Why we need Confession

Why do We Need Confession?

Written by Dan McDonald based on a homily by Father Jack Bradberry

 

Altar of St. Michael’s as it appeared a few months ago

 

            This morning one could tell that Father Bradberry was speaking on a subject matter he considered important. He was telling us about confession. It seems he had heard someone speak of how confession was not that important for Christians to do. Maybe it was thought that continually confessing our daily sins was part of a Christianity that focused on sin and sought to encourage growth in grace by shaming us to where we will begin working our way back to Christ. Father Jack, as we know him, used an analogy to speak to us about the importance of confessing our sin.

            He began by asking us who among us had ever had their cars detailed? Some raised their hands. Others probably had but didn’t raise their hands. Then he talked of how for a few days after we have our cars detailed we try to make sure we keep the automobile clean. But then we take a jacket to work on the beginning of the morning because it is a bit cold, but when we get to work we don’t think we need the jacket. We put it in the back seat and then when we drive home the weather is spring like and balmy. We don’t give a thought about pulling the jacket out of the back seat when we get home. Then one has a meeting and takes a folder full of papers with him to go to the meeting. After the meeting you are going somewhere and you put the folder full of filing papers next to the jacket. After you go somewhere you haven’t thought any more of them and they get left in the back seat next to the jacket. The next day in a hurry you go to a fast food place and eat hurriedly inside your car and having trash you lay the trash in the back compartment along the floorboard intending to clean out the back seat when you get home. But something causes you to decide something else is more important or makes you put off cleaning out the back seat. It all builds up.

            This message resonated with me because I am the sort of a bachelor who tends to put off cleaning until tomorrow. Eventually there is enough clutter that I am overwhelmed by the clutter and go into a state of depression over all the stuff I haven’t taken care of. The thing about sin in our lives is that it works in a similar way. We fall short pretty much every day in some way or another. We need a way of clearing the clutter from our lives before the clutter of sin’s debris overwhelms us.

            Father Jack pointed out to us that sometimes we misunderstand why God calls upon us to confess our sins; so that we might be cleansed and forgiven and go forward in our Christian walks. We can almost imagine that God is a narcissistic tyrant who wants us continually to be confessing our sin because he wants us to be feeling how low we are. He pointed out that God wasn’t calling upon us to confess so that we could feel ashamed and guilty like worthless worms. That is not the Christ that washed the disciples’ feet the night of the Last Supper. God knows that if the sins, the sins for which Christ died, are allowed to build up on top of one another without our realizing the joy of these sins being forgiven, and the joy of our being restored on the path towards wholeness of life then we will begin to feel the dirt upon our sandals. We will begin trying to make our way around the clutter in our lives and begin to feel the despair of the clutter amassing to the point that it overwhelms us. Our Lord calls upon us to seek forgiveness so that as he washes our feet we will know a sense of our being unencumbered as we move forward in the walk of life.

            Confession is a wonderful gift that God has given to his people. In our Anglican Church the way people most often confess is through a general confession included in morning and evening prayers and in Holy Communion. In some churches there is an emphasis on confession to a priest. In our Anglican tradition that sort of confession is often not a requirement as it is among Catholics and Orthodox, but in Anglicanism we are encouraged to seek out a minister or priest when we struggle with a sin that overwhelms us. In one of the Gospels, when Jesus tells the paralytic to get up and walk for his sins are forgiven, those who saw the miracle were surprised that God had given the power to forgive sins to men. After his resurrection Jesus gave his appointed apostles the power to forgive sins through the Gospel. It is interesting that churches which would say that no one should ever have to confess their sins to a minister or priest, still often have counselling ministries to Christians needing special counsel. Perhaps the Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions are not so far apart as we imagine. God has gifted his church with the forgiveness of sins through the Gospel. He has given us the gift of confession first unto the Lord and yet as needed to those who care for us in the ministry that we might be encouraged when our struggles run especially deep.

            When our Father Bradberry was done giving us the homily today I felt like I had been given something to think about. I have realized that often I get depressed partly because living alone I let the clutter build around me, by putting cleaning it up to another day, to the point that it overwhelms me. I am pretty sure that I do the same in my Christian life. But we have a word of encouragement: “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” That is not a law for us to use to try to whip ourselves into spiritual shape. That is a promise to us from a Savior who has come into our lives and has stooped down to wash our feet.

            May these words impart encouragement to you as you walk in Christ.