First, we have to actually make the time to examine our consciences. Please notice that I wrote "make" time, not "take" time. There are two verbs involved here: making the time then, once that is done, examining ourselves. This double exertion is most unpleasant, I know.
Second, after examining ourselves, we must recognize the disturbing events, actions and words we've committed which require confessing. Now, in that luxury of time that we've granted ourselves, we have to recall all those things for which we already felt guilty in order to feel guilty again! Isn't it easier to just mumble a prayer of "Sorry, God" and then move on with life? German theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer responds to this question,
We must ask ourselves whether we have not often been deceiving ourselves with our confession to God, whether we have not rather been confessing our sins to ourselves and also granting ourselves absolution.
And this leads to the third troubling aspect of confession: to whom do we confess?
We in the Protestant tradition have actively disdained the Roman Catholic concept known as the Sacrament of Penance (or Reconciliation). We're uncomfortable with the idea of confessing our sins or our problems to a priest, often derided as "another person."
However, don't we already confess our sins, brokenness and problems to other people all the time? Truly, while we may not recognize it as "confession," we tell these things to our spouses, our family, our friends, our therapists/counselors. Sometimes we even tell the world on Facebook or Twitter or even through the images of InstaGram and Snapchat.
Facebook, Twitter and all forms of social media speak to our need for connection. We yearn to know that we're not alone in the ways that we think and feel and act and talk. And yet we're ashamed by the way we think and feel and act and talk. Bonhoeffer would agree:
Advent is a time of waiting, but it can also be a meaningful time of confession. Preparing a place for Jesus doesn't just mean setting up a creche in our home or church, but getting our own hearts straightened out. And there should be no better place for confessing one's sins than in our church communities. Once again, Bonhoeffer says:
We in the Protestant tradition have actively disdained the Roman Catholic concept known as the Sacrament of Penance (or Reconciliation). We're uncomfortable with the idea of confessing our sins or our problems to a priest, often derided as "another person."
However, don't we already confess our sins, brokenness and problems to other people all the time? Truly, while we may not recognize it as "confession," we tell these things to our spouses, our family, our friends, our therapists/counselors. Sometimes we even tell the world on Facebook or Twitter or even through the images of InstaGram and Snapchat.
Facebook, Twitter and all forms of social media speak to our need for connection. We yearn to know that we're not alone in the ways that we think and feel and act and talk. And yet we're ashamed by the way we think and feel and act and talk. Bonhoeffer would agree:
To stand there before a brother as a sinner is an ignominy that is almost unbearable. In the confession of concrete sins the old man dies a painful, shameful death before the eyes of a brother. Because this humiliation is so hard we continually scheme to evade confessing to a brother.I would propose that we, especially in the Protestant tradition, are thinking about confession all wrong. It's not some unpleasant chore or invasion of privacy or "airing of one's dirty laundry," but it's a gift. It's a gift inviting us to freedom. Freedom from all the troubles of life.
Advent is a time of waiting, but it can also be a meaningful time of confession. Preparing a place for Jesus doesn't just mean setting up a creche in our home or church, but getting our own hearts straightened out. And there should be no better place for confessing one's sins than in our church communities. Once again, Bonhoeffer says:
Who can give us the certainty that, in the confession and forgiveness of our sins, we are not dealing with ourselves, but with the living God? God gives us this certainty through our brother. Our brother breaks the circle of self-deception. A man who confesses his sin in the presence of a brother knows that he is no longer alone with himself; he experiences the presence of God in the reality of the other person.You can find the fuller text of Bonhoeffer's thoughts on public confession here.
So true.
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