Sermons
August 11, 2024
“Admit it”
James 5:13-20
Today’s passage from James is the scriptural backing for two of the traditional sacraments of the Catholic church: the anointing of the sick (formerly called Extreme Unction) and confession (now generally referred to, at least formally, as the sacrament of Reconciliation).
With the coming of the Protestant Reformation, many of us stopped observing any of the sacraments other than the two we are certain Jesus told us to do, which are baptism and Communion (or the Lord’s Supper, or Eucharist—which just means Great Thanksgiving). As our differences began to harden, there began to be major reactions against anything even remotely resembling Catholic practices—and those reactions are still felt even today.
I’ve heard it said that a lot of the time when we Protestants get to cricitizing something we think Catholics aren’t doing right, we’re arguing more with the Catholic church of the 1500s, when the Reformation began, than with Catholic beliefs and practices of today. We would do well to familiarize ourselves with how modern Catholicism differs from the Catholicism of Martin Luther’s time.
I don’t think anybody could really argue that, in Luther’s day, there weren’t things going on in the church—and remember, before 1517 there was only one church in the west—that needed to be re-examined and changed. But in our zeal to purge our churches of the excesses of the medieval church, it’s possible we might have thrown out some things that were more important than we realized.
James tells us to confess our sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that God can heal us. We don’t have to accept the idea that sickness is always the result of sin to recognize that sin can leave us in need of healing of some kind. But we’ve given up the spiritual discipline of confession. When we come to church, we don’t let people know we’re sinful. We put on our best clothes and our best attitudes. The things that aren’t quite right in our lives—or the things that are downright wrong—we either keep to ourselves or, when that’s not possible, we take to the therapist’s office. And of course the therapist’s office is an important place; I absolutely don’t want to give the impression that going to therapy is wrong. Many of us have been there at one time or another, and it can be very helpful. But psychotherapy won’t necessarily address the spiritual dimension of our problems.
Here at the end of his letter, James is presenting his vision for the spiritual life of the church. The church, according to James, is meant to be a community of people who pray together when someone is sick, who sing praises together when things are going well, who anoint sick people with oil as part of their prayer ministry, and who support one another in our Christian walk through confession and prayer.
How close are we to James’ ideal?
Certainly we’ve got praying for someone when they’re sick down. We share our joys and concerns as we begin our time together on Sunday mornings and pray together. We have a prayer chain that’s activated whenever there’s a need. My former church had a group that met for prayer every Tuesday morning; I’d be open to starting something similar here, if anyone feels called to do so. And I’m sure most of us pray for the needs we know about at other times, too.
But what about confessing our sins?
It doesn’t really fit with the way most folks live their lives today. I read quite awhile back that there are even fewer and fewer Catholics who go to confession regularly. We don’t like to air our dirty laundry in public. We don’t really even like to air it in private, among friends.
We Protestants don’t see our pastors as intermediaries between us and God. We believe we can go to God directly and don’t have to share our sins with someone who has a title in order to be forgiven. But, like the frightened little girl in the midst of a thunderstorm who was assured God was with her, sometimes we need “God with skin on.” We need another human being to speak God’s healing and forgiveness to us.
And there is great power and great benefit to being able to be real with one another about where we are struggling—it can be healing to us, but it also demonstrates to others who are struggling that someone knows what they’re going through and can walk through it with them. People recovering from addictions in AA and other similar groups know that confession to another person is an important part of their recovery. It’s the fifth of the Twelve Steps.
Some folks will make that confession to their sponsor, another recovering person who is a bit further down that road and acts as a guide. Others make it to a clergy person—I doubt there are very many of us who haven’t sat with someone as they worked through that fifth step.
The point is that twelve-step groups often feel more like church than church does. Why? Because everyone there knows that they’re powerless, that they can’t get through unless they lean on God and on one another.
We may well know that in church, but we don’t always act like it. We in church oftentimes delude ourselves that we’re self-sufficient, that we’re all right, that we can make it on our own. That can keep us from supporting and being supported by one another. It keeps us from building deep relationships with God and with each other.
A church where everybody pretends they’re fine and everyone hides their struggles can be a church where people who are struggling but aren’t able to hide it as well feel like they don’t belong. A church where everybody puts on their “I’m fine; everything is fine” mask when they go to church can be a very cold church. It can also be a church given to gossip, and it may well be a church filled with hypocrites. Who wants a church like that?
I believe that appropriate confession of our sins and struggles can be a very important part of deepening our spiritual life as a congregation. Notice, though, that word appropriate.
One of the tragedies of losing a spiritual discipline like confession is that, while the community James spoke to knew what he was talking about, we likely don’t have a clue even how to begin the practice. So we could use some practical suggestions.
To start with, I’m not sure the Sunday morning worship service is the place to confess personal sins. It’s a place for us to examine our consciences, and it’s certainly a place where we can pray together about the shortcomings that all of us have in common.
Some churches, like the Presbyterians, include a corporate prayer of confession in their worship; that confession is pretty general, as a rule; but even if we’re not currently doing whatever the prayer is leading us to confess, it’s possible we have in the past or will in the future. But I think the best way for an individual to make a confession of their specific sins is one-on-one with a single trusted person.
Probably the most important thing to think about is what effect the confession might have on the person we’re confessing to. I used to listen to Dr. Laura Schlessinger a lot as I was traveling from place to place, especially when I often drove a car that only had an AM radio. I almost never agreed with her, and a lot of the time her advice and the way she interacted with callers made me mad. But there was one instance where I found myself shouting “Amen!” to her advice.
The caller was a married man who had been unfaithful to his wife, just once, many years before. He had never done it again, but he was torn up with guilt over that one incident.
He called Dr. Laura for advice because he thought he needed to confess it to his wife, who had never known about it. But Dr. Laura told him that under no circumstances was he to confess this particular sin to his wife at that point. Because it had happened so long ago, and had not happened again, it would not help their marriage at all for him to tell her about it, and could do immense harm.
But the man needed to confess to someone, so he could let go of it. She told him he could confess to a priest, or to his best friend, or to a therapist, but absolutely not to confess to his wife.
Another thing to consider is whether we can trust the person to keep the confession confidential, just between us, the person who’s heard our confession, and God. Don’t confess your deepest, darkest sin to the town gossip, in other words.
This is actually the reason even Protestants will sometimes go to a Catholic priest to make a confession. Even the law recognizes that a confession made to a priest can go no further. A priest cannot be compelled to testify against someone who has confessed a crime to them. (Ideally a priest might encourage such a person to confess to the proper authorities, but whether or not they do, the seal of the confessional is absolute.)
Confess to someone you know without a doubt will not share your confession with anyone other than God. I’m not sure if confessing to me as your pastor has the same force as to Fr. Jason in the eyes of the law, but in every way short of that it’s the same: if you come to my office to make a confession, I will hear it and pray with you, and it will go no further (with one major exception, which I’ll get to in a moment).
You may have someone else in mind, though—a trusted friend, a spiritual director, or a therapist. That’s okay. What’s important is that you make the confession, not that it’s made to someone with a title.
There are other practicalities as well, both for the person doing the confessing and the one hearing the confession.
If you’re confessing something you once did but are no longer doing, once you’ve confess it, let it go. Believe it when you’re told that you’re forgiven. Ask for help in forgiving yourself—which can often be the hardest thing of all.
If you are confessing something you are currently doing but want to stop doing, your confession has more power if you make the commitment to stop doing it. Find someone who can support you in stopping—like a 12-step group, if that’s appropriate for your situation.
And if someone comes to you with a confession, you have other responsibilities. I’ll just speak generally about this, because the bulletin insert goes into quite a bit of detail.
The most important thing to keep in mind when someone makes a confession is that you must keep it confidential. The only exception is if the life of the person making the confession is in danger, or if they’re harming someone else, particularly a child.
After the person has made their confession, pray with them for God’s healing. Then—and all Christians have the authority to do this, not just ordained clergy or elders—assure them that God has forgiven them through Jesus Christ.
If we would take seriously the spiritual discipline of confession, I believe the church universal would be far healthier. We could stop deluding ourselves that we have it all together at every moment. We could start supporting one another, and leaning on God and each other to keep ourselves on the right track. And we’d all feel a lot better.
In the third of the books by Lucy Maud Montgomery about “Anne of Green Gables,” there’s a story that illustrates one reason confession is so important.
If you’ve read the books you will know that Anne was adopted and raised by an unmarried brother and sister, Matthew and Marilla Cuthbert, that she became a teacher, and that after Anne was grown Marilla adopted a set of orphaned twins named Davy and Dora, and a friend who had moved in with Marilla after her husband died was helping her raise them.
Dora was placid and always obedient. Davy was another story.
One Sunday Davy and Dora were sent to church on their own, since Mrs. Rachel Lynde, the friend who lived with Marilla and usually took them, was injured and couldn’t go. But Davy decided he didn’t want to go, so he threw away his offerings and went to play with the children of a family that didn’t go to church. He blackmailed Dora into going with him.
They spent all morning there, until they heard the sounds of people heading down the road on their way home from church.
When they got home Mrs. Rachel interrogated them about who was at church, what the pastor’s preaching text was, what announcements had been made, and so on; and Davy told one lie after another. (Isn’t that the way it happens a lot of the time? First we do something wrong, then we lie to cover it up, then we have to tell more lies to cover up the ones we’ve already told, until we need a map and a college degree to keep track of what we’ve told whom.) And he found that, instead of enjoying the morning with the Cotton kids, instead of relishing the memory of the good time they’d had, he was flat miserable.
So that night, when Anne returned from an outing with friends, he ran to her room and they had a conversation that went like this:
“Anne,” sobbed Davy, getting his arms about her neck. “I’m awful glad you’re home. I couldn’t go to sleep till I’d told somebody.”
“Told somebody what?”
“How mis’rubul I am.”
“Why are you miserable, dear?”
“’Cause I was so bad today, Anne. Oh, I was awful bad—badder’n I’ve ever been yet.”
“What did you do?”
“Oh, I’m afraid to tell you. You’ll never like me again, Anne.”
(It’s possible this fear might be one of the main reasons we don’t confess our sins to one another, don’t you think?)
“I couldn’t say my prayers tonight. I couldn’t tell God what I’d done. I was ’shamed to have Him know.”
“But He knew anyway, Davy.”
“That’s what Dora said. But I thought p’raps He mightn’t have noticed just at the time. Anyway, I’d rather tell you first.”
“WHAT is it you did?”
Out it all came in a rush. “I run away from Sunday school—and went fishing with the Cottons—and I told ever so many whoppers to Mrs. Lynde—oh! ’most half a dozen—and—and—I—I said a swear word, Anne—a pretty near swear word, anyhow—and I called God names.”
There was silence. Davy didn’t know what to make of it. Was Anne so shocked that she never would speak to him again?
“Anne, what are you going to do to me?” he whispered.
“Nothing, dear. You’ve been punished already, I think.”
“No, I haven’t. Nothing’s been done to me.”
“You’ve been very unhappy ever since you did wrong, haven’t you?”
“You bet!” said Davy emphatically.
“That was your conscience punishing you, Davy.”
“What’s my conscience? I want to know.”
“It’s something in you, Davy, that always tells you when you are doing wrong and makes you unhappy if you persist in doing it. Haven’t you noticed that?”
“Yes, but I didn’t know what it was. I wish I didn’t have it. I’d have lots more fun. Where is my conscience, Anne? I want to know. Is it in my stomach?”
“No, it’s in your soul,” answered Anne, thankful for the darkness, since gravity must be preserved in serious matters.
“I s’pose I can’t get clear of it, then,” said Davy with a sigh. “Are you going to tell Marilla and Mrs. Lynde on me, Anne?”
“No, dear, I’m not going to tell any one. You are sorry you were naughty, aren’t you?”
“You bet!”
“And you’ll never be bad like that again.”
“No, but—” added Davy cautiously, “I might be bad some other way.”
“You won’t say naughty words, or run away on Sundays, or tell falsehoods to cover up your sins?”
“No. It doesn’t pay,” said Davy.
“Well, Davy, just tell God you are sorry and ask Him to forgive you.”
“Have YOU forgiven me, Anne?”
“Yes, dear.”
“Then,” said Davy joyously, “I don’t care much whether God does or not.”
“Davy!”
“Oh—I’ll ask Him—I’ll ask Him,” said Davy quickly, scrambling off the bed, convinced by Anne’s tone that he must have said something dreadful. “I don’t mind asking Him, Anne.—Please, God, I’m awful sorry I behaved bad today and I’ll try to be good on Sundays always and please forgive me.—There now, Anne.”
“Well, now, run off to bed like a good boy.”
“All right. Say, I don’t feel mis’rubul anymore. I feel fine. Good night.”[1]
“Therefore,” James urges us, “confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.”
[1] This story comes from Anne of the Island, by L.M. Montgomery, chapter 13, “The Way of Transgressors.”