Confess?

One of the first calls I received after arriving at Lanesville was a studio asking to use the church hall for extras to film a movie at the Cove, right down the street from the church.  Welcome to Gloucester!  A little Google sleuthing later, and I learned it was to shoot a final scene for a remake of Confess, Fletch! In it, Fletch runs into problem after problem, being accused of things that aren’t his fault in a comedy of errors.

Which makes the exercise of confession Lanesville goes through every Sunday in church seem even stranger.  Is church just acting out a tragedy, when it should really just be a comedy of celebration? Why do we confess in church anyway, let alone every week? Do we keep asking for forgiveness over and over because God has forgiven us a little bit, but the rest is up to us?

Confession at Lanesville is about experiencing the joy in our life that we don’t experience but because of God can.  We like to think all our mistakes are isolated examples of bad judgment.  That’s certainly how we present our mistakes when we’re talking to others!  But in the safest place we could ever be, God’s presence, we can admit our mistakes aren’t just isolated bad judgments.  We are broken people who carry that fear of brokenness with us where ever we go.

Confession is a little like going for a nice walk outside, enjoying nature, and than stepping in dog poop. Inevitably you rub your shoes in the grass hoping that might do the trick, than leave your shoes by the back door hoping miraculously they’ll get clean, and maybe even stop using those shoes altogether. But confession in church is a call from God to be clean of those ugly parts of ourselves, to be assured nothing can separate us from God’s love in Jesus, and to be renewed for life.

We don’t cry out to God for forgiveness in a vacuum, from some remote hope that a higher power might listen.  We confess our sins every week because we have seen, experienced, and already enjoyed the forgiveness of Jesus Christ.  It’s the gospel, and the experience of being forgiven by Jesus, that invites us into confession and makes the weekly experience of confession sweet, rather than just sad:

Have mercy on me, O God, according to your unfailing love;

According to your great compassion blot out my transgressions.

Wash away all my iniquity and cleanse me from my sin.For I know my transgressions, and my sin is always before me.

Against you, you only, have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight…

Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean;

Wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.

Let me hear joy and gladness’

Let the bones you have crushed rejoice.

Hide your face from my sins and blot out all my iniquity.

Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me

Ps 51:1-4,7-11