When we are wounded by the church

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In previous blog posts, I have shared my thoughts on forgiveness, on selfishness, on judgmentalism, and on imperfect churches.

These are themes that resonate with me as I search the Bible and as I search my heart.  If we are honest with ourselves, many of us struggle with these difficult topics.

If we live long enough, we carry in ourselves the scars and sometimes open wounds of past hurts from people we trusted, from people who we thought above reproach, from people we admired, or from people we respected.  Wounds from people such as these are difficult to heal.  (Such wounds may even be hard to notice or diagnose, which makes healing all the more challenging.) 

Naturally, having grown up in the church, many of my wounds are from clergy-members or churches.  And, when I think about it, that makes sense.  If we spend much time around the faithful, it is really inevitable.  After all, a brief reading of Scripture shows that many of the faithful inflicted wounds upon others.  The same can be said of the saints down through the centuries whose lives we can read about as well.  They could sometimes be too harsh, too strict, overbearing, selfish, or given to angry outbursts.

Moses repeatedly lost his cool with the Hebrews that he was leading.  King David had a good man murdered and stole the man's wife.  The Prophet Jonah was irate with God about wanting to save Nineveh and fled in protest.  The Apostle Peter rebuked Jesus (who promptly rebuked Peter), lopped off the ear of a temple guard, and cursed when accused of being a follower of Jesus.  Paul and Barnabas had such a sharp disagreement that they were forced to part ways.  Saint Benedict was so harsh that the monks tried to poison him just after he began working as their abbot.   

One of my favorite quotes from the 1990 film, The Russia House, rings true: "You do not need to remind me that man is not equal to his rhetoric."  None of us are quite as good, or as clever, or as kind, or as patient as we might wish to be.  It is helpful to remember that, while Oscar Wilde's characters cynically made fun of earnest reverence, it is still true that "every saint has a past, and every sinner has a future," but this is not "the only difference between" the two.  The individuals mentioned in the preceding paragraph sought to live out their faith to the best of their limited ability.  Nonbelievers, on the other hand, may have no standard that they feel compelled to live up to.

The fact that we are imperfect followers of Christ does not mean that we should be lackadaisical or complacent about living up to the standards of a perfect God.  Unholy thoughts, words, and deeds are no reason to reject holiness as a goal.  Just because we miss the mark, does not mean that we should not be aiming for it.  And, just because I have been wounded by clergy or by a church does not mean that I ought to reject the entire notion of either.

The writer of the book of Hebrews put it this way: "Let’s consider how to provoke one another to love and good works, not forsaking our own assembling together, as the custom of some is, but exhorting one another, and so much the more as you see the Day approaching."  (Hebrews 10:24-25)

May God give us sufficient grace to be gracious with those imperfect souls who have wounded us.  Surely, we have done likewise, whether we are humble enough and wise enough to admit it or not.