Idaho faith: ‘I’m sorry’ are two powerful words we need to utter in the eyes of God

“I’m sorry” are some of the most important words in the English language. Married couples need to learn to say that to one another frequently. Children learn to say it, and good parents will model how important it is to mean those words, too.

On most every Sunday, Episcopalians will pray together words of confession in this or some other form: “Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your name. Amen.”

This prayer is an invitation to moral reflection. We are all responsible for what we spend our energy thinking, saying and doing. We are accountable for what we do, and for what we fail to do. As a Christian, I’d say we have a responsibility to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. Week by week, there’s an acknowledgment that we have not reached moral perfection. We are endlessly striving.

And thus we confess. I may not have intended to hurt someone, but my actions or inaction may have hurt them anyway. And we confess as a group because we recognize that it’s not just what you or I do individually that may hurt others; a whole group of people may be hurt because of what we do or don’t do.

If our conscience is fully functioning, we want to recognize our mistakes and will seek to make amends for how we’ve harmed others. We might do it because we feel guilty, and hopefully we admit how our actions have harmed others because we care about them. A fully functioning and healthy conscience should help us to understand ourselves and to care more deeply for others. Simultaneously we may feel guilt that we hurt someone and we may feel a sense of freedom: freedom to be a better person, freedom to make the world a better place, freedom to seek healing, justice and reconciliation.

A conscience is far from self-hatred. A fully functioning conscience is essential if we are to love others and to love ourselves. Admitting wrongdoing, either in what we personally have done or what we as a wider community have done, is far from an admission of weakness. It makes us stronger. It makes us wiser. It makes us more like the people we say we are.

A shallow conscience, on the other hand, is the quickest route to one of the sins that Jesus called out repeatedly: hypocrisy. Hypocrisy holds others to a standard that one refuses to meet. How often we’ve seen religious leaders sit in the judgment seat to condemn the sins of others while they themselves engage in the same or worse sins! No wonder many people don’t listen to moral leadership from religious leaders. Who wants to follow a hypocrite?

And then so often these same religious leaders claim that they are forgiven and thus immune from blame. What a shame to weaponize forgiveness this way and make it into a shadow of what it should be. No wonder people are quick to dismiss the misdeeds of the past as if nothing happened.

To return to the prayer of confession: At the end we pray that we want to delight in God’s will and walk in God’s ways. We can’t just pray for forgiveness and go right back to the things that hurt others. We have to commit to doing better. We have to change our ways, and that isn’t easy, but it’s infinitely worth it.

As a Christian, I’d say we need to commit to “Love God, love your neighbor as yourself” because this Way of Love brings wholeness, healing and justice to the world.

“I’m sorry.” “We’re sorry.” May the power of those words lead to healing and self-reflection for us all.