Letter to the Church

There are times that I love my church, and times when I'm frustrated by "it' - really the people who make up the church. I'm ashamed to admit that there are moments whether I question if it's worth it, or if I should run off to another church that's "more perfect" than mine. Cathie has been dealing with some crap being thrown at her by a couple of leaders in our church recently and in that context she shared with me this letter to a church that she found in Ronald Rolheiser's book, Forgotten Among the Lillies:

How much I must criticize you, my church, and yet how much I love you!
You have made me suffer more than anyone and yet I owe more to you than to anyone. I should like to see you destroyed and yet I need your presence. You have given me much scandal and yet you alone have made me understand holiness. Never in this world have I seen anything more compromised, more false,yet never have I touched anything more pure, more generous, or more beautiful. Countless times I have felt like slamming the door of my soul in your face, and yet, every night I have prayed that I might die in your sure arms! No, I cannot be free of you, for I am one with you, even if not completely you. Then to where would I go? To build another church? But I could not build one without the same defects, for they are my defects. And again, if I were to build another church, it would be my church, not Christ's church. No, I am old enough. I know better.

Rolheiser Continues:

What a magnificent description of the church - flawed yet divine, meditating God's presence even as it obstructs it. What is to be said in the face of the fact that the institutional church is flawed, compromised, corrupted by power, fraught with human weakness and pettiness?
What is to be said in the face of the fact that the church has never lived radically and fully the Gospel it preaches?
What is to be said in the face of the fact that, in its darker moments, the church has hurt, and continues to hurt, countless persons? How can it claim credibility and how can it claim to mediate God's presence in the light of this?

When we are born into a family we bear its birthmark. We can dislike it, we can get angry with it, we can stay away from family celebrations for long periods, we can rage against its faults, and we can fill with bitterness and protest that it should be more loving, more understanding, less quick to judge and assign guilt - but in the end it is our family and we want to die reconciled with it.
It is the same with the institutional church. It is not God. The institutional church is no more identifiable with God than my historical father is identifiable with God the Father. But, like our historical parents, it is real, it is what we actually meet on earth. As with our real family, we can dislike it, rage at its faults, and be bitter about its imperfections . We can wish for another family. We can fight with it and stay away for long periods, but in the end we bear its mark on our skin, it is ours, it is the actual and only place in history where we contact the historical Christ.
It is because of this, its inexorable reality, that we have such strong feelings about it. There are times when we fell like slamming the door of our soul into its face, and yet, daily, we pray somehow to die in its arms. It is because of this that we too ultimately realize that we can never really leave the church.