The Courage to Apologize & Forgive

The story of Joseph in the Old Testament book of Genesis is about love, jealousy, treachery, lies, reunion, generosity and of course, forgiveness and apology.

This classic begins with one of the great fathers of Judaism, Jacob, also known as Israel. Jacob had twelve sons, and as parents we’re not supposed to have favorites, but Jacob loved Joseph more than the others and it showed. His other brothers from two other mothers were all very jealous and devised a plot to get rid of Joseph. They took his fancy multi-colored coat, given to him by their father, and dumped him in a pit in the desert while they determined his fate. In the meantime, Joseph was found by another band of people and sold into slavery in Egypt. The brothers took his multi-colored coat, smeared it with goat’s blood and told their father that Joseph had been eaten by wild animals.

Years passed and because of Joseph’s ability to interpret dreams, he was taken out of prison and made governor of Egypt where he led the country to save up grain during seven years of abundance so that they might survive the seven predicted years of famine to come.

Shortly after the famine started, Jacob sent his sons to Egypt to buy grain, Joseph saw and recognized his brothers, but they didn’t recognize him. After some shenanigans on Joseph’s part, he moved past his suffering and anger and revealed himself to them. Then Joseph brought his father, brothers, and all their wives, children and livestock back to Egypt to live well for the next 17 years, when Jacob, the beloved patriarch died (at the ripe old age of 147).

It wasn’t until after Jacob died that the brothers seemed to realize that they never apologized or asked Joseph’s forgiveness for what they did to him. Now they are worried that, without their father there, Joseph might still seek revenge for their actions years ago. So, the brothers went to Joseph and begged for his forgiveness. When Joseph heard this, he wept, as did his brothers. Joseph basically said, what was meant for evil, God was able to use for good. Many have survived because of this and I will always care for you and yours.

When I read this story it raises all kinds of questions about forgiving and apologizing. Like, should you forgive without an apology? Are there things that shouldn’t be forgiven? Is there a time limit on apologies? What if it hadn’t turned out ok for Joseph, should he still forgive? Why didn’t the brothers ask forgiveness earlier? Were the brothers sincere? Joseph seems to have forgiven long ago, was it still necessary for them to ask forgiveness?

Now you can start to see how challenging it is to talk about these topics! Every situation is different, but the bottom line is that whether we like it or not I truly believe we should always apologize sincerely if we’ve hurt someone, and we should always forgive.

Yesterday I spoke with the kids about forgiving and apologizing and I used stones and bricks to explain why these two things are important. It seems to me that when we hurt someone and refuse to say “I’m sorry,” we carry that decision around like a weight, like carrying a stone or brick (depending on how big the hurt was) that just gets heavier with time. And the same goes for forgiveness. When we refuse to forgive another, whether they ask for it or not, we carry the weight of that decision as well. Eventually, those rocks and bricks grow heavier and heavier, and are wildly unhealth spiritual, emotionally and physically (it’s all tied together, folks).

Everyone’s biggest stumbling block seems to be that they don’t want forgiveness to excuse behavior. It does not. Nor are we asked to forget behavior. What is important is that we apologize or forgive to, in the words of Harold Kushner, “do ourselves a favor.” He says that forgiveness means “cleansing our souls of thoughts and memories that lead us to see ourselves as victims and make our lives less enjoyable. When we understand we have little choice as to what other people do but we can always choose how we will respond to what they do, we can let go of those embittering memories…”

It takes courage to say “I’m sorry.” Courage to set one’s pride and stubbornness aside and own up to hurting another, even if it wasn’t intended. Sometimes we have to let go of the need to be right and recognize that there might be better ways to be right. Occasionally, it takes courage to face possibly not being able to fix something, not being able to turn back the clock and go back to the way things were before.  It especially takes courage to do this face to face, not in an email or in a text. Sincere apologies deserve to be face-to-face.

Joseph really did stop carrying around the stone of resentment against his brothers long before they apologized. But they needed to be sure that all was really ok. Because they hadn’t said the words, because they hadn’t had the conversation, they couldn’t be sure. They needed to clear the air, to take responsibility, to own what they had done and voice their regret and apology. And even if it was seventeen years later, in this case it brought about a healing that hadn’t quite fully taken place yet.

It also takes courage to forgive, especially if you want to maintain a relationship with that person and attempt to move forward. It takes courage to risk getting hurt again, to risk being vulnerable. It takes courage to put down the protective wall of anger and distance and fear. But even if you never see that person again, forgiveness is what allows us to put the stone down and declare that a person or their actions will no longer have the power to hurt us.

Fr. Richard Rohr, in The Way of Forgiveness, tells a personal story about his mother at the end of her life. The family had gathered, Richard’s mom was hovering on the brink of death and for several days had been talking about “a mesh” she couldn’t seem to get through.

Richard was sitting by her bed, telling her how much he’d miss her. She said she wanted to hear that from his father (who, of course, had been saying it for weeks). Still, he came over again and told her once more how much he was going to miss her.

She replied, “I don’t believe it.”

Richard said, “Mother, you’re a few hours from death. You can’t say that!”

But she persisted, so his father tried again, “I ask your forgiveness for all the times I’ve hurt you in our fifty-four years of marriage, and I forgive you for all the times you’ve hurt me.”

Richard said, “Mother, isn’t that beautiful? Now say that back to Daddy.” And suddenly she clammed up. She didn’t want to say it. “Mother, you’re soon going to be before God. You don’t want to come before God without forgiving everybody.”

“I forgive everybody,” she said.

“But do you forgive daddy?”

Silence.

Her husband jumped in, “Honey, I never fooled around with any other women.”

“Well, I know that, I know that.” Truly, they all knew that. No one had any idea what he could have done to hurt her, but then there are so many small ways that couples can hurt each other over that many years of marriage.

So, Richard tried another way. He said, “Mother, let’s try this. Put one hand on your heart, and I’m going to pray that your heart gets real soft.” He placed one hand over hers over her heart, and held her other hand and started kissing it.

After about a minute she said, very faintly, “That melts me.”

“What?”

“When you kiss my hand like that, now I’ve got to do it.” After a pause she continued: “I’m a stubborn woman. All of my life I’ve been a stubborn woman.”

“Well, Mother, we all knew that,” Richard said. “now look at Daddy and you tell him.”

So, she looked over and said, “Rich, I forgive you.”

Her son prompted her again, “Mother the other half – I ask for your forgiveness.”

She started breathing heavily and rapidly. Then she summoned her energy and said, “Rich, I ask your forgiveness.” A few more moments of labored breathing, and she said, “That’s it, that’s it. That’s what I had to do. It’s gone! The mesh is gone! And, God I pray that I mean this forgiveness from my heart.”

Why would we want to carry stones until the end of our lives? Healing comes in setting them down. At the end of the day, we can only control our own stones – the ones we collect from hurting others and not apologizing, and the ones we gather from being hurt and refusing to give forgiveness, whether it was sought or not. We don’t forget the stones (at least not the big ones), that concept is almost silly, but we can surrender to a deeper law of love and let them go. Then healing can begin.

Love & Light!

Kaye