Devoted: Confession
We Confess Our Sins So We Know Grace
James 5:13-20
Rev. Tim Callow
Preached Sun. September 26, 2021
In the beginning, before all worlds, God spoke and said, “Let there be light.” In the fullness of time God’s Word, Jesus Christ, became a human being. He is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and the sure path to salvation. That Word broke down the barrier between God and humanity that we call sin. And that Word gave us words that we might speak. Words such as “Jesus Christ is Lord,” “Our Father, who art in heaven,” “I baptize you in the name of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” “This is my body, this is my blood.” We have been given words of tremendous power and might.
As James concludes his letter he’s coming back to his theme of speech. What then should we say? I’ve already addressed one right use of the tongue, that is worship. But he also lists petition, prayers of healing, confession, and rebuke as good forms of speech. Prayers of petition and healing will arise some other time. What I want to discuss this morning is confession. After all, we can only talk about rebuke after we have confessed.
I’ve been to different churches that have done confession in different ways. I’ve said, “merciful Lord, we confess that we have not loved you with our whole heart, we have failed to be an obedient church, we have not done your will, we have broken your law, we have rebelled against your love, we have not loved our neighbors and we have not heard the cry of the needy.” I know that one the best, that’s what we use out of our hymnal. I’ve also said, “We acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness, which we from time to time most grievously have committed, by thought, word, and deed, against they divine Majesty, provoking most justly thy wrath and indignation against us. We do earnestly repent, and are heartily sorry for these our misdoings; the remembrance of them is grievous unto us, the burden of them is intolerable.” What are we doing?
I’ve heard some people tell me that they are troubled by the words of the confession we use because they feel like words are being put into their mouths. They do not feel as if they’ve “failed to be an obedient Church” and the word failure is pretty strong. The confessions we say can feel like self-flagellation more than a cure. I’m sure that as I said the words of the Book of Common Prayer “we acknowledge and bewail our manifold sins and wickedness” that some of us felt uncomfortable. We don’t want to come to Church feeling judged because we get judged enough in this world. We want to come to Church and know we are forgiven and have a place to belong. That God welcomes all of us to his house regardless of our station in life. So when we say these words about how nasty we can be it seems to fall out of place.
But we are called to confess our sins. In the first place because we are all sinners. All have sinned and fallen short, Paul tells us. We are all in need of forgiveness, otherwise we wouldn’t be here. So we confess our sins that we may be cleansed, that the burden might be released. God's grace truly is freely offered to all, but we need to remember the story of the pharisee and the publican. How the pharisee’s prayer was all about how much better he was compared to the publican, and how the publican would not even look up to heaven, but only confessed his status as a sinner. It was the publican who received forgiveness, and the pharisee who was left in his sins. Forgiveness is offered to the sinner, the physician goes to the sick. We must ask to receive, but he who seeks, finds.
That is why we say our confession, but as a matter of churchly convention why do we confess in the manner we confess? At least, as a corporate body. We can always confess directly to God, or to one another as James suggests. But when we come together as a Church we confess in a manner that may seem overblown. It may seem untruthful. So why do it?
When we speak in worship we speak in a certain register, a certain key. What we say is heightened and perhaps a little hyperbolic, but it’s nevertheless true and right. Think of it this way, if you were to lay down with the one you love and you were to say “honey, you are the most handsome man or the most beautiful woman I know” would that be true? Well, in a manner of speaking no. It may be more accurate to say, “Honey, you are a standard deviation more beautiful than most people I know in town.” But you’d probably suffer for that. It may be accurate in a sense, but it’s not the right thing to say, and it doesn’t express the truth you mean to express anyway. You’re not speaking the language of love, you’re speaking the language of, well, statistics. And that’s not usually what belongs in a relationship. That we speak in different registers doesn’t make us any less authentic, it only makes us more authentic. What’s inauthentic is putting the wrong register in the wrong situation, like a politician trying her hand at stand up comedy on the house floor.
So, too, when we confess our sins we speak in a different register. We speak in a register of humility and contriteness. Even Paul says, “I am the chief of sinners.” In a certain sense that’s just downright false. He didn’t betray Jesus Christ like Judas, for instance. But in another sense it’s absolutely true, because he comes to God in meekness and humility. So too, it may be more accurate for us to say, “I did a few things wrong, but by and large I did pretty good.” But it’s not the appropriate way to go about a confession. We confess hyperbolically, if I can use that word, that we might know God’s hyperbolic grace. We come in humility, expressing our manifold sins and wickedness, that we might know more strongly and proclaim more boldly God’s overwhelming grace. And we confess not as an individual, but as a corporate body. All our failures, all our mistakes, all our sins. That we would know there is not a single thing God will refuse to forgive. Not a single thing that will make God turn away.
The message of confession is not that we are a miserable lot of sinners who don’t deserve to live. The message of confession is that God forgives even the most miserable sinner, that no one is outside of grace, that no one is so lost they cannot be reclaimed, so damaged that they cannot be made whole. That God’s forgiveness and grace extends to everyone, everywhere, if they will but knock at the door.