The Lost Art of Confession
June 16th, 2005 | by Scott |I have a confession to make.
It’s not something I am necessarily proud of but I feel I need to come clean.
I love reading blogs.
I love seeing into the minds of other people and their views on life. I would link more, including some of my favorites, but it seems that some people have a little bit more of a “potty-mouth” than I am comfortable with.
However, one of my favorites is called postsecret. The idea for this site is that people write a secret confession on a postcard and mail it in.
Then their deep dark secrets are posted, anonymously, for the entire world to read.
Some are humorous:
- “I’m Afraid to Answer the Telephone” (No, Tracy, I did not send that one in)
- “I waste office supplies because I hate my boss.”
- “I sit in public and pretend to read, but I’m actually eavesdropping on your conversation.”
Most of the confessions, though, are eye-opening and candid:
- “I am ashamed to have felt such joy after my abortion.”
- “I am a Southern Baptist pastor’s wife. No one knows that I do not believe in God.”
- “I cut myself to kill the pain.”
- “I wished on a dandelion for my husband to die.”
As I sit transfixed weekly reading the new batch of secrets I can’t help but be amazed at the magnitude of pain that inflicts this world.
People are hurting.
They need the opportunity to unburden themselves of the inner weight that they carry.
They need a sense of resolution and closure.
And, invariably, I hang my head each week and think “It should be the church that they go to to ease their load.
Scripture is clear about confession. It is not a suggestion.
It is not just a good idea.
It is a command: “Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed.”
But for many people the church is the last place they would go for healing. For forgiveness.
The one place they could go and find the One who will gladly take their yoke is too often unused. I know this for a fact. I offer an invitation weekly for people to come and seek forgiveness.
They very rarely do.
We, in the church, have lost the beauty of confession.
Of praying for one another for healing and peace.
Why is that? I believe there are several reasons:
- We fear the judgment of people will win out over their compassion.
- We fear that forgiveness will be withheld in favor of condemnation.
- We doubt that the power of prayer can really do anything for our situation.
- We bristle at more well-meaning people telling us how to improve our lives all the while failing to listen to the extent of our pain.
- We fear being vulnerable because we fear being hurt.
We, in the church, need a wake-up call. We need to reclaim the primacy of confession in our fellowship.
We need to foster an environment of forgiveness where people will know that they can find hope and peace.
We need to learn to share our own struggles in a community of compassion.
We need to learn to stop doling out advice and our little nuggets of wisdom and start grieving with the tortured souls that are seeking comfort. (Not that advice is bad, mind you. But it must always be given to the receptive heart in the context of compassionate community.)
We need to learn, once again, to be a refuge in the storm of tortured living.
If we can do that then we can make a difference. We can touch the lives of:
- The college student mired in debt from on-line poker.
- The young girl harboring the shame of promiscuity.
- The widower carrying the guilt of words left unsaid.
- The father struggling with the weight of being a good provider.
- The mother struggling with patience.
- The brother or sister struggling with issues of belief.
To confess is a risky proposition. It is to step off the precipice into a void of uncertainty, unsure how painful the landing will be.
It is to risk judgment and condemnation. Dirty looks and hushed conversations.
What if we could be a safe place for the confessor to land?
What if we would be people who would listen, love and grieve with them?
What if we would extend to them the blessed hope of the peace of Christ?
They wouldn’t need a post-card and a postage stamp anymore.
They would have the body of Christ.
Let’s confess to one another.
6 Responses to “The Lost Art of Confession”
By MamaQ on Jun 16, 2005 | Reply
I think peoples’ aversion to confession, and to honesty in general, is about pride vs. humility. People can’t accept the idea that sometimes, humbling yourself before another (God, a priest, your spouse, a friend, the nation), admitting your wrongs and perhaps most importantly, asking for forgiveness — for a chance to do better — is the only way to break free from guilt and self-loathing. And aren’t guilt and self-loathing two major motivators toward self-destructive behavior/sin?
In my life I’ve genuinely tried to be a person who isn’t afraid to apologize, admit wrongdoing, etc. But as a Catholic, being acutely aware of the, erm, humanity of our priests, it makes it 10 times more difficult to go into the confessional.
Excellent discussion, Scott. Thanks
By scott on Jun 17, 2005 | Reply
Great points. I do feel that pride is a tremendous obstacle to overcome. It’s just that, in my time in ministry, I have seen a tremendous desire from people to unburden themselves of the weight of sin but the fear of how other people will react is too tangible and real for them to step out in such vulnerability. For them the pride is due to their perceived reception from others, not the unwillingness to be honest.
You are right guilt, if not dealt with, can contribute to a downward spiral of destructive behavior.
From a more protestant perspective I view the passage in James as mutual confession. I confess to you, you confess to me. That priestly hierarchy doesn’t work for me. Especially when you see first-hand that priests are human like the rest of us. The beauty in confession lies in two sinful souls seeking healing together. But I digress.
By Chris Campbell on Jun 17, 2005 | Reply
Well stated, my brother! It’s the sick who need a doctor.
And my communion thought was not 45 minutes long…it just felt that way!
By LaFon on Jun 18, 2005 | Reply
Our pride often stands in the way of public confession. One of the lesser points made in sermons is that “sin is sin” and no one is free from it. I don’t believe in “little sins” and “big sins”, just little consequences and big consequences (a “white lie”: Don’t you look great today in that new dress, when we really think they should have bought a size larger (we are the one who is hurt by the lie); or something that really affects more than the person involved in the sin: adulterous behavior, drinking, gambling, etc., that affect the family of the person(s) involved.)Often from the pulpit we hear nothing about these things. It has become acceptable for people to have pre-marital sex and if they have a child and decide not to marry, there are no consquences like I saw when I was growing up. Showers are given when they do decide to marry, or when the baby is born. I am of two minds of all of this. I know what is right and what is wrong with this lifestyle. But, I have children and as a mother I don’t want to alienate any of them or their partners. My children have been brought up to know right and wrong, too. That is why I cling to the Bible verse that states “bring up a child in the way he (she) should go and when they are old they will not depart from it”. I can’t wait ’til they get old! I am not being facetious. This is why I think we begin entirely too late in Sunday school to teach children about the consequences of dating/marrying outside the church; consequences of divorce (too many of them already know that!); consequences of drinking, etc. There are outside forces that overpower our kids thinking: political correctness, peer pressure, etc. Look at all the grandparents raising grandkids, as well as other family members taking the place of the parents or having to help in a monetary way. Thanks for letting me put in my two cents.
By Lachen on Jun 28, 2005 | Reply
Brilliant and insghtful.
In a mixture of devils’ advocate and to give voice to my own thoughts about this topic, here goes:
I believe that the audience and the purpose plays an incredibly powerful role in confession. How willing, able, open, equipped are we to hear those confessions of those around us? How ready are we to hold others ccountable for the sins they confess? How ready are we to be held to the same standard.
The church of God is not a dumping ground or a “feel-good” place to offload a myriad of sins and transgressions against one another and God without willingness and ability to address the source of the sin and heal through the intervention of Christ and the Holy Spirit as invited through prayer.
I stand at this very moment unable to fully participate in confession - both the giving and receiving end, with fellow human beings outside my marriage. I have tended to be the “sounding board” and confessional for many, many, many. And though I love that God continues to use me in this way, I often wonder - to what end? I feel so deeply the burdens of others and lift so many in prayer each day. And in that, I am 100% ocnvinced God is working. But as to my own sins, faults, and footholds of Satan in my own life, there is little audience I have somehow deemed “able” to share this with. It is not fear on my part, it is largely an earned sense of hopelessness, which is palpably sad to admit. I dearly desire and seek to be able to fulfill the mutual confessional commandment of my Lord with the kind of healing and peace He describes. But those powerful and necessary dynamics of confession, even for this lifelong Christian who deeply believes in the power of prayer, accountability, and God above all else, have never manifested themselves in my life.
Thus, I hear your cry as it echoes my own.
If we are willing to confess with bare-skinnned honesty, we must also be willing and equipped to bear one another’s burdens and to direct all sin to God in prayer and be HEALED from the choices and situations which mar our lives and prevent us from standing unblemished before Him, in the shadow of the Cross.
I hope that makes sense. Ironically, it is my own confession.
Pressing on toward the goal and thrilled to be talking about this with you…
By scott on Jun 29, 2005 | Reply
Tremendous thoughts. My plea for confession, I admit, is fairly utopian.
Actually that may be too cynical on my part. Chalk it up to seeing the need for the church to be so much more than it is.
I agree that the church is not a dumping ground. The problem is, however, that too many of our churches have become a place to ignore sin altogether. It’s not fashionable to preach the dangers of sinful behavior.
In this relativistic wake we are hampered by the reluctance to confess much of anything.
Unfortunately, I understand all too well your reticence to take part in confession. As a “paid” guy I find it all too often impossible to share the burdens of my heart. Preachers should never struggle with sinful behavior, right?
Yet I do. And I live in a culture that objectifies clergy, holding them to an ideal that is seldom attainable and then shakes their head when they fall unbelieving that another minister has fallen.
We have lost the reciprocal nature of confession. We have lost the tender embrace of knowing community. We have lost the boldness and sincerity to “own up” to our imperfections.
Yet what is the end of confession? Why are we commanded to do so? I believe Bono has once again hit on something: “Sometimes You Can’t Make It Own Your Own”
Man, that is much more sporadic than I like to be.