SEVEN YEARS AGO, one of Austin Seminary’s most beloved professors retired. He was a man of uncommon integrity — an ethicist, a genius at chess, a lover of good music, a brilliant conversation partner, a joy to know and be around. When the fur would start to fly in faculty meetings, he would sit quietly until the opportune moment and then clear his throat and sit up a bit in his seat. At just that moment — still a few seconds before he raised his hand to be recognized — as if by instinct, the din would subside and people would stop their talking (or yelling) because this man, we all sensed, was about to speak. This was the moral authority he possessed. Everybody knew that whatever he had to say would be worth hearing and taking seriously.
So there was appreciation, and much sadness, at his retirement party. All of his colleagues, many staff persons and a slew of students and alumni were there. Speeches were made, toasts were given, cake was sliced, and then it was his turn to speak. As always, we all became silent. With a quavering voice and moistened eyes, he began with words to this effect: “If I have ever offended anyone, if I have ever disappointed anyone, if I have neglected the gift of friendship, if I have hurt or angered any of you, then please know that from the bottom of my heart I am sorry.” And then he went on to assess his own work, to express his deep gratitude for particular friends and to speak of his hopes for his future in the next phase of his life.
What struck me the most, though, was the apology. It was an apology that puzzled most of us, for no one could think of any instance when he had ever offended or disappointed anybody. Maybe this is just what ethicists do, I reasoned to myself. Apologies, after all, are ethical acts at their best.
Many apologies — sincere ones, at least — take time. Apologies are about recognizing and seeking atonement for errors. But we often don’t know, at least at first, how we have erred or for what we need to atone. And if they are demanded of us against our will, or while we are still discerning in what ways we have erred, they are at best half-hearted and not worth accepting.
At the General Assembly in Portland, many friends of mine in the LGBTQ community are hoping for an apology from the church for waiting so long to strike down the barriers welcoming them fully into the life, leadership and rites of the church. Many other friends of mine, also of good conscience, will rightly invoke one of the historic foundational principles of our Presbyterian governance: “that there are truths and forms with respect to which [people] of good characters and principles may differ. And in all these we think it the duty both of private Christians and societies to exercise mutual forbearance toward each other” (Book of Order, F-3.0105).
I believe that a broad church such as ours needs both of these groups; and both of these groups need each other. And this embattled, divided, terrified world needs the church — even as it, too, is itself so embattled, divided and terrified. There is work to do — work that requires us all for as long as we live to bear witness to the transforming grace of God until the day comes when we, like the saints through the ages, are gathered unto the bosom of God, where we will finally know as we’ve always been known. When that day comes, there will be nothing quite so much as forgiveness and acceptance and a finally unbroken communion.
THEODORE J. WARDLAW is president and professor of homiletics at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary in Austin, Texas.
