Searching for Sunday: Confession
Ash Wednesday – Narrative Lectionary 2
February 10, 2016
Grace, Mankato, MN
Mark 9.30-37
“For Jesus was teaching his disciples and saying to them, ‘The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.’ But they did not understand what he as saying and were afraid to ask him.”
So begins our Lenten journey during which we ask what it means follow a Jesus who goes to the cross. In a few moments, ashes will be smeared in that shape, a sign of destruction, mortality, grief and repentance. It will starkly acknowledge the one reality that we can all agree on, whether Christian or not: we will all die. During our Wednesday services and also on Maundy Thursday, we’ll explore discipleship in a unique way through Rachel Held Evans’ book, Searching for Sunday. In it, Evans details her own spiritual pilgrimage of loving, leaving and finding her way back to the church and in doing so, a deeper life in Christ. She accomplishes by using the classical seven sacraments as a framework for how to view the church and the life we find therein.
A side note: we who call ourselves Lutheran recognize two sacraments, Baptism and Holy Communion. We classify the other five as rites.
For Lent, the rite or practice of Confession is a good place to start because the power of Christianity is that it tells a deep and important truth about the human condition. We are not okay and we are all in need of healing and grace. As Evans notes, we do not do this through shame and ridicule or finger pointing. Rather, we admit the truth about ourselves through honest vulnerability.
Confession is such a wonderfully multifaceted word that can mean different things, all of them important. In the larger sense, confession means admission of something. We confess that we are broken, fallible human beings who fall short of God’s intentions for us. We confess that no matter how much we try to look otherwise, we don’t have it altogether, that our brokenness is often invisible to others. We confess that we have doubts and questions and fears and uncertainty, just like Jesus’ disciples.
Confession not only means admitting some hard truths about ourselves, but it also means professing something. The sacraments and rites express a truth about the church when it is at its best: Christianity is to be shared and lived in community. Christianity is intensely personal, but it is never private. However, all too often as Evans herself experienced, we have to admit that the church is not a safe place to share our brokenness. Sometimes it forces us to check parts of ourselves at the door. It may force us to choose between religions and science or intellectual integrity and faith. So, as a church we also confess that is true while professing hope. Our hope is we can live into being the kind of community Jesus calls us to be where we can share our grief and pain and receive grace and healing. For as Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Lutheran theologian said, “The man who is alone with his sin is utterly alone.”
This is not easy. Indeed, it is risky, messy and potentially embarrassing to admit our brokenness. As Evans notes, it is hard to admit our troubled marriages, pride, judgmental attitudes, racism, materialism, addictions, doubts and, yes, even our preoccupation with status and image. We aren’t so unlike the disciples. However, not do so means death for us. But to do so also means death, but death to an old way of being in order for a new way of life to take its place.
This is really hard for me, to be honest about my struggles and shortcomings. But I know it’s important to do so because I’ve experienced a glimpse of life that comes when I do so. Several years ago, our oldest daughter was still living at home. She had graduated from college a few months earlier and had bought a new car. One Sunday morning, the car was parked in its usual spot in the driveway. As I was backing out, my mind was clearly at church, not in the driveway and I scraped the rear panel of her car, damaging the taillight as well. Though the damage was minimal, I was beside myself with anger, shame and guilt.
When I got to church, I did my usual duties of putting on my robe and greeting people in the narthex. As we were exchanging the usual “Hi, how are you,” Fine, how are you” I found myself getting tired of pretending. I said to some folk, “Not very good this morning” and briefly told them what happened. Now, I didn’t do this for sympathy, just to share what was happening. It was like a switch was flipped. All of a sudden, the casual greetings became mutual conversation and consolation between broken, fallible human beings in need of God’s grace and forgiveness. I think that’s what Evans is pointing to and what God hopes for us as a community of belonging.
Jesus’ words about greatness turn our world upside down. But through them we are given a new way of valuing people: the greatest are the ones who have little or no standing in our society. And there is good news as we enter Lent, this time of truth telling about our relationship with Jesus and each other. As much as the disciples fall short of what Jesus asks, he never gives up on them. Neither will he give up on us.
Jesus invites us on this journey of truth telling because this strange way of living is the only way to get free. As you are looking reconnect with your faith, I invite you to join with us on this journey, searching for Sunday and a renewed life of faith. Amen.
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