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Important things to remember:
So then, confess your sins to one another
and pray for one another, so that you will be healed.
The prayer of a good person has a powerful effect. James 5:16
- "He who is alone with his sin is utterly alone."
- Does our fellowship of worship, prayer, service, or
study allow us to be honest sinners? Or must we conceal
our faults, failures, and every kind of missing the high
calling of God from ourselves and each other?
- The Grace of the Gospel confronts us with the truth
and says: "You are a sinner, a great, desperate sinner;
now come, as the sinner that you are, to God who loves you.
He wants you as you are; he does not want anything from
you, a sacrifice, a work; he wants you alone." We can hide
nothing from God. There are no secrets. God wants us to
see ourselves the way he sees us. God wants us to see ourselves
as we are (which often isn't too lovely). God wants us to
see ourselves the way we can be (which is the way God wants
us to be and that we cannot be by ourselves).
- What does it mean to be a sinner? Is it about something
we've done? Is it about something we've failed to do? Is
it about the way we are with ourselves, with others, and/or
with God? Is it about something we should, ought, must,
or have to do but have not done or not done well? What is
sin, anyway? Is sin as much about focus on self as it is
on thoughts, feelings, or actions we call evil? Just what
is it we are called upon to confess to one another? What
have sin and pride to do with each other?
- The ministry of listening. The first service that
one owes the others in community is to listen to them. To
love is to listen (Tillich). It is about listening wholly.
It is about listening as an exercise in healing others.
It isn't about ourselves and waiting for a chance to say
what we want to say. It's about hearing the others confession
of where s/he is..
- What would it mean to dare to be the sinner you are?
- Christ became our brother in the flesh in order that
we might believe in him. In him the love of God came to
the sinner. Through him people could be sinners (honest
about their condition) and only so could we be helped. All
sham ended in the presence of Christ
- Jesus gave his followers the authority to hear the
confession of sin and to forgive sin in his name. John 20:23.
Christ became our brother in order to help us. Christ gives
us each other as brother/sister to help each other by hearing
each other's confessions and forgiving each other with Christ's
power and authority.
- This power and authority of hearing confession and
forgiving comes with the burden of keeping the secret of
the confession … we are to tell no one else, just as God
tells no one else … we are to have our own version of the
Sea of Forgetfulness.
- Confession is breakthrough to community. Sin demands
that a total person, a person alone. Sin wants to remain
unknown. In the darkness of the unexpressed sin poisons
the whole person's being. In the light of the Gospel confession
dispels the darkness and breaks the walls of seclusion.
The person enters the fellowship of sinners who live by
grace.
- Confession is one of the ways we hang on the Cross
with Jesus. We refuse to bear the Cross when we are ashamed
to take on the shameful death of the sinner in confession!
When we confess, we experience the Cross of Jesus as our
rescue and salvation.
- In confession, we breakthrough to new life. Confession
is discipleship. Honesty is discipleship.
- We need to ask ourselves if we have been deceiving
ourselves with our confession of sin to God … that we've
only been confessing to ourselves (and not to God) and granting
ourselves absolution?
- Confession to one another holds the possibility of
breaking our circles of self-deception. Our confessor can
speak words of certainty and absolution from outside the
circle of Self. And, may, perhaps, suggest penance (doing
what is possible to right whatever is amiss).
- Confession should deal with concrete (real, not neurotic)
sins. We need to be able to answer the question that Jesus
put to Bartimaeus, What do you want me to do for you? It's
not sufficient, either spiritually or psychologically to
say, I want forgiveness. We need to be clear to ourselves,
to God, to our confessor what we want to be forgiven for.
- Confession is not a law … it's not a should, ought,
must, or have to. It is an offer of divine help.
- Only a brother/sister under the Cross can hear confessions.
It is not life experience, but experience of the Cross that
makes a person a worthy hearer of confessions.
- Confession prepares one for full participation in
the celebration of the Lord's Supper. It then becomes a
celebration that mirrors our eternal fellowship.
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