John 3:19-21; Ephesians 2:1-10; March 10, 2024; Fourth Sunday in Lent
It’s been an incredibly long and varied week, so I hope you all don’t mind a justifiably short and straight forward sermon.
That okay? We good? I mean, who’s complaining?
The other day I saw a funny saying on a church sign. Well, it might have been a sign, or, it might have been a Facebook post. Honestly, at this point I can’t really say because I can’t really remember. But I do know that it must have been something I saw because it’s not a joke I would have written myself. But I think it’s pretty good. Do you all want to hear it?
“Confession today will be until exactly 5:30pm. There is only one priest available for confession. So please make your confession direct and to the point and confess only your sins and offenses; no need to explain why you did them. Thanks, and have a good day.”
I like that. Confess only your sins and your offenses, no need to explain why you did them.
I mean, in many respects, that’s how it should be, right? For at the base level, we all know why we did them anyway: for we are fallen, sinful, corruptible creatures, and there ain’t nothing we can do about it.
But have any of you ever been in one of those before? One of those confessional booths? What was it like? No, really… what was it like? I’d like to know. I’ve never been myself.
…
Was it cathartic after you shared your sin and offense?
…
I bet it was.
You see, while I love our Presbyterian theology and confessional standards, which render those little wooden rooms so insignificant if not pointless, whereas we believe that we can pray directly to God rather than praying through an intermediary such as clergyperson or priest, I must admit that there is something intriguing if not practically sensible about those little confessional booths. A present and physical symbol, right there in a church, where we can all see and recognize our sin rather than pretend that we are saints. Trusting that we can indeed come out of the dark, airing our shortcomings openly to someone who is listening on the other side. And while I of course know, and you of course believe, that entity is always and ever God and not some other mortal being, I also kind of like that visual and spatial reminder which says, hey, you pious fool, it’s high time you got off your high horse and humbled yourself before another.
So, you know what, let’s have some fun with that today, and say, for the sake of argument, that part of our capital campaign was going to go towards installing one of those funny little booths. Right over there next to Dave Alexander. Yes, forget the Youth Lounge, Grace is putting in a Sin Stall! Imagine that. For the sake of the argument though, would you ever use it, even if you knew it wasn’t me or Wanamaker on the other side listening, but only an empty kneeler holding space for God? Would you ever use it?
Or put another way, in a differently posed question, how often do you actually and already include your sins and offenses in your personal prayers at home? How often do you step into the hypothetical booth, as it were, and openly bare your wrongdoings confessing your failings before God? Or… do you only ever pray for healings and Eagles victories, confessing only when Brian tells you to do so right after the first hymn in worship; before ultimately forgetting what you confessed altogether a couple of minutes later? I mean really, can any of you quote it back to me without looking our Prayer of Confession from today? Do you even remember what we prayed and admitted to? I bet not.
Hey, I’m not judging. I get it. Confessing is not easy or particularly want of memory especially because it isn’t at all fun. I mean, who wants to be confronted with yet another daily reminder that we in our humanity plainly and broadly suck? To put it offensively. But I mean, we do, right?
I mean, we are people who want to walk in the light, but yet more often than not choose to walk in the darkness. Starting wars, lobbing insults, causing injury, emotional and physical, and, hiding all sorts of sins away for no one else to see, behind closed doors, living lives in secret as we appear pious out in the open. And you know what I’m talking about, don’t you? Yeah, you know exactly what I’m talking about, because I myself know what I’m talking about. Let’s not pretend otherwise today. For none of us here are perfect, and no one here would really want the rest of the world, or worse yet, the rest of these folks in our pews to see just what we’ve been up to when the sun goes down. Those skeletons we’ve been hiding away in our dimly lit closets. No, we wouldn’t want that at all, would we?
No. For all of us, all of us but Christ alone, have lived according to sins of the flesh, Ephesians emphatically tells us. Saying that all of us have been dead to the trespasses of the world. Such that no matter who you are, or how many crosses you wear around your neck, or how loudly you sing the hymns and recite the creeds, you have yet screwed up, and, have even, from time to time, enjoyed what that the dark has brought you.
It’s true, isn’t it? Isn’t it?
Yes, my friends, where we want to read today’s Gospel text with pride, thinking, see… John has it right… it’s they… those others… it’s them on the other side, from the other aisle of faith, who have screwed up, who have chosen the dark, while we good Christians here have chosen the light… Ephesians is here to say, nah man… nah, we need to see that it’s us too who have taken a willful tumble through the darkness. Even the best of us here among us.
For no matter how hard any of us can try, none of us can escape this prison, this encasement, this flesh of heart and mind and skin, which always, always betrays us.
But my friends, even though we can’t escape it, we can, today, begin to confess to it. To come out of the dark and admit to it. It’s okay. It’s not a Catholic thing. Nor even a Presbyterian or Christian thing. It’s just a good human thing. A good faithful response and practice. To be humble and confess, even if just to ourselves, that we need both forgiveness and improvement.
It’s okay, my friends, it’s okay not to be perfect because none of us are. And, it’s okay to call yourself a sinner. Because that’s precisely who you are.
And more so, it’s okay because we have been told that even though we have done nothing to earn it, that God, who is rich in mercy, has yet loved us, and has saved us, and has made us alive and together with Christ, who through unimaginable kindness and the wideness of amazing and abounding grace has forgiven us and loved us all the same.
A completely undeserved gift, but for which, we should be so bold to be openly and confessionally thankful.
Lord knows I am.
Thanks be to God.
Amen
