Accepting Forgiveness
By Charles Rush
July 17, 2011
Genesis 32:
[ Audio
(mp3, 7.3Mb) ]
the movie American Beauty, Lester decides to quit his job, to save his honor. He can tell he is about to be downsized out. He is frustrated. He is angry. He is humiliated as Alpha-Male no longer able to provide game from the hunt. So he goes home and announces to his wife that he is planning to quit. If he quits, then at least he is in control and this provides him with a modicum of self-esteem. So he comes home, drinks too much, and spews out this tirade about how pointless his company is, how pointless careers are in general.
It is painfully
unbecoming and juvenile… and… probably everyone
of us have made that speech if we have ever been through a time in our careers
where we were sidelined, viewed as objectively irrelevant, or retired early. We
may not actually make it in front of our spouses. The controlled among us might
just make it to ourselves in the car on the way home from a long day that ended
with a bitter meeting.
But most of us
make that speech to our spouses because we are inviting a reality check. We
want some bounce back, if for no other reason than to remember that we are
important to someone in metropolitan New York.
In the movie,
when Lester's wife, Carolyn, heard her
husband was going to quit his job, she freaked out. And it provoked a bitter
exchange that was also a little too close to home. Immediately, she feels the
financial pressure. She was very content to have a second income job. But she
did not sign on to be the primary breadwinner. That was the job for Alpha-Male.
She was in the support role.
The more she
drank and the more Lester went on about the pointlessness of career, her
bitterness began to extend itself. She had this moment, this very painful
moment, when she realized that here she was at mid-life. In her mind, she had
made quite a few concessions to get there. She felt like she had more than
fulfilled her duty, had sacrificed, had not been fulfilled in some important
ways, and there she was.
In her mind,
she had a picture of where she wanted to be financially, materially at 50. She
had a pretty definite picture in her mind. She had never really given much
voice to that picture but she had it right there. Her husband is telling her at
42 that she won't get to that place and that he doesn't care anymore. He is
just dropping the ball. He isn't holding up his end of the arrangement.
All these
concessions that had made: her lack of fulfillment, he unhappiness day in and
day out, her sexual distance. All of that she could at least manage because she
was going to have a level of material comfort at least that would… sort of make
up for the difference. You take out that material comfort… you take that away…
and what do you have left but pain and suffering.
That is when
she went into attack mode. That is when she got venomous. We all have these
unspoken expectations of what our lives are going to turn out to be. Most of
the time, we don't ever give them any voice. Most of the time, we are only able
to articulate them, when we get to this place where we realize that they are
not going to come true. That is when we have these bitter exchanges with our
spouses, with our significant others, or close friends.
I am tempted to
say that in the world we live in, the question is not if you will have this
discussion it is when. Most of us will not get through our careers without
being downsized out, retired early, or fired to be rehired back at lower pay as
a consultant. Some of us will contract a lifestyle altering disease or have
some health issue in our families that significantly refocuses our future. Some
of us will have children that don't turn out to be as educated or motivated or
parental as we would like. Some of us are going to have spouses or significant
relationships that are a terrible disappointment. Any of these scenarios are
upsetting enough in their own right that we become emotionally and spiritually
undone. It is in our most intimate relationships that this will be the most
intense: with our spouse, our parents, our brothers and sisters, our kids, our
dear friends that we have known and shared with forever. We can cause our
greatest harm, closest to home. And it is right here that we will have to learn
the gutsy, tough work of forgiveness to make it on through.
Our biblical
story about Jacob and Esau is pretty gutsy and realistic on this front. I would
invite you to read the several chapters devoted to these two brothers. They
were fraternal twins. The Bible says that they fought, even in the womb. This
is what it says, “Rebekah became pregnant. But the children almost crushed one
another insider her, so she said: If this be so, why do I exist?” (Gen.
25:21,22 The Schocken Bible) It was a portent of things to come. And so like
boys. I have a godson. There are three boys in all, under the age of 5. Their
mother is calling all of us to eat dinner. We are all wrestling. Mom calls
again. My godson yells back “We want more rough housing.” Only rarely have we
ever stopped before blood runs.
These two boys
fought each other from inception. Even when they were born, they were
wrestling. The first one came out all red and hairy. His parents named him
“Rough one”. That is what Esau means. He looked like a rough dude.
The second one
was born right after him. Indeed, when the first one came out, the second one
had hold of his ankle, so they named him “heel holder” or “heel sneak” or “heel
grasper”. All of these words had a connotation to them for the same word
“holder”, “sneaker”; “grasper” also was used for “cheater”. They named him
Jacob. Indeed, Jacob was known to be a conniver. Most of the stories that are
told about him in scripture and told of his conniving or of his being conned.
When they were
teenagers, Esau had been out hunting all day. Esau was the hunter, Jacob farmed
and herded animals. Esau came in from the hunt, famished. He was impulsively
grousing. I'm sure he was saying, “there's nothing to eat in this house” like
all of our teenagers but it is not recorded in scripture. What is recorded is
this. Jacob tells his brother he will give him a delicious nouvelle porridge
that he has already whipped up, if Esau will promise him his birthright. Food
now. Inheritance, 60 years from now. Food wins.
He was a
conniver. It is said that when John D. Rockefeller would see people, he would
always walk them to the elevator, where he would bid them goodbye. At the last
minute before the elevator closed, an innocent young man would slip in, and
move anonymously to the back. There he would listen to the conversation as the
group was riding down and walking out the front door. Then he would come back
in the building, ride the elevator back up to Rockefeller's office, and report
what he overheard.
Years go by.
Jacob marries another Israelite, Rachel. They have children. Then there is this
tid bit in scripture. It says that Esau married two Hittite women, Yehudit and
Ba'semat. Their names are hard to pronounce. They are foreigners. The Bible has
this one little line that speaks volumes. It says, “And they were a bitterness
of Spirit to Isaac and Rebekah.” There is family tension. It is not spoken
about further but there is some disappointment.
More years go
by, Isaac is old and dying. He can tell the end is near. He calls his oldest
boy Esau to his side. He asks for one last favor, something they have done before
many times. He asks his son to “pick up your weapons-your hanging-quiver and
your bow, go out into the field and hunt me down some hunted-game, and make me
a delicacy, such as I love; bring it to me, and I will eat it, that I may give
you my own blessing before I die” (Gen. 27:3,4). Esau goes.
But his mother
overhears and schemes herself. She calls Jacob, the heel-sneak, and tells him
to make his father something to eat quickly, so that he might get the blessing
instead. Why does she do it? Is it because she loves Jacob more? Is it because
she doesn't want her foreign daughter-in-laws to inherit their money. We don't
know. We usually never do.
The
old man is blind. In the Bible, blindness like this is usually more than simply
physical. It means he is clueless. He is spiritually blind as well.
Jacob makes the
savory dish and serves it to his father. His father says, “You sound like
Jacob, let me feel you?” Jacob holds out his hand, the back of his hand, which
is the only part of him that is hairy like his brother. His father is fooled.
The old man
blesses him and says, “May God give you from the dew of the heavens; from the
fat of the earth, much grain and new-wine! May peoples serve you, May tribes
bow down to you; be master of your brothers; may your mother's sons bow down to
you. Those who damn you, damned! Those who bless you, blessed!” (Gen. 27:28,29)
That is pretty broad, pretty categorical, pretty one sided.
Esau comes
back; Isaac tells him that he has been tricked. Esau cries out in rage and says,
“Isn't there something that can be done?” Isaac says, “I gave him my blessing!
Now blessed he must remain!”
Then Esau has
this wonderful response. He says, “Haven't you reserved a blessing for me? Have
you only a single blessing, father. Bless me too.” And the old man was silent.
It seems
arbitrary to our modern ears, part of that is because we have lost the sense of
words being contractual. We have lost that sense in which you shake on a deal
and that deal is solid. But in the ancient world, without recourse to courts,
words had that kind of binding authority.
The closest
parallel we have is a bad estate settlement. I knew a family where the
grandfather died, with a fairly large estate, but lots of grandchildren and
great-grand children. No one had ever actually looked at his will but they had
a nice summer compound on Martha's Vineyard, a large piece of property with
several houses on it. The assumption was that it would be in the family
forever. But when the will was read, it became apparent that care had not been
taken. The grandfather had not done a couple of simple things to set this up.
Furthermore, it also became apparent in the months that followed, that none of
the grandchildren had the money to pay the inheritance taxes and none could buy
the others out. Whereupon much bitterness on the phone with each other, at
their grandfather, at the arbitrary legal system. Long and short, they had to
sell the summer place that had been in their family forever.
Today, it is no
longer the arbitrary word of one person; it is the arbitrary word of an Estate
judge, a judge in a divorce settlement. Isaac says nothing. Esau is enraged. He
is enraged at the system. He is enraged at his Father for being so stupid. He
is enraged at his Mother for her manipulation. He doesn't feel loved. And he
can't really be angry with them directly, so he turns all of that fury on
Jacob.
He says out
loud, “Let the days of mourning draw near and then I will kill Jacob my
brother” (Gen. 27:41). Jacob gets wind of this and flees. He stays gone for the
rest of his life. He moves in with his father-in-law. They herd together. Years
go by. Both of them have huge herds. He has a falling out with his
father-in-law, Laban, and they split up.
Shortly after
Jacob is out on his own again, he decides that the time has come to reach out
to his brother. He takes a few servants, has them collect good size herds as
gifts for his brother, collects together some other gifts, and sends them on.
It is an appeasement offering.
Appeasement
offerings might work with strangers. They might work with small stuff, but they
never work in intimate relationships. They never paper over big wounds. I knew
someone years ago. She wanted to talk to her husband about their love life. She
wanted something more than they had. After considerable thinking about it, she
finally raised the subject one evening.
He snapped at
her and said something like “everything would be fine if you would lose 20
pounds. It was a stupid thing to say. It was said thoughtlessly. It was hurtful
and a bad defense technique to keep from talking about his issues with
intimacy. But it did its job. She was very vulnerable right at that moment. Man
she was hurt. She couldn't even talk for a few days, she was so hurt. Then she
was mad.
After a couple
days go by, he realizes that he is a bonehead, but he cannot bring himself to
talk about what is actually going on. He buys her this $5000 bracelet and
brings home some brochures on an exotic vacation. He lays all this on the
dining room table and she just says, “I don't think so. You really hurt me.
This is deeper than that. You're not getting off that easy.”
Jacob makes
this same mistake and even worse it is with his brother. We are told that they
wrestled all of their life. Now that they are fully mature men, they are still
wrestling; only they are using their wealth as symbols of their power. Jacob is
really trying to give a gift of good faith, but there is just a little brag
there too. Look what a large gift I am
able to give you.
This story is so
like brothers. His 3 or 4 servants report back to him that Esau is coming to
meet him, but rather than just send 3 or 4 servants, Esau has sent 400 men
ahead of him. Jacob has done pretty well, but apparently his brother has done
even better. He was in on the IPO for
AOL. Jacob is really worried. Surely Esau intends for him to sweat quite a bit.
These 400 guys coming is either a really good sign or a really, really bad
sign. With your wrestling brother, you
always have to be prepared for the body slams when you least expect it.
Jacob sweats
and sweats. Finally, he takes everything he has and sends it ahead of him with
a note that says, “Everything that is mine is yours.” He has been pacing the
floor for hours, days. At some point, you get to this in intimate
relationships. Forget about the stuff. You can have the stuff. The only thing
that really matters is the relationship. That is all that really matters. At
the end of the day, where are you if you are surrounded by great security but
cut off from all your significant relationships. You are just comfortably
alone, capital A. Forget about the stuff. Do what you have to do to fix the
relationship.
That is right.
Jesus taught us that there is a direct correlation between the profundity of
our love and our ability to forgive and accept forgiveness. Forgiveness,
accepting forgiveness, is all about developing mature intimacy. It is about
being open, honest, and vulnerable in the good sense, the humane sense. It does
not come naturally. It is a spiritual gift. And the real life situations where
we grow learning about it are as frightening as watching 400 guys rumbling
across the desert on horseback. The ground shakes around you.
Jacob divides
all of his family, all of his herds in two and sends them ahead. Esau's huge
tribe meets them. There in the distance is Jacob, standing alone. His brother
is walking towards him. Moment of tension. The bible says “Esau ran to meet
him, he embraced him, flunh himself upon his neck, and kissed him. And they
wept” (Gen. 33:4). Esau grew through this, but we have to presume that Jacob
really grew. Truth be told, accepting forgiveness may be one of the hardest
things to do. We would rather keep our distance, keep score of our hurts.
Accepting forgiveness requires intimate humility, a deep honesty. It is
admitting we were wrong. It is being in the grace of someone else. It is tough work.
Jesus taught us
that we can only forgive as we have been forgiven. We need to be on both sides
of that equation, accepting forgiveness, and spreading it around. Being people
of forgiveness doesn't mean that we no longer have standards. Actually
forgiveness requires standards. What it does require of us is real intimacy in
relationship, care about others that wants them to grow, a spiritual kind of
commitment that is going to work this relationship through come what may.
One time,
someone asked the theologian Karl Barth, if we would see our loved ones in
heaven. Would we be reunited with our loved ones? Barth said, not only our
loved ones. We would all be healthier if we would remember that. If the church
was really being the church, we would never leave each other until we had
worked out our differences, forgiven one another and become reconciled. As it
is, most of the time, when we have a difference, we just go our separate ways.
Thinking eternally, we will see each other again. We will have to work this
relationship through until it is reconciled. Apparently, in the mind of God,
the relationship is more important than one side being right. We will have to
work it through. Let's get some practice here and now. Amen.
