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Confession: None must… All may… Some should… by The Rev. Hartshorn Murphy I wonder each year at how few Episcopalians take advantage of the availability of the Sacrament of Reconciliation (aka "confession."). As is typically true, it was offered following the service on Good Friday and some few hearty souls came forward - some with anxiety, some approaching with confidence - but all with humility, hope and vulnerability. But again, precious few. Some have said to me that they see no need for making a personal confession as the General Confession is sufficient. Some have expressed some reticence to "bear their soul" to an intermediary (their parish priest - "nothing personal!"). And some (a distinct minority) dismiss "sin" as an outmoded concept which fails to recognize that we're all, after all, doing the best we can and each of us is no better - or worse - than anyone else. (See accompanying quote from William Barclay). Those who grew up in the Roman tradition - especially in an earlier time - may have come to resent the mandatory nature of confession in that tradition and the sense of general unworthiness such liturgical presumption engendered. What the custom of making a confession prior to participating in the Holy Eucharist sought to enable was the sense of being "pure before God" in approaching God's Holy Table. Such is our wont from our Jewish roots as Christians, to enter God's presence with a clean conscience. But the mandatory nature of the Roman rite seems to have obscured that understanding for many. The effect was not to relieve guilt but to compound it. The protestant reformation, in part, sought to rid the Church of what it saw as "catholic abuses", including the granting or withholding of absolution through a system of "indulgences." For us, who are both catholic and protestant, what does Confession mean? What does Confession mean in our Anglican ethos? In thinking about these things, I went back to the worship which began our Lenten journey as a congregation: the Liturgy of Ash Wednesday. Recall these words: "This season of Lent provided a time in which converts to the faith were prepared for Holy Baptism. It was also a time when those who, because of notorious sins, had been separated from the body of the faithful were reconciled by penitence and forgiveness, and restored to the fellowship of the Church." (BCP pg. 265) This passage reminds us that in the primitive Church, members publicly confessed their sin in the presence of the whole congregation and were required to perform acts of public penance (acts of contrition). Such a tradition acknowledges the social nature of sin while at the same time, calls forth communal forgiveness and restoration. In cases of "notorious sins;" members could be ex-communicated for a time until the penance had been fulfilled. Though excluded from the table fellowship of the Lord, such penitents were not excluded from the fellowship of God's people in worship completely. The entranceway to the Church is formally known as the "narthex". The word means "little cave". It was in the "little cave" that those who were ex-communicated were segregated that they got to hear the normal teaching of the Church (the scriptures read and expounded upon) although not participate in the communal Eucharist because by their sins, they had wounded the Body of Christ and this time of separation provided an opportunity for healing. Those who self-segregate themselves to the narthex at St. A's today are parents with unruly, crying children - more disruptive than destructive of community to be sure. Excommunication as a strategy to maintain community is rare these days. The last priest in our Diocese, to my knowledge, to excommunicate parishioners whose actions deeply wounded their congregation, the parishioners in turn threatened to sue their priest in civil court for "defamation of character." (Reference the above quote about "notorious" sinner.) This history of "discipline," unfortunately, makes the sacrament of the "Reconciliation of a Penitent" seem more punitive than healing. Our biblical touchstone should be the story of the prodigal son. The youngest tells his father that he desires to receive his share of the inheritance now (in effect: "Father, I wish that you were dead!") Despite such disrespect, the father grants his request. The young son, a captive of his own naivety, squanders his father's money in a short time and, reduced to poverty, ends up a hired servant in a far country caring for swine (unthinkable for a Jewish kid.) Despondent and depressed, the boy repentantly heads home desiring little more than to be a slave in his father's household. His only claim is one for mercy. "But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him." (Luke 15:20) For the father to run and greet his son while he was still some distance away, suggests that each day while his son was missing, the father must have gone to a hillside and anxiously searched the road lest his son return and he be unaware and unprepared. While still on the way, the father runs and greets him with a kiss (a sign of affection), gives him his own ring of authority (he is a family member again), clothes him in the best robe (probably his own) and puts shoes on his feet (only slaves go barefoot). In short: the son and his father are reconciled; the young boy is restored. But had he not repented ("returned"), he could not have been reinstated. The speech he composed in the far country, rehearsed along the road and then announced to his dad was his "confession." His father's actions are symbolic of God's grace. Each week in worship, save in this season of Easter, we say together a General Confession. In it, we acknowledge the corporate nature of sin (one theologian described it as "moral man, immoral society" in which the individual members of a society may be moral and "good" but the society itself is disordered and unjust as a result of our collective sins of omission in correcting those systems of injustice which victimize others.) The General Confession is our owning of our part of collective wrong: "by what we have done and by what we have left undone." (BCP pg. 360) But beyond generalized and corporate sin, an individual may find him or herself "in a far country," alienated from God, from others and even at odds with themselves. At times, guilt ridden and burdened, we are unable to forgive ourselves. We find ourselves, like the young man in the parable, terribly alone and dismembered from the family of God's people. The Church provides the "Reconciliation of a Penitent" as a road back home. Its goal is not therapeutic (accepting, adjusting and accommodating) but is rather sacramental (releasing, renewing and restoring). My colleague Carol Anderson (Beverly Hills) in her book Looking for Jesus, describes the efficacy of sacramental confession in this way: "In my first parish in New York when I was newly ordained, I received a phone call from a well-known secular psychiatrist. He said that someone had told him about me at a cocktail party, and suggested that I would make a good counselor for one of his patients who he believed had a spiritual problem. He asked me to see the patient who had been in therapy with him for twelve years. "I've come to believe that this person's problem is really spiritual and not psychological," he said. The man came by to see me and after twelve years of psychotherapy he knew every nuance of his personality. He knew everything about himself: what was wrong with his father, what was wrong with his mother, what was wrong in his marriage, what was happening at work - everything. I sat and listened and didn't know what to say to him. "After all the time of getting to know myself," he went on, "I still don't like myself." I thought for a moment and said, "Instead of blaming everyone in your life for what has happened to you, have you ever confessed the things that you've done wrong and asked for God's forgiveness?" "No, I've just come to understand them, I've never confessed them," he replied. I put on my stole, gave him a prayer book and told him that he needed to admit to God and to me what he had done in his life - not just what had been done to him, but what he had done. I wanted him to name it all. I told him we could take as long as needed, just go through everything, item by item. And he went through the whole thing. Twelve years of psychotherapy meant that a whole load of garbage came out, and with his permission I share that with you. Every once in a while he would say to me, "But I did this because..." "Don't bother to tell me why you did it, just tell me what you've done, tell God what you've done," I would reply. When he started his hands were rigid, his face tight and his body was ramrod straight. He was desperate when he came to see me because he could not break loose from whatever was going on inside of him. The more he talked, the more he began to cry. Then he started to sob and said, over and over again, "I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry." He continued, "I feel like all those tears inside me are cleansing tears. They're just washing out of me the junk I've had inside, and it feels so good just to be able to say "I'm sorry," When he finished I said to him, "Go in peace. The Lord has put away all your sins." I repeated those words and told him to listen to them again. He threw up his hands in the air and said, "I feel new. I feel wonderful, I feel released!" ... the psychiatrist came to church and told me, "With all my years of training in psychology I can really help people understand their problems, come to terms with their problems and live with their problems. But I've never seen anybody get rid of them in a way that is so cleansing." Don't misunderstand: therapy can be helpful. It is like dropping a dozen rotten eggs on the floor. Therapy can help us identify that there are eggs there, that they're broken and smelly. It can help us step over them and get on with our lives. The problem is that we can always recollect the smell! But when we admit the fact that we've really screwed up, it brings us before God in such a way that God is able to say to us, "I have cleaned up the mess. It is no longer there for you to pay attention to. You are now free to get on with your life, not live with the mess, but be free of it." The Prayer Book Rite of Reconciliation, following the priestly absolution, concludes with these words: "Now there is rejoicing in heaven; for you were lost, and are found; you were dead and are now alive in Christ Jesus our Lord. Abide in peace. The Lord has put away all your sins." (BCP pg. 451) Is this the year you should consider making a confession? Note: Confessions are heard by your priests at any time by appointment. Those wishing to make a confession to other than their own clergy are encouraged to call our church office for a referral to neighboring parishes. A word about confidentiality: "The secrecy of a confession is morally absolute for the confessor (Bishop or priest) and must under no circumstance be broken." (BCP pg. 446). What is sin anyway?? "The commonest word for sin in the New Testament is the Greek word hamartia. Hamartia is a shooting word and it means a failure to hit the target. Charles Lamb tells of a man called Samuel le Grice. In his life there were three stages. When he was young people said of him, "He will do something." As he grew older they said of him, "He could do something if he tried." And towards the end they said of him, "He might have done something if he had liked." That precisely is hamartia and that is sin. To have some ability and to make nothing of it, to have been able to make some contribution to life and not to have made it, to have been able to have rendered some help and not to have rendered it, that is sin. God does not ask us to do more than we can; but He does demand that we act up to the limit of our capabilities and in loyalty to the highest that we know." (From: The Parable of Jesus by William Barclay, Westminster John Knox Press 1970) Copyright © 2007 St. Augustine by-the-Sea
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