Talk about a confused mess! What you think it was like to grow up in that family? They might ve been the patriarchs and matriarchs of our faith, but their families were not perfect and we shouldn t forget that. Jacob continues his family tradition and he has a favorite child out of his 13 and it was Joseph, his first son by his wife Rachel whom was the woman he loved most. Jacob learned about having favorites from his parents who learned it from their parents. Do you see how that works? We do have family patterns that we repeat if we don t pay attention to them. We simply fall into those patterns. In the Scriptures we talk about the sins of the parents being passed on to the sins of the children. An interesting side note is that it takes three generations for a chemical addiction to work its way out of a family genetically and it is Joseph, at the tail end of those three generations, who begins to live life differently than his parents or grandparents or great-grandparents. Joseph was favored in many ways and got special treatment from his father. He was told by his father during his entire growing up years that he was a special child and when all of his siblings turned 16 they got the Ford Focus while Joseph got the Mustang GTO with all the bells and whistles. It was actually a beautiful, multicolored robe which was made a very expensive fabric. Since he was treated that way, who could blame him for growing up feeling special? He didn t have the character to know that he should not tell people that he was special and so he proceeded to tell his brothers and anyone who would listen how wonderful he was in the eyes of his father. He never did hesitate to tell his family that he was the favorite which made his siblings feel about 2 inches tall. There was a lot of animosity in this household that created tension you could cut with a knife. Joseph begins to have dreams that were given to him by God and one of those dreams is a vision of the future. It s the future he can t yet understand in which his brothers will bow down before him. He doesn t know what that means but he takes it to mean that he s pretty special and his brothers, not so much. He makes the mistake of telling his brothers about the dream which was not a very smart move for the youngest brother to be telling the oldest brothers they would bow down before him. What older sibling wants to hear that? His brothers begin to think, This really stinks. Our father doesn t really love us compared to Joseph. We re not sure if our moms even love us. We do know that our dad loves one of us and it is Joseph and he is so arrogant and full of Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 6

7 himself that it s hard to take. The anger builds until they are out in the field one day and Joseph comes out to see them. As he approaches, one of them says to the other, This is the perfect time. Let s take out Joseph and kill him. Can you believe that a brother that would suggest killing his own brother over jealousy? It wouldn t be hard to believe it hadn t happened already earlier in the book of Genesis with Cain and Abel. We are meant to feel the confusion and the hate and the anger which has built up in this family and comes spilling out in the actions of the brothers. Fortunately, one of the other brothers says, Let s not kill him. Look, there is a Midianite slave trading group coming through town, right over there. Maybe they will buy him from us. We can sell him and make some money and then we ll take his pretty coat and tear it to shreds and put goat s blood on it and tell dad that Joseph was eaten by wild animals. Not only do we make some money but we get rid of Joseph at the same time. It s a win-win for all of us, except for Joseph! GRAPHIC 1 Joseph Being Sold Into Slavery You see this scene depicted in this famous painting by Alexander Maximilian Seitz. This painting does a good job of depicting the scene because Joseph is only about 11 or 12 years old. Joseph will end up in Egypt where he will serve as a slave and then go to prison because he refuses to sleep with his owner s wife. All of this happens to him because his brothers betray him and sell him out because they are so angry. We don t know how long he was in Egypt as a slave, but it was at least 20 to 30 years and so we have decades of animosity and pain and hurt running through this family and this is the first biblical story to mention the word, forgiveness. At the end of our message today we will come back to this story and see how it unfolds, but let s remember what we ve been talking about the last few weeks when it comes to forgiveness. We ve been defining forgiveness as relinquishing the right to retaliation. Forgiveness is relinquishing the right to retaliation. Somebody has wronged us and when we are willing to let it go and not have to get even, that is forgiveness. One dimension of forgiveness is choosing inside of our hearts to let go and release the right to get even. The second dimension of forgiveness that we ve talked about is the act of pardoning the other person or granting them mercy or grace. It may not always be possible or feasible or safe to do the second part of forgiveness which is Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 7

8 offering a pardon, but we have to be willing to do the first one. We have to be willing to let go and forgive because if we don t it s like taking poison and hoping the other person gets sick. We make ourselves sick, literally, when we hold onto grudges and past hurts. We make ourselves bitter and cause ourselves pain and in the process we rob ourselves of life and give the other person power over us because of the wrong we feel they perpetuated upon us. We have to forgive so we can heal and move on to experience life to the full. Jesus talks about loving our enemies and praying for those who have hurt us and I want to remind you that this kind of love that Jesus talks about is not a feeling, but a choice. We have to intentionally choose to love even when we don t feel like doing it or we continue to take on water and sink in life. We don t always have to communicate the pardon, even though it is good if we can. When we communicate pardon then we bring healing and restoration to the relationship which is what we want ultimately. When we communicate pardon we show grace from God. But we also recognized last week that we communicate pardon to someone before it has been asked for or when it s not warranted, it can actually enable people to keep hurting us and others over and over again. We also sometimes take away the opportunity for people to be a part of their redemption when we offer forgiveness and pardon so quickly that it sends a message that what they did is not important or no big deal. Part of true forgiveness between two parties is a recognition that a wrong has occurred and that pain has happened, even if we didn t mean to cause it. During this sermon series we have talked about the wounds we have experienced from others as well is the ones we inflict on each other as stones. We have used this image of a backpack which represents our soul. When we hold onto the wrongs which are done to us or which we have committed against another, we end up putting them in our backpacks like the stones. In life, there are small stones which represent the day-to-day things which happen in our lives where other people wronged us or we do wrong to others. Let me give you a couple of examples of what this looks like sometimes in our families. Sometimes they are simply words that we say in the heat of the moment which shouldn t have been said but just come out sometimes. We know we didn t mean it but they still hurt. Sometimes we are in a bad mood or we give a dirty look, but in any case they are small things which are often irritants. Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 8

9 I think of the woman who said that whenever her parents come over they prefer the toilet paper to come over the top of the role. This adult woman prefers the toilet paper to come from the bottom of the role and every time her parents come to town to visit they go into every bathroom in the house and flipped the toilet paper rolls around the right way for them. That s kind of irritating and a bit compulsive if we are honest, but it s also probably a small stone, don t you think? It might feel like a bigger deal after they have left and you have to go around and change all the toilet paper rolls back, but we do have to find a way to let those things go. There was a young man who was 14 years old and his sister was 12 and she had a sleepover with a friend. The next morning he went to his mother and said, Mom, do you know what my sister did with her friend last night while I was sleeping? They shaved my armpits! When you are a 14-year-old boy and you just started getting a large amount of hair under your armpits, you re kind of proud of that and for a girl to come and shave your armpits is a really big deal. It might not feel like a small rock at the moment, but eventually it grows back. Mom called in the daughter and said, What on earth were you thinking about? Shaving your brother s armpits that s inexcusable! The daughter insisted that she didn t do it and denied it vehemently and never would admit to it. How frustrating is that? It is evident because you can see the hair is gone! She was grounded for two weeks. 10 years later the son went to his mom and said, Mom, I have something I have to confess to you. I shaved my own armpits because of the swim meet we were having that weekend and I was embarrassed and so I blamed it on my sister to get her into trouble. I don t know if that fits in the category of the big stone or the small stone, but it clearly creates friction and tension in a family when things like this go on. When we are living in our families, this is just one week s worth of stuff, this handful of small rocks which happens for all of us. We can hold on to all of it because they don t ask for forgiveness and be irritated with them forever. If we do that, then within a few months and for sure not more than a year, this backpack is full. You give it 18 years and you just can t carry it anymore. They all are small things but we were willing to let it go and so it weighs us down and causes us pain. Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 9

10 If we are going to have any kind of relationship at all with our family s that leads to life, then we are going to have to learn to let things go and say, I know this thing irritates me, but I don t want this backpack full of stuff. How do we let go of this stuff? Let me remind you of the suggestion I gave you last week which came from a youth group exercise I did more than 20 years ago. I encourage you to RAP whenever one of the small irritating things happens between siblings or parents or children. RAP is an acronym for three things. Remember our own shortcomings I find that when I m struggling with forgiveness it s usually because I have forgotten that I m not perfect. When I feel that someone has offended me it really helps to pause and ask myself, How many times have I done that my life? You might even make a list of the five things that you do that irritate other people and carry it around with you in your pocket for a while. If you are unsure of what those things are, then ask your spouse or your friends or your kids or your parents because I can guarantee you they will give you the list. It s harder to be irritated with somebody else when we are aware of our own shortcomings and how we irritate others. Assume the best of the other person We remember that we are not perfect and then we assume the best about other people. She probably had a tough day. If we assume the best rather than assuming the worst then we attribute to them the best possible motives for what they ve done to us and it s much easier to let things go. Pray for them Jesus is constantly inviting his disciples to pray for those with whom they struggle. He encourages us in the Lord s Prayer to pray for others. We can pray to let go of those little things that we are holding onto and we pray to bless them, even those who are wronged us, because it changes our hearts. When we do this we find ourselves letting go of animosity and bitterness. When we pray, God, please bless my son. I m assuming he didn t really mean to say that or even know that hurt. I pray that you would bless him and help him to become the man you want him to be. Make me a blessing to him. We might do that with our jaws clenched and we might not even feel it as we begin to pray it, but if we keep rapping and praying we find that over time our hearts soften. We usually can get to that place where we wonder why we were Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 10

11 even so upset to begin with because it was a little rock. Hopefully we can come to a place where we can just let those little rocks go. That is easier to do when it comes to the small stones, but when it comes to the stones which are a bit larger, it can be harder to do. It s harder to let go when the other person has asked for forgiveness and they have really done something to hurt you. This is why one of the keys to the larger stones is to receive repentance from the other person, where they might admit that they were wrong. If we can hear them say, I m sorry for what I did. I acknowledge it and I want to make it right and I don t want to do it again, it can help so much. But sometimes we don t get that. The other person may not believe they did anything wrong. They may think that they are in the right and you are in the wrong. We might RAP for a while when it comes to something that someone said but it still doesn t seem to help much and we can t brush them off. Maybe you were ignored or you felt you were not treated as well is your sibling. Jacob loaded up his kids with medium-size stones by giving a special coat to one of them. When we begin to add up a bunch of medium-size stones, we begin to build a wall. That begins to separate us from each other as we continue to pile them on. We can begin to feel this wall which becomes an emotional barrier or space between us another person. There are only two ways to break down this wall. The first way is that the other person might recognize what they have done to contribute to the hurt and begin to take down that wall through conversation and apology and honest dialogue which is not accusatory. This is why it s important to be able to have conversations without getting too defensive so we can really share with each other what we re feeling. Hopefully they can come to a place where they can say, I m so sorry. I didn t realize it affected you that way. I really do love you and I want to change. If the other person is never going to grant that to us, then we still have to figure out what to do this wall. We can say, These stones are not worth my having no relationship with my dad. They are not worth me having no relationship with my child. I have got to learn to let these go. Another metaphor we have been using is sticking these stones in our backpacks and carrying them around. If we keep doing that, this backpack it s awfully heavy overtime. We can carry these things around or we can forgive. Those are really are only two options. If we keep carrying these medium-size stones around with us Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 11

12 and we have enough of them then we become a hunchback. I become someone I don t even like anymore, because of the stones I am still carrying around. While RAPping helps with these, there is one other thing we talked about doing which can help us to let go. When it comes to the bigger things that we often hold against others I would encourage you to add an S to the RAP. Seek to understand what shaped them When we recognize what shaped other people and why they do what they do it is sometimes much easier to let go of things. Someone once share with me that they experienced much pain from their father when they were growing up, as did all of their siblings. Their dad didn t know how to say, I love you. He wasn t very kind or compassionate and was a hard man. After he had passed away, they discovered that their father, when he was a boy, was treated even more harshly by his parents. When he did something wrong his parents would lock him in the closet with no lights and he sometimes would sit in there alone for hours and even days as a little boy. Whether we like it or not, we learn how to parent and we develop impulse behaviors in our families, in our families of origin. Hopefully we come to the place where the things we didn t like or that were painful we can train ourselves not to do so we can parent or be in our most intimate relationships in ways that are life-giving. The effort that their father made was to not lock children in the closet like he was. He never learned how to be tender or affectionate, but he was able to not do the thing that terrified him and kick the can down the road a bit. I want to be clear that this doesn t dismiss the fact that he wasn t loving and affectionate with his kids as they were growing up. I m not saying it is okay but it is simply recognizing that we understand he did the best he could. When we seek to understand what shaped people it becomes easier to let go of things, even those medium-sized stones. Jacob was passing on those medium-sized stones to his kids and Joseph was passing on medium-sized stones to his brothers when he said that one day they would bow down to him. But the reaction to all of the medium-sized stones was a really huge stone that Joseph s brothers laid upon him which was actually going to be a tombstone. They were going to kill their brother and instead they decided to sell him as a slave to the Midianites who then sold them to the Egyptians. That is still something that you just don t let go of easily and forgive and move on from, especially when you think about it happening to him when he was Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 12

13 aged 11 or 12. When your brothers sell you as a slave and then somebody falsely accuses you and you end up not only enslaved but then in prison, you don t just say while you are riding in prison, Gosh, I just love my brothers! I can t wait to see them again. More than likely we would be calculating in our minds what we would do to them we saw them again because they put us in this place. How would you let go of that kind of a rock which becomes overwhelming? This stone up on the altar with us today took several of us just to put it up here. We can t carry these by ourselves. Most of us have never experienced something like this in our lives, where we have a stone like this we are trying to pull behind us or which are crushing us. Thank God for that if you don t have one of these. But I m guessing at least a third of the folks here in worship today have one of these things in your family which end up being a stone of this size in your life. If we could learn how people who have these kinds of stones forgive, then maybe it will help the rest of us also know how to forgive. Over the course of my time as a pastor I have visited with many people who have had these kinds of stones in their family history. I ve met with adults who were abandoned by their parents as children. I spent time with youth and adults who were beat up by their mothers or fathers, left with welts, bloodied wounds and bruises on a regular basis, some with permanent physical limitations because of the abuse they incurred. Some were children like the prodigal son who took and took from their parents. They abused their bodies with drugs and alcohol and continually went back and took whatever their parents would give them and then would blame their parents and call the names. I ve met with parents whose children have stolen from them and left not only empty hearts but empty bank accounts, and then their children refuse to ever talk to them again. The pain is deep and it feels like one of these stones. Some of the most painful stories are those who were victims of incest from either the parents or other trusted family members and whose intimate relationships have never been able to be fulfilling because of those experiences. This letter should give you an idea of the depth of pain experienced by some and their families. I was both abused and abandoned by both parents growing up. It has totally affected me in my adult life. I have carried around this abuse as shame and Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 13

14 it s like carrying 1000 backpacks on your soul. It ate me up inside for years and I felt worthless, that it didn t really matter. I couldn t be truly intimate with my husband because I had a huge wall built in my life and I was so full of rage. A film came out in 2006 called, The Gridiron Gang. It s the story of a group of inmates who form a football team and are coached by Duane The Rock Johnson. It s based on a true story and in the movie there is a young man is typical of many who find themselves in prison, a victim of constant abuse by parents when he was a small child. In this clip that you are about to see we are offered what is really the only answer. VIDEO Gridiron Gang Forgiveness You feel the tension, even for the coach who is the mentor for this young man struggling in an emotional and physical prison. It s not like we can hear a sermon on forgiveness and then say, Oh good, now I can just go and let it go! I m just going to pray about it and it will all be gone. I wish it work that way but it doesn t. It happens slowly and by degree as we chip away at the stone in our lives and we pray that the Holy Spirit will release us from the pain. There are things we can do to help expedite that process which is what I have heard from many of you as you have shared your stories with me. These are not things that I read in the book but things that you told me actually helped you to let go of the stone. Most have found help in finding other people to carry the stone. Often it is a form of therapy and so there are counselors that have helped in recovery as they realize and understand what is happened in their past and find ways to cope and deal with that past. This is why we have a list of counselors in the back available every week for you to call when you are ready to deal with the rocks that might be surrounding you. Sometimes it s a small group or a close knit group of friends that you feel like you can talk to and they help to carry this stone until you can let go of it, little by little. There often is more than one person chipping away at the stone as we enlist the help of others. Many people talk to me about confronting their past, where they were finally able to go to their parent or their child and talk to them directly. I have had people write letters to the people who have hurt them in their childhood that they can no longer meet with because of death or distance or safety. I remember one woman writing about how she was no longer going to let this person who had Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 14

15 abused her as a child be in control of her life. She had to be able to say what happened and acknowledge it so she could let it go. It was so hard writing every phrase and word of that letter. She had never even spoken the words out loud before but when she was finished we burned the letter and it brought such relief. One woman even sent the letter to her abuser who was in prison and that person actually wrote back and I read the letter first and then read it to her as he apologized. While it didn t take away the past, it begin the healing process which had been underground. I used the image of a Band-Aid on a wound. If you put a Band-Aid on a wound it is because it is necessary to keep you from causing you to lose too much blood. That emergency response is so important to hold things together so healing can begin. But if you never take the Band-Aid off so that the wound can get air, there can be infection and a deeper illness which affects the entire body. Sometimes I have had people put a deceased parent in a chair across the table from them so they could say out loud what he needed to say. When they were finally able to acknowledge out loud what happened there was a tremendous sense of relief and you could actually feel something leave the room and leave their body. One person told me how they would pray the Lord s Prayer every single day and when they got that phrase, Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us, they felt they took a little step. A little piece of the stone was chipped away because they wanted that to happen in their life and so they kept praying it so they could be that person. God began to take away their pain through that prayer and they began to experience healing. When I was a campus pastor intern at Iowa State University in Ames, Iowa just out of college, we would do a Vespers service with Holy Communion every Wednesday night for college students. One of the young women who came every single week talked about the power of eating the bread and tasting the cup and feeling like the Holy Spirit was working inside to change me and deliver me from years of abuse. She would often be in tears as she said the Lord s Prayer after Communion because of the power of redemption and forgiveness that was beginning to be at work in her life. One man had an abusive father as he was growing up in the last few years of his life he actually had to take his father into his home because there was nowhere else for them to go and he was physically in need of help. He struggled with taking care of a father who had abused him when he was a child. The closest Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 15

16 his father ever came to telling his son that he loved him was on the day that he died as he was in the hospital. He took his son s hand and he thanked them for what he had done in caring for him and then he died. They never had a chance to work things out and so a year after his father died he took a lawn chair, a bottle of wine and a sandwich to his father s grave. He sat down and talked it all out with him. He told him all of the things which had been hurtful and then he for gave him and he asked his father to forgive him for the things he had done which had been hurtful. Just because the person is gone does not mean you can t have that conversation anymore. If nobody else is listing, you can be sure that God is listening in that conversation. Finally, one of the ways I ve seen forgiveness begin to happen on these large rocks are when we can give those broken places to God and we can give that experience to God so he can use it to bring about something beautiful in our lives. The Scriptures talk about bringing beauty out of the ashes and this is one of the ways we can find healing from these large stones which overwhelm us. When we can use our brokenness to help others find healing it can change these stones into something beautiful. I have had more than one parishioner tell me about how their healing began to be complete from being abused as a child when they began to serve others and realized the opportunity they had to connect with others who were going through similar painful experiences. Almost every one of our Stephen Ministers is using their gift of compassion and care and presence because of an experience they had which was painful. This is exactly what we find in the story of Joseph which takes us back to our Scripture passage for today. When we read the story of Joseph it appears that he had held on to some of the pain of what his brothers had done to him. Somehow he seemed to have given this pain over to God. He recognized that he was a slave in Egypt but even in that God would use the experience to do something good. Joseph matured and became wise. He changed and developed character as a result of the suffering he experienced. His soul was deepened and his capacity to care for others became more profound and his relationship with God became central to his life. He began to live a life of integrity and everyone who knew him, knew that he was a man of his word. God had taken the painful things in his life and done something remarkable and profound. Joseph became the head of Potiphar s house as a slave. He was falsely accused by Potiphar s wife and was sent to prison. You would think that would Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 16

17 bring bitterness and anger into his life because of sold in the slavery and then sent to prison unjustly, looking to get even with everyone who had wronged him. But instead he kept asking God to take his pain and do something with it. He recognized that he couldn t change anything in the past and he prayed that God would reshape the future. Not only was he set free from prison but he became the right-hand man of the Pharaoh of Egypt. He began to interpret Pharaoh s dreams and when Pharaoh has a dream about a famine that was coming, it was Joseph who interpreted the dream and led Egypt to save enough food to spare the lives of their people and the people of the nations around them, including the Hebrew people. Were it not for the fact that his brothers sold him into slavery, that Potiphar s wife had accused him falsely, then he would never been in a position to save his own siblings. Had he not saved his own siblings, we might not even be here talking today. Joseph was able to look back and see God s hand working through those painful moments. He gave it to God and entrusted that God would chip away at the pain of the past and bring something beautiful in the future. This is God s specialty, taking dust and making beautiful things. This is why the central symbol of the Christian faith is a cross upon which Christ was crucified. The Roman cross was one of the most evil instruments of torture ever developed and yet now we wear it around our necks and as earrings and as tattoos declaring our faith. That is just crazy when you think about it, isn t it? That makes no sense at all, yet God used it for the redemption of the world. I want to be clear that I don t believe God causes the pain and the suffering, but God can take the junk of our past and bring about something beautiful if we put it in his hands. This is why I love the image of the rock tumbler where you put rocks in a container along with dirt and grit and you let it work and over time you get these beautiful polished rocks. That s why this definition of forgiveness is so powerful that I gave you last week. Forgiveness is giving up the hope of a different past. I would add something more to that which is the message of our Christian faith when it comes to forgiveness. Forgiveness is taking on the hope of a joyful future. Forgiveness is about believing that the future can be better than the past. Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 17

18 We can t change the past, but if we give it to God then God can use it to bring about redemption. Joseph lived this out as we read at the end of his story. 18 Then his brothers came and threw themselves down before Joseph. Look, we are your slaves! they said. 19 But Joseph replied, Don t be afraid of me. Am I God, that I can punish you? 20 You intended to harm me, but God intended it all for good. He brought me to this position so I could save the lives of many people. 21 No, don t be afraid. I will continue to take care of you and your children. So he reassured them by speaking kindly to them. His brothers are convinced that Joseph is going to kill them and so they throw themselves at his feet as an act of mercy. The dream that Joseph had as a child has come true as his brothers bow down before him. The truth is that his brothers might have killed him if the tables were reversed, but Joseph doesn t go down that path of revenge. Instead he in essence says, Look what God did with what you did to me. I am grateful and I have the chance to save you because of the evil you did to me, because God transformed it and redeemed it and brought beauty from the ashes of our relationship. One woman wrote these words. You can choose to harm everyone because you were hurt, or you can choose to harm no one because you were hurt. Either way, it s a choice. It s so easy to fall into the trap of victimhood and choose the former, but thankfully God gives us a divine capacity for love and forgiveness. When we use that gift it fills our lives with so much joy that it s impossible to be resentful to those who do not have that same joy in their lives. I find power in the words to this old Shaker song. No storm can shake my inmost call, while to that rock I m clinging. Since love is Lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing? What rock is she clinging to? Remember that Jesus is called the cornerstone. She clings to Christ because that is for sure foundation. Do you remember what the Scriptures say that Jesus earthly father did for a vocation? They said he was a tekton, which is where our word for architect comes from. A tekton typically was someone who build houses and was the manual labor, and while we often think of that as a carpenter, in the day of Jesus it may have meant something a bit different. The city of Nazareth, the hometown of Jesus, was very small and most people who live there would have lived in caves and not in houses above ground. Those who worked on houses would have done so in Sepherus, a Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 18

19 much larger city adjacent to the town of Nazareth. While we don t know this for sure, many scholars suggest that Jesus probably followed in the footsteps of his father Joseph and also was a tekton as this would ve been common in the first century. He may have worked in that trade until he was 29. If you go to the town of Sepherus today you will find ruins there and the buildings which were built above ground were actually not built out of wood but were built out of stone. VIDEO Sepherus Ruins As you walk through these ruins you have to wonder if Joseph and possibly Jesus help build these buildings. This means that if Joseph was a tekton in this region, and Jesus followed in his earthly father s footsteps at all, it is possible he was not a carpenter but a stone mason. He would have been someone who shaped the stone and brought something good from it. That s what we still trust him with today. Jesus, take this stone and do something with it. VIDEO Stone Cutter Watching this video of the stone cutter, imagine Jesus little by little working this stone in our lives which seems overwhelming. Imagine Jesus taking the pain, the hurt and the memories and doing something good with them. We pray and ask God to help us let go of them so he can crash them into something beautiful, like the things we now use as markers to remember a life and that death is no longer the end and the worst thing in our life is never the last thing in our life. GRAPHIC 2 Stone Cross This is what God does, little by little and day by day as we place our stones in his hands. Finally, we hopefully get to that place where we are at the end of our life and we look back we realize we can celebrate that we have surrendered those stones we have been carrying to him. We see how he takes the stones we cannot possibly carry and, put in his hands, God fashions for us and in us something beautiful and good Christ formed in us by the master s hand. Here s the invitation today. Are you caring around one of these backpacks today filled with rocks? It s time to let it go and a big first step to letting go is to bring that to God and place it on this Communion Table. You see God took the sacrificial altar and transformed it into a communion table that we now gather around and as we do that we give to God these things in the past. We pray that God would take these things in the past and do something good and help us to let Sermon preached by Jeff Huber May 30-31, 2015 Page 19