Rosh Hashanah... Repentance, Forgiveness, and an Open Letter

For the past couple weeks, I’ve been a little under the weather. I’ve been trying to keep up with work and with school and all of my outside responsibilities, and I haven’t been focused on my blog so much, but I have been reading. During the days leading up to Rosh Hashanah (Sept 28) in Judaism, and continuing through Yom Kippur (Oct 8), one of the major things required of Jews is to repent and reconcile. Repent of their sins, meaning TURN FROM them, not just say “I’m sorry.” And reconcile relationships. If apologies are due, make them. If relationships can be mended, try. If you need to forgive someone, forgive them. For that matter, if you need to forgive a whole group of people, do that too!

In that vein, I made a list of all the people I was harboring resentment against. Maybe they hurt me deeply, maybe they abandoned me in a time of need, maybe they hurt my children or my family, maybe they changed my perspective of God. There were more names on that list than I care to admit ((and I consider myself a pretty forgiving person!)) I went through
my list and I read their name out loud, then told them, out loud, what I forgave them for. (Of course, I did this when I was alone, not to their face… I’m not sure it does a lot of good to go down the list of people you hate, contact them, let you know that you have hated them for X number of years, but out of the kindness of your heart you forgive them for _________. That may be missing the point of the release.) So I went the way of forgiving them in my heart and before God, and I released them from what I held against them.

The second list I made was a list of people who I knew I had hurt, whether intentionally or unintentionally, who probably hadn’t forgiven me, or to whom I had not apologized. For me, that list had to be addressed in person. I needed to ask forgiveness from those people, if it was possible, and tell them I was wrong. I made phone calls and sent letters and reached out to the people I knew I had hurt. I apologized for whatever it was I had done to them, how I had hurt or mistreated them, and I asked for forgiveness. It didn’t matter so much at that point whether they gave me the forgiveness or not, only that I had repented from my mistake and tried to reconcile.

But there was one name on the list that I wasn’t sure how to address. That name was: The Christian Church. The Church was on both of my lists, actually. I was so angry and so hurt by the Church that I knew I needed to forgive them, not just individually, but collectively: for their mistakes, and greed, and abandonment, and cruelty. The Church had collectively become for me a dark knight, difficult to trust, and even harder to love. The (cruelty) and (greed) of certain members and leaders had become representative of what I believed the Church to be as a whole, or at least as a majority. I was disillusioned and fearful, and more, I was resentful and unforgiving that an organization I had given so many years of my life to had hurt and rejected me so badly. I had to forgive them, because they were the source of my greatest bitterness and pain.

But I also needed to be forgiven: in my bitterness and anger, I lashed out. I lumped all Christians together into a greedy selfish group. I believed that there was relatively little good in them, that they were ((nothing)) like God, that they were, collectively, a mostly evil group. I not only believed this, but I was vocal about it. I told people I hated organized religion; that the Church was not an organization I respected. That God was not there. I told truths about my pain and my experience, but I also told assumptions based on my experience that was not true of the whole. I described Christians as intolerant, manipulative, hurtful, vicious, hypocritical… the list goes on.

As I wrote on my blog in November 2010:

With Christianity... I see people that I once belonged to who spend their days talking about the pregnant teen of their neighbor rather than mentoring the 15 year old mom-to-be. I see people who would rather lash out defensively that they and ONLY they are right, than to listen to someone else’s perspective. I see people who accuse other people of being murderers when they themselves have never been in the position to make that choice, and if they had, they might have even made the same one. I see people who care more about their image than they do about their heart... In short, I only see the bad.

When I met people who were Christians, I waited for them to make a mistake. To gossip, to careless hurt someone, to carelessly hurt ME… in short, I waited for them to show their humanity, and then I said “SEE? This is what I was talking about. This is why I hate you people!”

So it was clear, from my experiences, that I needed to forgive the Church collectively (as well as a more than a few people individually within the Church) for perceived or actual wrongs… but it was also clear that I had made some mistakes myself. It was evident when I met Dawn, the pastor of Whosoever Dallas, that she was indeed human AND Christian, but she tried and she loved and she pressed on to be a better person and serve God in the way she felt she was called to. It was evident when I talked to Joe, sitting in the hospital room of his son awaiting a life-saving operation, that he had been hurt by the church, too, that he had been torn, that he had made mistakes, but that he was trying. He was loving. He was willing to learn and grow. He was willing to trust. It was evident when I met Jess, who’s childlike faith in God struck me as first naiive then profound. When I spoke to Katy, who was dealing with her marriage falling apart, and still said “I get my strength from God.”

Over and over, I met people who called themselves "Christians" and were not within the description that had become my view of the Church. But they WERE part of the Church, as a collective whole. It was clear that I had some apologizing to do myself… which presented me with a quandary. How, exactly, do I ask forgiveness from an organic collective like the Church?

I thought of a seminar at my Church. A line of people had formed at the front of the sanctuary. They were all holding papers in their hands. The pastor stepped forward and began to speak:
“In the Old Testament, when Israel had strayed from God’s word and disobeyed. When Israel had sinned and hurt God with their actions, the King would take off his royal robes and his crown. He would humble himself before God and the nation and repent for a nations’ sins. He would put himself between God and his nation and repent on behalf of what his people had done, and in that way, they received forgiveness as a whole. They were healed, they were restored, that King bore all of their sins and darkness and he repented for it.”

Something peculiar and unexpected then happened. The pastor paused, then began to apologize. “As a pastor, I want to come before you representing the pastors who have been in your live before me. I want to repent to you for the things we have done wrong. For the hurts we have inflicted on you. I am so sorry you were hurt and misunderstood. I am so sorry we ignored your needs, we judged you, we used you…”

One by one, they read their letters, representing a group of people as they repented to us: not for the things they themselves had done, but for the things that had been done to us by others. The Pastor for the things the Church had done to us as individuals; a man , for the things men, fathers, brothers, friends, husbands had done to hurt us; a woman for the sins of a mother, a grandmother, a sister, a wife, a daughter… I found myself listening with tears rolling down my face because no one had ever apologized to me for what had happened. I blamed the Church, and a random Pastor (who, by all rights was blameless for what happened to me) repented to me for what happened. It was one of the most healing things I have ever experienced.

So I thought, maybe I could repent to a Pastor or maybe just a Christian for the hateful and derogatory things I have categorized as the Church. Then I was reminded of a story in the New Testament, where the Apostle Paul was publically arrested, beaten, humiliated, and thrown in jail. As Roman citizens, this was an illegal act, and one that the government would not have condoned. The magistrates tried to work this out by going into jail under the cover of night and telling them that they made a mistake – apologizing – and letting them go. But Paul was having none of that. He said that he was publically humiliated and he would have a public apology.

Since I said the things I did publically, some of them without foundation, some of them spoken out of my own pain and not out of the reality of Christianity today, I decided that the best apology would be an open letter to the Church, apologizing for the damage I have done. Granted, I don’t have that many readers on my blog. I don’t know that many people in real life either: it’s not like I printed it up and distributed it to an entire nation. But I owe the Church an apology nonetheless, as an organic collective made up of individuals as different and unique as snowflakes. So here goes.

Dear Church,
I owe you an apology. For so many years, I thought you could do no wrong. I thought you were an extension of God here on earth. I built up expectations based on a group of people, not based on a statement of faith. I thought that you were beyond human, that your pastors were held to a higher standard and unable to make the same mistakes as mere mortals. I created an unrealistic and unlikely belief that the Church should be suspended somewhere between human and deity and that you could not show human weakness. I even tried to hide my own humanity and individuality. I hid behind words, and scriptures, and prayers and service. I hid behind submission and Bible study. I blamed you for losing my own individuality, and that was wrong. You did not steal my individuality, I chose to trade it for perceived perfection. I was angry and resentful, and I spoke harsh words about you to many people. I told other Christians I was disillusioned and “over” the Church and their hypocrites and liars and thieves. I lumped you all together, ironically, as I berated you for “trying to make [me] just another clone.” I made fun of your leaders; especially the ones who showed their humanity. I unfairly blamed my Pastors for things that happened to my family, and for the actions of their congregation members.


I screamed from every rooftop I could scale that I hated you and your lousy politics and your lying teachers and your scheming televangelists. I was so angry at you for so long, and only because of my experience with a few people.


I am truly sorry and repentant for encouraging the stereotype of your group. I am sorry for telling people that “I would call myself a Christian, but I don’t like to be associated with Christians.” And for saying that I hated the Church. I never hated you. I was hurt and disappointed, but I never hated you. I was angry with God and circumstances, but how could that be entirely your fault? I, who pointed out your failures at every turn, who laughed and said “I told you so”, who blamed you and slandered you and forgot to pray for you and believe in you and encourage you - I didn’t hold up my end of the bargain. I didn’t pray for you when you hurt me, I simply disowned you. I didn’t encourage you when I saw your humanity, I simply told others that you weren’t to be trusted.
I didn’t give you a second chance to give me a second chance. For that, I apologize.


I’m not saying that I wasn’t hurt or lonely or frightened or abused. I’m not saying that I wasn’t abandoned or my spirit crushed. I am saying that I held the Church accountable for that, and it shouldn’t have been so. There were PEOPLE ((just people, like me)), who did those things to me. Probably unintentionally for the most part. Probably carelessly. But it wasn’t the Church, as a whole.


The Church as a whole is only the sum of its parts, and by abandoning you, I took away myself: a pretty decent part with a compassionate heart and a sensitive spirit. By sending my friends away from you, I took away even more good parts. I was wrong, and I know I can’t make it up or change it, but I wanted to say I’m sorry.


Sincerely,
Joni

This is dedicated to the Christians who have shown me that the Church is not all bad. Who have loved and accepted and forgiven me. Who continue to hold onto hope. Who continue to practice compassion. This is for Dawn, and Joe, and Jess, and Chacey, and Deb, and my Dad, and Katy, and Angela, and Josh, and ALL the others who have shown me that the Church wasn't meant to be perfect, only human.