Reverend Marci Scott-Weis, MDIV

This morning we did something a bit different for our worshipping community. Instead of an Opening Prayer, after our Gathering Words and Opening Hymn, we joined together in a Prayer of Confession. Found within that Prayer of Confession was an acknowledgement of doubt and worry and separateness from our creator. There was also a request for forgiveness. And there was the recognition that we always rest cradled in God’s loving hands. We just sometimes forget that.

Our theme for this Lenton season centers around moving out of the wilderness and coming home to our God. Today, I want to talk about confession as a potential path to lead us from wilderness to homecoming and reunion with God. Now I freely admit that the word confession is a loaded one for me. That word brings to mind painful memories of rituals that frightened me as a child. That word holds for me images of badness, blame, and feeling not good enough.

And wrapped up in understandings of confession are our understandings of sin. Because that is what we do in confession right, whether it occurs here with a worshiping community, privately with a confessor or in our own meditations. We confess our sins. And sin like confession, is a word that may be full of heavy baggage as well! I know that I have had that word thrown at me in the most awful ways. I also have seen it used to diminish, punish and exclude, tossed around like a hand grenade, doing damage wherever it landed.

For so many of us who carry wounds associated with those words or for those of us for whom the words just do not resonate, confession of sins seems like an unlikely path to homecoming and reunion with God. I know that they were for me until I had an experience that changed my mind and my heart. I want to share that experience with you all today because it was quite different from what I thought confession of sins meant and felt like because this was an experience that felt like comfort, homecoming and reunion with God.

This experience happened several years ago when I was attending a spiritual retreat at a Catholic retreat center. Present at the retreat were folks from lots of different faith backgrounds and a lot of Catholics. Part of the retreat was the invitation to participate in confession with a Catholic priest. And for some reason, I felt really called into taking part in confession that weekend. I was curious even though I had a lot of fear about how I would be greeted and received by the priest. I was married to a woman; I was no longer a Catholic and it had been decades since I had participated in confession the way I had when I was a Catholic. But I trusted that tug.

So, I went into a small room, and I sat down in front of the priest. I then proceeded to spend a good five minutes telling this priest what I was not prepared to confess. I said to that priest that I was not there to confess any perceived sin associated with the great love that I had found in my spouse, the love that had saved me and the love that I honored as sacred. I said to that priest that I was not there to confess any perceived sin associated with the birth of my two children, the two single most beautiful beings in my life. And I said to that priest that I was not there to confess any perceived sin associated with my faith journey, the one that had led me to find sanctuary outside of the Catholic Church that had cast me out. And to be fair, my hands were either on my hips or pointing at him in an adversarial way the entire time!

Once I had that off my chest, I told the priest that I realized that there was much that I did in my life where I was not expressing love in the best way. I told the priest that there was much that I did in my life where I was not bringing my best self, where I was not offering healing and welcome, where I struggled with forgiveness. Those were things about which I would talk. But if he wanted to talk about any perceived sins because I was a non-Catholic lesbian mother of two, then the conversation was over.

And to his credit, that priest paused and acknowledged all that I had said and instead responded by asking me a simple question. He asked me what my favorite stories were in the Bible, and why. And then that priest and I proceeded to have a very meaningful conversation about Jesus and his feeding ministry, and the ancient practices of hospitality and welcome found in the Bible.

And then, that priest found a scripture passage that spoke deeply to me about welcome. This passage talked about the call to expand our tents in order to include someone who might be just outside. He did not meet me with judgement, shame or damnation, instead, there was safety and comfort. And out of that safety and comfort, I was able to identify ways that I could offer healing and welcome and align myself more closely with God’s holy work of inclusion.

Now typically at the end of a Catholic confession, the priest offers you forgiveness for your sins and you are given penance. That penance may be prayers or actions, but it is intended to make amends for your sins. And even though my time with the priest had been absolutely lovely and helpful, I was a bit nervous when we got to that part. But as we were wrapping up, the priest offered me a beautiful blessing. Then he did something that to this day, still leaves me surprised. He suggested that when I returned home that evening to my beloved family, that we all go out for a special dessert to celebrate the love we shared for each other.

That experience was not what I thought it would be. I had anticipated judgement, condemnation, and shaming. Instead, I left that time with the very untraditional priest feeling seen, blessed, and inspired to action in my life and in the world. And, that experience helped me to heal some of my prior wounds around sin and confession and acknowledge how it could be critical in my own life.

Now even though that experience with the priest was so very lovely, I realize that the words confession and sin are not words that will ever call me into deeper meaning or help me on that path to God. And so, I searched for other words. And now, instead of confession, I use ‘honest talk.’ And instead of sin, I use ‘distance from God.’ I now try to have ‘honest talk’ with myself on a regular basis about how I feel close or distant from God.

So how do we figure out when we are close or distant from God? I know that for myself, there are actions that I do in my day, where when I do them, I feel closer to God. And I know that there are actions that I do in my day, where when I do them, I feel more distant from God. Those actions that I do or do not do that speak to my closeness with God are about the manner in which I live my life each day.

We talk a lot in Bible Study about ‘the way’ that we encounter in the Gospels. The way is a path of actions instead of beliefs. Actions like offering radical welcome, inclusion and unconditional love, feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, offering forgiveness, protecting the vulnerable, working for peace, justice, and equity and offering healing in all relationships. You can find ‘the way’ laid out pretty clearly in Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. In those chapters in the Gospel of Matthew there is a roadmap of actions that we can take to bring about God’s Kingdom, here and now.

And not just at the individual level but being on ‘the way’ also means recognizing that we are all parts of systems that take actions that can separate us from each other and from God. Things like systemic racism, homophobia, economic injustice, and harm to God’s beloved natural world. When we are honest in acknowledging how these systems can harm, we can then identify specific actions to bring about God’s Kingdom here and now. We can align ourselves with God’s dream for creation, one of justice and right relationship.

Because being on the way means being an active and dynamic participant in bringing about the Kingdom of God, fulfilling God’s dream for all creation. Being on the way means being an active and dynamic participant in creating a world where all beings are safe, all beings are fed and clothed and all live into that unique call and dream of flourishing that God has for them.

Being on the way also means accepting that we will often fall short of that work, but that forgiveness is always ours and that we never fall out of the love of our God. We are always held in grace. We are always called into nearness, relationship and love with God.
For me, confessing my sins is honest talk without shame, about my own distance from God in the ways I live my life as an individual and as part of the many systems that I operate in. That honest talk most often happens at night as I am falling asleep and I ask myself, ‘where did I feel closest to God today’ and ‘where did I feel distant from God today?’ And ‘what do I want to do tomorrow to feel the closest with God?’

That honest talk about distance from God in our life actions can also be with a trusted companion who can listen and meet us with love. And that honest talk about distance from God in our life actions can be in worship with a beloved community, where we know we will be met with love, unconditional acceptance and forgiveness.

All of these ways to have honest talk about our actions reflect back the grace of resting in the love of a God who is always calling us home, to arms full of unconditional love and grace.

In that, I find call. In that, I find comfort. In that, I find a way home to God.

Thanks be to God!

Amen