At sundown tonight through the following sundown, many Jewish people will be celebrating Yom Kippur (also known as the Day of Atonement). It’s an exciting-but-solemn holy day in the Jewish calendar, as it is a time of deep personal and collective repentance.
I’ve written about this day before, on this blog and for RELEVANT:
The systems are broken and the ideologies are throwing punches.
Everywhere from the newspaper to YouTube to the classroom, we come in contact with messages that promote a particular ideology while damning another. Whether the topic is gas prices, climate control or global poverty, there are a lot of people who are convinced that solutions to modern crises are contingent on their personal ideology overpowering that of their opponents.
We’ve all witnessed the variety of ideologies expressed in such forums; we’re versed in their lingo and typical arguments. By our decisions, we choose to align with certain ideologies.
Suppose you need toothpaste. The pearly whites are getting a bit ivory-meets-canary, so you embark on a trip to a big chain store instead of a small general store in your neighborhood. The voice of one ideology sits on your shoulder and says, ‘Listen fool, you’re supporting the corporate machine. A lot of corners are cut to make that toothpaste affordable for you.’ But, just as you’re ready to boycott all big business, another ideological voice starts to clamor. ‘Are you going to just buy locally instead? Mom and Pop stores provide fewer jobs in your town. And you’ll pay more for the toothpaste. Consume everything from local business and you’ll be out of date money, or (even more compelling) the money used to sponsor your Compassion International kid.’
(read the rest of that article here)
One of the beautiful and necessary things about Yom Kippur is that it summons people to confess more than “personal” sin before their “personal” Lord. There is an emphasis on systemic sin and the very complicated corruption and brokenness that exists in the world today.
Last night there was a debate in the American presidential race, and it was blatantly clear that the problems which face America and the world are immense, and that neither candidate has even the semblance of a clue of how to fix things. And the problem isn’t just politicians, or just Wall Street. Americans have become greedy, unloving people, feeling “owed” things that aren’t affordable or practical, always certain that it’s the next guy’s responsibility to serve the nation.
The economy is crashing. The housing market is a mess. There’s an energy crisis and we’re going to be forced to choose between environmental stewardship and a quick jump-start to our economy. Iran wants to acquire nuclear weapons and wipe Israel off the map. Russia is ready to recreate the Soviet Union and drag the US into another Cold War. On the giant global scale, there is plenty of darkness and sin.
At the opposite end of the scale – at the most grassroots level – sin is also a serious problem. While God is certainly restoring me, it’s true that I often act as a very hurt and broken person. Some of my words and actions, formed out of hurt and brokenness, go on to wound other hurt and broken people. God is desiring to create shalom, or wholeness, in the world, and, while I sometimes obey and partner with Him in that endeavor, I sometimes get distracted and lured into breaking shalom rather than building it. As Derek Webb says, “I am so easily satisfied by the call of lovers less wild.” That’s me in my disobedience.
Brokenness and corruption exist on a level as personal as the individual and as large and vast as the globe. Yom Kippur is an opportunity to bring each type of sin before God and to ask not only for atonement but for restoration.
Today is the eve of Yom Kippur, Erev Yom Kippur. One of the customs of Judaism on Erev Yom Kippur is to gather for a sunset service before transition into the holy day. During that service, it’s common for a leader to recite with his congregation the following: ”May all the people of Israel be forgiven, including all the strangers who live in their midst, for all the people are in fault.”
It’s true – all people are in fault. We are all contributing to brokenness. We are the breakers and the broken. What I appreciate about the above prayer is that the emphasis on the collective and the inclusion of the “strangers.” While as Christians we see the forgiveness of sins as concurrent with an acknowledgement of Jesus as Messiah, I think it’s completely “in-bounds” for us to ask God to be gracious and merciful toward the whole world. With our Jewish friends, Christians can pray to the God of Abraham and ask to bring purity to the world and to eradicate corruption and brokenness on a wide-spread level.
This is fairly common practice in American Christianity when it comes to politics. Americans often pray (think: National Day of Prayer) that God would help national leaders (who aren’t necessarily God-following people) and give them wisdom. On Yom Kippur we can pray not only for people who are in positions of prestige, but for every breaker-and-broken in this world.
God, help us. God, save us in the most present, practical, pertinent ways.
We don’t need forgiveness and restoration and blessing so that we can live on a platform of favored status; we need those things so that we can be better instruments of bringing shalom to the world and fulfilling the Abrahamic Covenant which is so emphasized in both Old and New Testaments of our Scripture.
I just can’t emphasize enough how good I think it is for Christians to join with Jews in prayer and fasting during Yom Kippur. For American Christians whose context for collective prayer is a National Day of Prayer when many people simply ask God to make our national wealthy and exempt from the troubles of the world, we can use this day as a collective declaration that we are wrong, breaking and broken, as Christians and Jews, in our nations, in our churches and synagogues, as a whole of Creation. God has called us to an eschatology of hope and progressive reconciliation, and we so often fail to partner in the mission.
Yom Kippur gives us a chance to bring our entire world before God, for the people of God to confess not only their sin but to acknowledge the wide-spread sin of the world, and to ask for God’s help in rectifying the Kingdom of God, New Jerusalem, in this world. We have the chance to bring all of the so-big-it-seems-there’s-no-way-out problems of the world before our God and beg, “God, make a way.”
We have a chance to do this in Abrahamic unity, beginning at sundown tonight.
