Sermon
by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood
First
Congregational UCC, Manhattan, KS
February
14, 2016
Sermon Text: James 5: 13-16 and Mark 9:38-50
So….that Mark passage was a little intense, huh? We
mainline protestants – especially those who tend towards the more progressive
end of the spectrum – don’t typically talk about sin that much. Jesus talking
about millstones that hang around our necks as we’re thrown into the sea? Nope.
Cutting out our own eye (figuratively, of course) if it causes us to sin? Nope.
Hell and unquenchable fires? Nopity. Nope. Nope.
And if we don’t like to talk about sin, then we
definitely don’t like to talk about confession of sin, either. After all, if
God is love and nothing we can do can separate us from God’s love, can’t we
just skip over all this unpleasant business about sin?
The problem, of course, is that we are human. And we
sin. We do things that we regret. We act in ways that do not honor our Source.
We participate in systems that harm – either knowingly or unknowingly. We sin.
And, yes, God is love. And, yes, God is gracious. And, yes, God forgives. But even
though I know that - sometimes….right after I’ve messed it up big time? Like,
right after I’ve really stepped in it? It can be hard to remember that things
will be okay.
This past Wednesday, I stood on a street corner in
Aggieville with Pastor Patrick from First United Methodist. We ashed about 30
or 40 people over the lunch hour. Altogether, it sounds like the seven pastors
who participated in Ashes to Go on Wednesday imposed ashes on at least 100
people in the Manhattan community at various locations.
And as Patrick and I were standing there with our
ashes, one woman who was passing by said, “You should take confessions, too!”
Because, of course, that’s a part of what Ash Wednesday is all about. It’s
about remembering our mortality – that we come from dust to we will one day
return to dust. But it’s also about remembering that we mortals can really have
a way of messing it up from time to time. Ash Wednesday, and all of Lent,
really, is a season of taking stock, examining ourselves and finding new ways
that we can repent and live into the good news of God’s extravagant love and
unending grace.
Patrick and I did not have a confession booth set up
there in Aggieville. As a pastor in the Reformed tradition, I don’t take
confessions…..well, I don’t take them in a booth. I do, of course, hear
confessions all the time. Usually on the couch in my office. But sometimes in
hospital rooms, or on walks, on in a lowered voice at coffee hour. Sometimes I
receive them via e-mail or text. Confessions are heard while a toddler plays on
the floor at someone’s home or over warm mugs of tea. I’ve discovered over the
years that hearing confessions is actually a pretty regular part of my work as
a pastor.
These confessions don’t usually start “Forgive me
pastor, for I have sinned….” It’s nothing as formal as that. But in the stories
that I have the honor of holding, I hear regrets…..wishes that things had gone
differently, sorrow over words not said or things left undone. I hold space for
guilt, shame, regret, repentance, hope, and the dawning of grace.
As far as I can tell, in all spiritually vibrant
places, the practice of confession is alive and well. You might not recognize
it as such at first, but everywhere people are seeking to be made whole, they
are taking inventory, confessing their shortcomings, and starting anew.
I recently read the story of First Church of Somerville
UCC in the Boston area. In the Rev. Molly Phinney Baskette’s book, Standing Naked Before God: The Art of Public
Confession, she shares “how confession saved our church’s life” in the
introduction. Molly says, “Sin has fallen out of favor in mainline Protestant
churches….’It seems so negative to talk about sin,’ is what I often hear.
Maybe, I respond. But: better out than in. I want my sin where I can see it in
the clear light of day. It is much less of a threat there – I can track its
movements. Bringing our sins and slipups out where everybody can see them means
we can laugh at them. The monster in the closet at 2 a.m. is terrifying, but in
the full sun of morning, it is a house mouse, with antics.”[1]
At First Church Somerville, they have a unique
practice of public confession. Each week, the liturgist – a lay volunteer –
leads worship with the pastors. And each week, the liturgist makes a brief
public confession and testifies to how they have experienced God’s grace. You
might think this sounds absolutely impossible….but it turns out that they
actually have a waiting list 20 months long for people to get up in the pulpit
and confess their sins.
Any of you who have a passing familiarity with a 12
step program like Alcoholics Anonymous will probably not be surprised to hear
that First Church Somerville has a strong ministry to people recovering from
drug and alcohol addiction. Molly writes, “Addicts and alcoholics came to
worship at our church and taught us, the faith leaders and congregation, the
efficacy, beauty, and spiritual power of AA’s 12 steps….Rather than seeing
folks in recovery as broken or weaker than those who are not in recovery, we
consider our sober addicts and alcoholics the great heroes and spiritual adepts
of our church. In working the 12 steps of AA, they have done the hard work
often at great personal cost.”[2]
I couldn’t agree more. I keep a copy of the “big
book” in my office and have often consulted it as a great wisdom text. As I understand
them, at least 7 of the 12 steps are directly related to confession and the
growth that comes through the act of understanding one’s sins, confessing them,
and receiving God’s grace.
Steps 4 through 10: “We have….made a searching and
fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to
another human being the exact nature of our wrongs. Were entirely ready to have
God remove all these defects of character. Humbly asked God to remove our
shortcomings. Made a list of all persons we had harmed, and became willing to
make amends to them all. Made direct amends to such people wherever possible,
except when to do so would injure them or others. Continued to take personal
inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.”
Those who are in recovery understand what the author
of James knew: that anyone who has committed sins (spoiler alert: that’s all of
us) will be forgiven. And that there is power and grace available to us through
the healing process of confessing these sins to God and to one another.
It seems to me that the holy practice of confession
– whether it’s done in a quiet whisper to God just before falling asleep, or
through tears falling onto the page of a handwritten letter, or in a calm and
collected voice over a nice lunch – the holy practice of confession is one
crucial way we human beings can ensure that our guilt doesn’t calcify into
shame.
Guilt and shame are often used interchangeably, but
they are really two different – though related – things. Guilt is pretty much
unavoidable for humans who are in relationship with others and have the
capacity to feel empathy. Guilt is, “Oh, man. I really messed that up. I hurt
my friend’s feelings.” Psychologist Brene Brown says that guilt is actually
quite helpful. It is awareness that our values have bumped up against our
actions and it is that awareness that allows us to change.
Shame, though, is something else entirely. Shame is
the voice that says, “I am a terrible person. I always hurt my friends. There
must be something wrong with me. No one will ever love me and who can blame them?
I’m a hopeless mess.” Shame is not
helpful. Shame pins us down and isolates us. It lies to us, telling us we are
unworthy of love and connection.
Guilt happens. And when it does, one of our best
ways to ensure it doesn’t calcify into shame is confession. By bringing our
regrets out into the light, we can see them more clearly. We can turn them over
and over, trying to figure out how we’ll do better in the future (the fancy
theological word for that is repentance). And we are often surprised by the
grace we receive from others – which, in turn, can help us let go of those feelings
of shame that begin to creep in.
Of course, this isn’t always the case. Sometimes we
gather up the courage to make a confession and the reaction is awful. We are
yelled at. A relationship is ended. We are shamed, called names, blamed,
abused, excommunicated. I don’t want to make it sound like it’s all a simple
formula. The author of James says, “Confess your sins to one another and pray
for one another, so that you may be healed.” I feel like maybe there needs to
be a caveat there? Like, “This works in healthy communities where everyone is
spiritually and emotionally mature.” Because I think we all know it doesn’t
always work out that way, don’t we?
But there is one place where it always works out. And that’s in the quiet and stillness of a
relationship with God – the one who is both here with us now in each and every moment
and somehow transcending beyond what we can possibly begin to understand. Time
and time again in our holy texts and in stories passed down from generation to
generation, we are told that there is a healing salve available to each and
every person who confesses their sins to God.
I don’t know that that sense of grace and
forgiveness always comes immediately. I don’t mean to make it sound simple. But
I do believe and have experienced that God’s love truly is big enough to extend
beyond even our biggest mistakes. God is the one who continually opens loving
arms to us, even when our families and friends have shunned us. God is the one
who reaches out again and again with the reminder that we are loved – fully,
totally, unconditionally.
As the season of Lent begins, I know some of us may
still be looking for a spiritual practice to add into the time between now and
Easter. I’d love to recommend to you the practice of the Daily Examen, which
was developed by St. Ignatius in the sixteenth century. Molly writes about it
in her book and says she loves it especially because she is “physically if not
spiritually lazy, and I can pray it in bed.” The Examen is not completely
congruous with confession. Instead, it’s a methodical way to look back over the
day and intentionally seek out God’s presence. Sometimes a confession flows
naturally out of the practice of Examen and sometimes it does not. Regardless,
it’s a lovely thing to try for Lent.
In your bulletin you have a handout with the gives
steps of the Examen as described in Molly’s book. She paraphrased these from
the work of Dennis Hamm, who is a Jesuit priest. He calls the Examen “rummaging
for God” which I think is about right.[3]
I think most people – if they know anything about
Lent – know that people often give thing up for Lent. This Lent, if you’re
looking for something to give up, might I suggest giving up shame? And if you’re
not sure how to start, confession might be an excellent way to begin. There is
something so holy, so freeing, so unbelievably and deeply good that happens when we give this ancient practice a try.
And thanks be to God for that.
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