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We make our beginning in the Name of God the Father and in the Name of God the Son and in the Name of God the Holy Spirit. And all those who have been forgiven said… AMEN!

Red Sox Hall-of-Fame third baseman Wade Boggs hated Yankee Stadium. Not because of the Yankees; they never gave him that much trouble but because of a fan… one fan. The guy had a box seat close to the field, he would torment Boggs shouting obscenities and insults, hard to imagine one fan getting under a player’s skin, but this guy had the recipe. One day as Boggs was warming up, the fan began his routine, yelling, ‘Boggs, you stink’ and variations on that theme. Boggs had enough. He walked directly over to the man, …and said, ‘Hey fella, are you the guy who’s always yelling at me? The man said, ‘Yeah, it’s me. What are you going to do about it?’ Wade took a new baseball out of his pocket, autographed it, tossed it to the man, went back to the field to his pre-game routine. The man never yelled at Boggs again; in fact, he became one of Wade’s biggest fans at Yankee Stadium.

Love your enemies. It might change them, and we know it will change you.[1] There’s, not a lot of forgiveness between the Sox and Yankees, there’s a video of the classic brawls of the past. Forgiveness is in short supply in this day and age. More and more it’s all about me; my opinion is the ultimate consideration, nothing else matters, but that I get my way no matter how misinformed I am or chose to be. “Don’t try to confuse me with the facts” is more often the creed of the day. Reality isn’t the issue, it’s all about my opinion and my dignity.

This attitude is so destructive, so negative, the negative ripples tear things apart. Churches are very susceptible. Instead of progress, easier to get bogged down in opinions, or if there is a decision, there’s no forgiveness or support. Daytona just happened last week, also from sermons.com the following illustration showing how destructive the lack of forgiveness can be:

Some years ago, as a hundred thousand fans watched, Richard Petty ended a 45 race losing streak and picked up stock racing’s biggest purse–$73,500. It happened at the Daytona 500. Petty’s win, was a complete surprise. Going into the last lap, he was running 30 seconds behind the two leaders [30 seconds is forever, people have won the Tour de France by about ten seconds, 1100 miles of racing]. All at once the car in second place tried to pass the No. 1 man on the final stretch. This caused the first car to drift inside and force the challenger onto the infield grass, and slightly out of control. What happened next was incredible. The offended driver pulled his car back onto the track, caught up with the leader, and forced him into the outside wall. Both vehicles came to a screeching halt. The two drivers jumped out and quickly got into an old-fashioned slugging match. In the meantime, third-place Petty cruised by for the win.”[2]Those guys went from 1 and 2 prize money to who knows how far down, it cost them big!

I’m sure you’ve seen those kinds of situations where people shoot themselves in the foot because of their grudges. I had a woman show up at the church in York, going on about how people were hurting her, causing her all kinds of damage. The way she was talking made it seem like it was in process. I asked her when that happened and she said 19__, about fifteen years before. You could say mentally ill, but it’s often a “chicken-egg” thing, did the obsessiveness occur because of mental illness or was it the cause?

Tip O’Neil tells a story in his book about how people would talk about a group of just say those who didn’t like Irish-Catholics who burned down a convent in Boston. O’Neill thought it had just happened in the last few years by the way people talked about it. Come to find out, it happened around 1849.

Unforgiveness, distrust, an obsessive need to have things your way, regardless of how it affects you in the long run, how it affects your family, a group you’re a part of is just so destructive. It has such long lasting effects, and never results in anything helpful or uplifting.

Joseph is in the driver’s seat with his brothers. He could have just messed with them, made their lives miserable, caused all sorts of havoc inflicting payback, but 4,000 years later how would that be seen? God would have worked around Joseph. But clearly God was working His plan back that Jacob/Israel was an integral part of, who should have gotten a little payback from his brother Esau. On the other hand, we have received hundreds of generations later, as Christians is that Joseph knew what God was doing, later on he tells his brothers: “^ESV Genesis 50:20 As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today.”

Factor how many times God forgives us? The grueling torment Jesus underwent in order for us to be forgiven. Entirely in Jesus’ righteousness through His sacrifice we are saved. We are saved to an eternal resurrection of sheer delight beyond anything imaginable. Not because of how deserving we are, because … we aren’t. But in and through Jesus to eternity. Last week Jesus told us how much we would be hated because of Him. This week He’s saying “love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” Kind of tough to do. Joseph and his brothers became the patriarchs of Israel, heads of the twelve tribes sons of their father Jacob or as God named him, Israel . Joseph was resented because he was Jacob’s favorite, Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat… He went to his brothers in the field and they left him in a ditch to die. Then changed their minds, sold him as a slave and then sold as a slave in Egypt. His master, Potiphar, gives him great freedom and trusts him, his wife, let’s say wanted more than just household help, when Joseph refused to betray his master like that, she threw a fit, falsely accused him of trying to seduce her. That ended him in an Egyptian jail, none of this very nice, but he comes to the attention of Pharaoh, becomes prime minister of Egypt, goes from the outhouse to the penthouse, the catbird seat to mix metaphors. Then his brothers show up looking for food, duh, duh, duh! But Joseph didn’t take the opportunity to hit back, or get into a match that wouldn’t have done anyone any good. He gave them the food they needed, then the whole tribe moves to Egypt. This is the way we’re treated in Jesus. We continually offend God, we continually fuss, quarrel, we say forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors, we expect God to hold up His end, but we really don’t hold up ours. Jesus took that grueling torture, gave Himself to pay the price of sin and unforgiveness that we couldn’t pay. We dishonor Him in our lack of forgiveness in our fussing and lack of cooperation. We know that is not what the Christian church is about, the Body of Christ is not the forum to pursue quarrels, instead of working together to advance the Kingdom of Christ. Joseph forgave a lot in order to save his family and for everyone to move on to become Israel. Jesus forgave a lot and didn’t deserve any of what He endured. When do we forgive and look to the best interests of Jesus’ Church?

The peace of God which passes all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Shalom and Amin

[1] Phil Thrailkill, Loving Like God Loves   sermons.com

[2] Source unknown  sermons.com