May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you a spirit of unity among yourselves as you follow Christ Jesus, so that with one heart and mouth you may glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. — Romans 15:5-6
I came across a blog today that grieves and saddens me. I’ve seen its kind before. Someone, or a group of someones, hurt by the actions of a brother or sister in Christ, or a church staff, or a group within the church, puts up a blog to air their grievances and give others a chance to do the same in the comments section. Once or twice, these become a place where healing is the goal and bitterness does not go unchecked. But more often than not, these blogs end up as nothing more than a place of condemnation for the pastor or staff member at fault for the pain. It becomes a chance for anyone hurt by that person or group of people to defame them under the pretense of "telling their story." Sadly, the blog I found this morning is the latter kind.
I know the pain of emotional and spiritual injury at the hands of another, especially injury caused by a friend. Its sting carries venom powerful and deadly. Only the compassionate, gracious, all-consuming love of God can heal that kind of wound and restore health to the soul. Even then it leaves a scar.
Emotional/spiritual injury by a pastor can be worse. A friend of mine says that pastors are also a "dad" to their church. It’s not a role they want, or seek. Nor is it a role we consciously put upon them. Its just that we all naturally end up looking to our pastor to fill a father-like role in our lives; leading, guiding, counseling, loving, appreciating, paying attention to us, knowing us. We want to be known by our pastors, and recognized as valuable, valued and worthy of love. All the things we want from our fathers. When a pastor doesn’t live up to that expectation, unconscious or not, especially in a time of need, it feels like the worst kind of betrayal, that of a parent. If we’re already suffering from major "daddy issues", and most of us are, that betrayal can cut to the heart of who we are and devastate us.
When the injury is at the hands of a friend who’s also our pastor, the pain is unimaginable. This is what I found this morning. What grieves me most about it is that it involves people I know, respect, and love deeply. I discovered it because I keep getting multiple hits on this blog from people Googling the blog author’s name and finding it here, in a post from two years ago. As I read the ensuing comments, the vitriolic tone of many pierced my heart to its core. I knew there had been hurt, I lived through the experiences they described, but it didn’t occur to me that some six to ten years later people would still be carrying around such rancor over it all.
Forgiveness is the hardest thing on earth to do. Our souls long for retribution, for repayment for all the pain we’ve had to endure. I know. I’m the worst when it comes to forgiving. God has had to walk with me through each and every injury, sometimes carrying me, in order for my heart to finally let go and forgive.
It’s important to remember that forgiveness is a process. It’s a choice you make. And make. And make again. Until the hurt and anger lessens, your heart stops making an automatic left turn into dark places, and your thoughts stop running down avenues of revenge. It doesn’t happen overnight. And it often doesn’t even happen within a month. Depending on the level of pain inflicted and the measure of trust that had been placed in the person who hurt you, it could be years before forgiveness truly flourishes.
Matthew 18 spells out the steps Jesus expects us to take to resolve things when we are injured, the last step being to treat the offending brother as if he were an unbeliever if he refuses to listen to even the church’s rebuke. How many of us actually go through with these steps? How many times to we just give up and just walk away from the relationship when the hurt and anger grows too big for us to handle? I know I’m guilty. Its just easier to tell ourselves, and anyone else who’ll listen, how horrible the other person was and how grievously they wronged us, rather than to screw our courage to the sticking place, and go face-to-face with the other person for as long as it takes us to understand their side of the story. No, it’s easier to just cling to our own side and ignore the rest; to never confront the person in the presence of fair-minded witnesses, if we even confront them at all.
But what Matthew 18 never tells us to do is to air our grievances before the world; in the town square, or the main boulevard, or even in a city park. Yet here we are, blogs all over the virtual town square/boulevard known as the Internets, airing grievances of brother-in-Christ against brother-in-Christ. Defaming our brothers and sister in the name of Christ and claiming a Matthew 18 mandate to do so.
Yikes! No wonder so many reject the very idea of becoming a follower of Jesus. We eat our own.
"To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable, because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you." C.S. Lewis
Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry—but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life… Make a clean break with all cutting, backbiting, profane talk. Be gentle with one another, sensitive. Forgive one another as quickly and thoroughly as God in Christ forgave you. — Eph 3:26-27,31-32
Wow. Well written. I ran across that blog the other day as well. It would be cool for people who have had [that church] change their lives tell their stories as well.
Thanks for the thoughts.
Los
[edited by lu]
Thanks, man.
Yeah, your idea sounds good. Problem is, from what I’ve seen happen over there, who ever left that kind of comment would be immediately attacked by the main commentors, who seem bent on keeping the thing focused on the negative. Sad, but true. It’d be nice, though…
I’m sorry but the comment above is absurd. Keeping on the negative. The truth is that the bloggers on [the site] are educated and wise christian men and women. Those who blog from [the church] have not had the teaching and disciplesip as the [website] members. There not better, just older and wiser and maybe a little more artistic–:-)–Jake
Thanks for the comment, Jake. You proved my point perfectly.
Your blog was quite refreshing to read. It is so very important to forgive, not just to say it but to live it on a daily basis. I think your line, “Yikes! No wonder so many reject the very idea of becoming a follower of Jesus. We eat our own.” is very insightful. It’s true! With so much back bighting between Christians why would any unbeliever want to become a Christ follower if that’s what they have to look forward to? What happened to love? What happened to turn the other cheek? What happened to walk the extra mile? Above everything else as followers of Christ we are to love God first then love others over ourselves. After reading the many posts against this church as well as additional blogs and links from those who are posting, it’s hard to find love in what they write.
Thank you, Lydia. It’s good to hear your insight. I’m glad you stopped in and took a moment to comment.
jake, Thanks for your comment. One of the stinky problems with electronic media is you cannot hear the tone of my voice, or see the tears in my eyes as I write. I wept as I wrote this post nearly a month ago, and still weep over the whole situation today. I do have deep compassion for you and everyone involved. The whole thing grieves me deeply, and I have great empathy for you in your pain.
I understand and appreciate your desire to make your position known. However, I have decided not to publish your comment, for several reasons:
1. Your comment specifically mentions the name of the church involved and one of the websites involved, and I do not want those names connected together here. While I have on one occasion mentioned the name of two individuals involved, I have made a deliberate effort to not mention the parties involved, their websites, and the church in a way that would connect them all together, and thus bring more attention and publicity to the specifics of the situation. To that end, and you may have noticed this already, I have deleted your leader’s name (along with the name of another) from the two posts where it appeared, one from 2 years ago and another from two weeks ago. That was a long and involved way to say that I do not want all those names put together in the same context here. I realize that many already know all the names and websites involved, however, there are many who don’t and I won’t let this be the first place they discover it.
Actually, your comment helped me realize los had named the church, so I edited his comment as well. Thank you. And I apologize to everyone for leaving it up so long. I just didn’t notice it. Doh.
2. I no longer belong to the church involved, because I no longer live in the state. So the questions you ask me regarding my church are not relevant to this post, though they are good questions to reflect upon.
3. Finally, and most important of all, I won’t be pulled into your fight with the church or the pastor, nor will I allow you to use this post as a another battleground in that fight. I’m not interested in a debate with you on this issue. You will not change my mind about it, and I seriously doubt I could change yours. You certainly have every right to say whatever you wish on your websites. But this is my blog, and I have the right to determine what it will and will not be about and to steer the conversation in the direction of my choosing. I hope you can respect that.
jake, I hope you are still reading. 🙂 Not posting your comment is in no way meant as a slam or attack on you or your co-sufferers, nor is anything I said here. I hope you can believe that. My heart goes out to you, and especially to your leader in all this. I once respected him deeply and I still love him greatly. I just completely disagree with how you all are going about making your pain and your need for resolution known.
And by the way, your comments about my age and lack of discipleship and/or education did not offend me, so don’t worry there. I actually find them funny because I think if you actually knew my age, and my background, you would realize I am probably older than you think, and have had at least as much training as you. But ultimately, none of that really matters.
In the end, it’s not a person’s age, or the amount of training or education they’ve had, but how they apply what they have learned and how intimately they abide in Jesus that determines their wisdom and maturity. I have known people who’ve been followers of Jesus less than a year who are far more mature and far wiser than people who’ve been Christians 20, 40, even 60 years as well as seminary graduates and ministry veterans with much more training and education than the new follower. Besides, I kinda like still being thought of as a “young’un”! 😉