Reading: by journalist Lee Kravitz from …unfinished business… One Man’s Extraordinary Year of Trying to Do Things Right (p. 12)
On Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, we fast and pray. I used to love Yom Kippur when I was a kid. At temple I would stand next to my father, lightly beating my chest as we recited the sins we had committed.
We each would elbow each other when we though a sin was particularly applicable. “For the sin which we have committed before Thee by spurning parents and teachers.” (I got elbowed.) “For the sin we have committed before Thee by hardening our hearts.” (I elbowed him.) “For the sin we have committed before Thee by denying and lying.” (I got elbowed.) “For the sin we have committed before Thee by stretching the neck in pride.” (I got elbowed, then him.) It would go on and on for dozens of sins until we would say, in unison. “For all these, O God of forgiveness, forgive us, pardon us, grant us atonement.”
On Yom Kippur, God forgave us… But he only gave us absolution for the vows that involved him. It was much harder to atone for the sins we had committed against other people. We had to ask the person to forgive us. If he [or she] chose not to, the wrong would persist…
Reading: by psychologist and Buddhist monk Jack Kornfield, from The Art of Forgiveness, Lovingkindness, and Peace (p. 36)
[Alan Wallace illustrates a truth from the Tibetan teachings:] Imagine walking along a sidewalk with your arms full of groceries, and someone roughly bumps into you so that you fall and your groceries are strewn over the ground. As you rise up from the puddle of broken eggs and tomato juice, you are ready to shout out, “You idiot! What’s wrong with you? Are you blind?” But just before you can catch your breath to speak, you see that the person who bumped into you actually is blind. [She], too, is sprawled in the spilled groceries, and your anger vanishes in an instant, to be replaced by sympathetic concern: “Are you hurt? Can I help you up?” Our situation is like that. When we clearly realize that the source of disharmony and misery in the world is ignorance, we can open the door of wisdom and compassion.”
Rituals of Forgiveness
A Sermon Delivered on October 9, 2011
By
The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann
“Whatever you do, don’t say you’re sorry.”
That’s the message that was conveyed to me last winter by a concerned member of this church, when he heard that an older woman had slipped on the ice in our parking lot. Fortunately she was only bruised. No bones had been broken.
He was right to offer words of warning, because apologizing was indeed the first thing I wanted to do. But he explained that by apologizing I would inadvertently be acknowledging that the church was at fault. By apologizing, I would be saying that we were negligent in failing to keep the parking lot ice-free. I would be opening the door to a lawsuit.
“Deny and defend” is the policy that has long been recommended by lawyers and insurance companies looking out for the best interests of their clients. Any admission of fault, any expression of regret would likely invite litigation, and a costly day in court.
It is the same policy that has long guided doctors and hospitals when dealing with patients who are somehow harmed in the course of their medical treatment. Maybe a surgery went wrong, maybe a misdiagnosis occurred, maybe a doctor or nurse simply made a mistake. An innocent mistake, with serious consequences for the patient. A number on a chart misread, a word misspelled, a critical detail overlooked.
The result is that someone ends up hurt - often both physically and emotionally - frightened, confused, maybe angry, maybe bent on retribution or revenge.
Saying you are sorry means making yourself vulnerable to someone you have wronged. Someone who, you know, has reason to be upset with you, because you know you hurt them. Someone who may want to hurt you back.
* * *
Apologizing is not easy. It is risky. But it is a necessary first step toward forgiveness.
And maybe apologizing isn’t as risky as we think. Beginning in 2001 the University of Michigan Health System implemented a new program that encouraged doctors to report their medical mistakes, which included “telling patients about errors; explaining who made the error, how it occurred and what steps were taken to prevent a similar mistake in the future; making a sincere apology to the patient and their family; and offering fair compensation for harm [done].”
Some worried that the new program would be like handing over a “blank check” and inviting lawsuits.
But in fact, it turns out that once mistakes were acknowledged and sincere apologies as well as compensation offered, the claim rates went down more than 30 percent. Not only that, the number of lawsuits filed went down by more than 60 percent. And legal expenses dropped by 60 percent, too.
I hadn’t heard about this study last winter. But its results are consistent with the course of action I chose. Despite the words of warning - I did apologize profusely to the victim of our slippery parking lot. And no lawsuits followed.
* * *
Saying I’m sorry, and asking forgiveness has never been easy. Humans have struggled with this long before the invention of litigation and malpractice attorneys.
Because we are human, we sometimes mess up. Sometimes we make bad choices. Sometimes we act in anger. Sometimes - caught up in the moment - we close our eyes to the consequences of our actions. Sometimes we are thoughtless and careless, and do things we know aren’t right. We say things we regret and which we wouldn’t have said, if we hadn’t been so rushed, or so tired, or so anxious. And someone gets hurt.
Sometimes we mess up. And then what do we do? Do we deny it, embarrassed by our failure to live up to our own moral convictions? Do we try to belittle the harm done, minimizing our mistake, and its effects on others? Do we try to sweep it under the carpet?
Sometimes we mess up. We do things that don’t reflect our best selves.
There is a religious term for this. The Hebrew word is cheyt. According to Rabbi Michael Lerner, cheyt is a term from archery, which describes an arrow shot toward a target, that’s gone off course. It missed the mark. The English word for cheyt is sin.
The Jewish High Holy Days, which ended yesterday with Yom Kippur, are devoted to the effort to cope with the human reality of sin, the reality that sometimes we mess up, sometimes we miss the mark.
* * *
In his book …unfinished business… Lee Kravitz writes about an unexpected spiritual journey he undertook, when he was suddenly fired from his job as a writer. This was an especially hard blow for him, because throughout his adult life he had always been a workaholic. For years, he put friendships, family relations, and most non-work-related activities on the back burner. He lived for his work.
Now, suddenly out of a job and at loose ends, he realized how disconnected he had become from the people who mattered the most to him. Once that insight thoroughly sunk in, he decided he would not immediately hurl himself into the search for a new job, but instead take a year to reconnect and make amends.
So he sets out to repay a thirty year old debt. He makes a condolence call that has been long overdue. He visits an abandoned family relative. And he fulfills a forgotten promise. His journeys take him to a refugee camp in Kenya, a monastery in California, the desert of southern Iran, and a Little League game in upstate New York. On each of these journeys, his effort to reach out and reconnect opens new and unexpected paths toward personal and spiritual growth.
Kravitz writes,
“All of us have unfinished business. It can be a friend we lost touch with or a mentor we never thanked; it can be a call we meant to make or a pledge we failed to honor. It can be a goal we lost sight of or a spiritual quest we put on hold. Too often, life takes over and pushes the experiences that might enrich, enlarge, or even complete us to the bottom of our to-do list.
The hurdles we face in tackling our unfinished business can seem impossibly high, but the first step in clearing them is usually quite simple: Write an e-mail or make a phone call. You can never tell when the weight you’ve been shouldering will slip away, leaving you a more complete and loving person.” (p. 209)
* * *
There is some debate about whether it is more important to seek forgiveness or to offer forgiveness.
The vast majority of literature on forgiveness you will find in the library or the self-help section of book stores focuses on the human need to forgive, rather than to be forgiven. It seems more readers are interested in healing the hurts they have suffered, rather the helping heal the harm they have caused.
Perhaps this reflects the bias of a Christian culture. Some of the most memorable passages of the gospels speaks of our need to forgive. “How often should I forgive my brother, who sins against me? As many as seven times?” Peter asks Jesus. And Jesus responds, “I do not say to you seven times but seventy times seven.”
In the Gospel of Luke we are told, you should “forgive and you will be forgiven.” Our own desire to be forgiven is what drives the need to forgive others. That is one way to understand this passage.
Another way to read it is as acknowledgement that the give and take of forgiveness often go hand in hand.
That’s the message I find in the Buddhist reflection about two grocery shoppers who collide on the sidewalk. The storyteller’s first inclination is to be angry and self-righteous because of the hurt suffered, and the groceries spoiled. His first impulse is to place the blame on the other person - the woman who thoughtlessly knocked him over.
But at second glance he realizes that he himself may be the one who is responsible for the accident. The other person on the sidewalk, after all, is blind.
And thus in a split second the storyteller is transformed from an angry man demanding an apology, to a compassionate man offering an apology.
The Buddhist story side-steps the question of whether the man or the woman is the one to blame for the harm done. Instead it tells us our misery isn’t caused by other people, but is perpetuated by our own ignorance - our own blindness. Once we understand this, we can open the door to wisdom and compassion.
* * *
Life is complicated and people are complex. In real life, no one is completely innocent of wrong-doing. In real life, everyone has suffered hurt.
The collisions and conflicts, the harms and hurts we suffer can serve to divide us. Creating walls of anger or guilt, of accusation or denial. We can be divided in assigned categories or self-selected roles, with those who inflict harm on one side, and those who suffer harm on the other. We can be divided within our selves, conflicted about our failures to live up to our own cherished ideals, our struggles to fully embody our beliefs.
Rituals of forgiveness are designed to help us break down the walls that divide us.
I don’t know what sort of ritual would work for you. We can beat our chest and recite the sins we have committed. We can send an email, or pick up a phone. We can reach out to a family member nearly forgotten, or to a friend we slighted long ago. We can light a candle or visit a grave.
Jack Kornfield suggests a series of three meditations. The first focuses on forgiveness from others. He says, “Let yourself remember and visualize the ways you have hurt others. See the pain you have caused out of your own fear and confusion. Feel your own sorrow and regret… and then as each person comes to mind, gently say: I ask for your forgiveness.”
The second focuses on forgiveness for ourselves. He says, “Feel your own precious body and life. Let yourself see the ways you have hurt or harmed yourself… Feel the sorrow you have carried from this and sense that you can release these burdens… Repeat [quietly]: I forgive myself.”
The third meditation focuses on forgiveness for those who have hurt you. “There are many ways we have been harmed by others, abused or abandoned, knowingly or unknowingly, in thought, word or deed.” We each have been betrayed, Jack Kornfield writes, “Let yourself picture and remember the many ways this is true. Feel the sorrow you have carried from the past… You have carried this sorrow long enough… To the extent that you are ready, offer forgiveness. Mindful of those who have wronged you, recite to yourself: I forgive you.”
* * *
Seeking forgiveness isn’t easy. Sincerely saying “I’m sorry,” can seem risky. But odds are, it is not as risky as it seems. And the rewards are great.
We will always be flawed. Despite our best intentions, we will make bad decisions again. We will mess up and we will miss the mark.
But when we dare to say “sorry” our every failure becomes an opportunity to reach out to others. Our every flaw becomes an opportunity to make healing connections with others, and within ourselves. Every accident becomes an opportunity to extend sympathetic concern.
Forgiveness can turn life’s most persistent troubles into doorways to wisdom and compassion. Forgiveness can teach us the deepest meaning of love.
May we dare to take this risk.
Amen.
