Confess!

Confess!

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

March 5, 2017

Scripture: Psalm 32

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Have you ever noticed this one strange thing about the order of worship I use here? Lots of other pastors do it too. It’s not new. It’s really traditional. Take a look at your bulletin for this morning, or just recall something we did here just a few minutes ago. We did a prayer of confession, first a unison prayer read aloud from Psalm 51 and then more personally in silence. Now notice what we did right before the prayer of confession, or rather what I did right before it. I gave you what’s called a “Call to Confession.” The strange thing about our order or worship that I want to point out to you is that confession is the only part of the service that has a special call to do it. Sure, I may invite you to join in the Call to Worship or to other parts of the service, but there’s no special piece of the liturgy called Call to Call to Worship or to any other part of the service. So why a special Call to Confession? Beyond that, why does the Call to Confession sound so much like  an explanation of why we confess, or even sound like an excuse, a pardon me, for my asking you to do it? I don’t explain why we sing hymns. I don’t explain why we read scripture. I don’t explain why we do anything but confess. Why?

I think that there are actually a couple of reasons why we have a Call to Confession. One is that it’s really traditional. Classic forms of Christian worship have had a call to confession in them for a very, very long time. I didn’t think up the call to confession. I found it in the traditional order of worship that I was taught and that I and a lot of other pastors use. So like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof who explains so much about Jewish life by singing “Tradition!”, I explain the Call to Worship in part at least by saying tradition.

Which is all very well and good of course, but we Congregationalists aren’t all that big on tradition. Not like Roman Catholic Christians are, and certainly not like Eastern Orthodox Christians are, who take it as a badge of honor that nothing really new has happened in their form of Christian worship since the eighth century. So I think there’s another reason why I and so many other Christian pastors do a call to confession in our worship services. I think we do because we modern people don’t much like confession. We may even think we don’t have anything to confess. We’re good people, aren’t we? So why confess? When I was in seminary I did a pastoral internship at a church in Seattle that wouldn’t let their pastor do a prayer of confession because they thought they were good people and didn’t have anything to confess. They were good people, but they surely were wrong when they said they didn’t have anything to confess. I’m quite sure their feelings about confession weren’t unique to them. Lots of people don’t like prayers of confession, so many of us pastors use the call to confession as a kind of short explanation to our people why they should do it anyway.

Lots of people today don’t much like prayers of confession, but confession of sin is an ancient spiritual discipline. We just heard a profound ancient testimony to the power of confession from ancient Israel’s prayer book, the Psalms. There the psalmist of Psalm 32 starts out reflecting on the saving power of God’s forgiveness. He says Blessed is the one whose transgressions are forgiven, and blessed are those whose sins God does not count against them. Then he reflects on what his life was like when he did not confess his sin. He says that when he kept silent about it he groaned all day long and his bones wasted away, that surely being a metaphorical statement not a literal one. His strength was sapped. He wasn’t doing well at all when he didn’t confess his sin.

Then he confessed his sin to God, and God forgave him. When that happened he was able to see who and what God really is, that God is a place of safety and a refuge from the pains and cares of the world. He came to know God’s unfailing love surrounding him all his days.

That, folks, is the power of confession. I am convinced that God’s love and forgiveness are always there all around us whether we ask for them or not. The problem isn’t that God doesn’t forgive. The problem is that we don’t know that God forgives. At some deep level we know that we fall short. We know that we disappoint God. I know that I do, and I know that everyone else does too, for we are created, fallible beings not gods. Our knowledge of our sin blocks our living into God’s grace.

That’s where the power of confession comes in, just like Psalm 32 says. Confessing our sin clears away an obstacle to our knowing God’s forgiveness, our knowing God’s love. Turning our sin over to God in prayers of confession opens the way for God’s love and forgiveness to flood our souls, our hearts, our minds, our very being. Confession really can be that powerful.

Confession is appropriate and needed year round, but Lent is a particularly appropriate season for learning about it and practicing it. Lent is preparation for receiving anew God’s greatest gift to us—the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. It is through those gifts that God’s grace comes to us Christians. It came differently for the psalmist of Psalm 32, for he lived hundreds of years before Jesus. Still, it came to him through his prayer of confession. God’s grace, God’s forgiveness comes to us through Jesus Christ. So as we move through Lent this year, let’s not be reluctant about confessing our sin. When we do, God’s forgiveness can fill our lives with light and hope even in this season which is more one of darkness than of light. The psalmist says I acknowledged my sin to God, and God forgave the guilt of my sin. It can be that way for us too. Thanks be to God! Amen.