September
9th, 2012 “The
Importance of Confession” Rev. Heather Jepsen
Sermon
Series: The Theology of Worship
(Based
on A More Profound Alleluia ed. Van Dyk)
Psalm
103 and 1 John 1
Will Campbell , a Baptist preacher sums up the Christian
faith saying, “We’re no damn good, but God loves us anyway.” This morning we are going to talk about just
that – our own failings and God’s love for us.
This morning’s sermon is the second in a series on how and why we
worship the way that we do.
Last
week we talked about the opening of our worship service; gathering in God’s
name. We begin our worship with God’s
call to gather us together in this moment and place. Once here we take time in music and song to
call the whole of our being to this time of worship, we share words of greeting
and news of this church community, we share in a call to worship, and we praise
God with singing. It is God who works in
and through us throughout our worship service.
This morning we will talk about that prayer of the day, and why I feel
it is important to form it into a more traditional prayer of confession.
Theology professor William Dyrness says
that “true worship does not come naturally to us. There are many things that keep us from
worship – either from coming to church at all, or, having been persuaded to
come, from actually engaging in genuine worship. Our natural inclination, in fact, is to sit
in the back of the church, or indeed to stay outside the church
altogether. We might feel that we are not
good enough to worship a holy God, or we might be overwhelmed with the painful
failures that have bedeviled us during the previous week. Or perhaps we feel too good to go in and sit down;
feeling in some way that we don’t need what the church has to offer. Or, on occasion, we might feel we would not
be welcome, or that we would not feel at home in church – the songs and rituals
and vocabulary all seem strange to us.”
The fact is that worship does not come
naturally to us for one fundamental reason.
We are all sinners. All of the relationships
in our lives, with God as well as with friends, family, and acquaintances are
damaged by sin. We live in a world of
broken relationships. “When asked why we
do not feel like worshiping God, our natural response is to point to someone
else’s failure; the minister’s, or some Christian we once knew. We do not usually connect this with any
failure on our own part.” (Dyrness) No
matter what issues we may have with others in or outside of our church, the
fact is that it is our own sinful nature that makes it hard for us to come to
worship.
Of course, the Bible has a lot to say
about sin. “The Old Testament has many
ways of describing humanity’s rebellion against God, each of them shedding a
different light on the barriers to worship.
There are several Hebrew words for sin which refer to the various ways
that we miss the path that God intended for us in his law and instruction. Two other Hebrew words for sin stress the deliberate
human act of defiance. A range of others
refer to the puzzling persistence of sin that seems built into us.” (Dyrness)
Our sin causes a gulf between us and
the holiness of God. In Leviticus
believers are encouraged to confess their sins and to bring an offering before
the Lord for atonement. In our Psalm
reading for today we heard that “The Lord is merciful and gracious . . . he
will not deal with us according to our sins . . . the steadfast love of the
Lord is from everlasting to everlasting . . . for those who keep his covenant and
remember to do his commandments.”
In the New Testament the story of sin
revolves around the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. “Christ’s death is variously pictured as the
offering for sin, as a great exchange, and as a deliverance of the believer
from evil powers, along with other New Testament images for salvation. All the rich biblical images proclaim that
Christ, through his life, death, and resurrection, has initiated a new era in
which sin and death have been decisively defeated and righteousness has been
established.” (Dyrness)
The way of our salvation moves from
meeting the demands of the law to having faith in Christ, because it is only through
his actions that we are saved. The
writer of 1 John points out that “if we walk in the light as he himself is in
the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son
cleanses us from all sin.”
In classical theology sin was thought of
as a strictly personal issue. Sin was a
distorted will and misplaced pride. As
theology progressed, sloth and falsehood were also common understandings of
sin. In modern theology several new
discussions of sin have developed including a focus on the sins of community or
corporate sin. “These broader
perspectives allow theologians to focus not only on discrete personal sins but
also on social sins and structural sins, not only on doing what is wrong, but
also on failing to do what is right. Sin
in all its multiple and insidious forms not only infects our individual lives
but also disrupts community, deforms institutions, and even damages creation
itself.” (Dyrness)
The reality is that even believers in
Christ continue to sin and therefore must continue to pray for the forgiveness
of sin. That’s why a prayer of
confession is such an important part of the worship service. Follow along in your bulletin with me please.
First you
will see I have added in a call to confession.
This is a time when we are reminded that all of us are sinners and
therefore all of us are called to confess our sins as we come to God in
worship.
I
have relabeled our prayer of the day as a prayer of confession. In the prayer of confession, we recognize
that by our own strength we are unable to worship God. In the prayer of confession we acknowledge
the guilt that we have for our sins, and the gratitude we feel for the saving
work of Jesus Christ. In acknowledging
our sinful nature, we come clean before God, and prepare our hearts for the next
portion of worship, hearing God’s Word.
Because we are sinners, confession is
not only a necessary part of worship; it helps to reorient us to reality. It is all too easy for us to ignore the
reality of sin in our everyday lives, especially because we live in a culture
that is so blind to sin. “While the
world around us may try to convince us that we are really OK, in confession we acknowledge
that we constantly go astray, that even our good works are marked by sin, and
that apart from God’s grace we are lost.”
(Dyrness) Just as our opening
worship is a response to God’s love and call, our confession is a response to
the declaration that we are sinners and stand in need of redemption.
An important aspect of our prayer of
confession is that it is communal; we all say the prayer together. This recognizes that even our community
itself is broken and fractured by sin.
We say the prayer not only for ourselves but on the behalf of our
community of faith. In the prayer of
confession we acknowledge not only the broken relationships in our personal lives,
but the broken relationships in our church, and between our church and the greater
world.
We confess our sins in worship not
only to be honest with ourselves and God, but to hear the good news that
through Jesus Christ, we are forgiven. That’s
why I’m adding the assurance of pardon to our worship service. For believers, confession is always followed
by the acknowledgement that we are forgiven in Jesus Christ. The words of good news are words that we all
need to hear each Sunday. The practice
of pardon, just like confession, is significant for the community. The Scriptures make clear that forgiveness by
God is linked with our forgiveness of each other. “The fundamental relationship that needs
restoration is that between us and God.
But the Scriptures do not allow us to separate this relationship from
those others that structure our lives, especially those in the body of
Christ.” (Dyrness)
After we receive the assurance of
pardon, we sing the Gloria Patri. In
singing this ancient doxology or hymn of praise every Sunday, we have the opportunity
to celebrate our forgiveness and praise the triune God.
New this Sunday, we passed the peace
of Christ after singing the Gloria Patri.
I believe that this is a more meaningful time to greet one another in
worship. Having been reconciled to God
in Jesus Christ, we are asked to share the unity and love that comes from God
with each other. It is a visible sign of
the bridge that forgiveness makes in our lives.
This is the time when the community shares in the pardon given through
Christ.
I
encourage you to take this time not only to welcome one another but to really
look at each other, shake hands, and say “the peace of Jesus Christ be with
you.” In doing this, “we extend to one
another the reality that, having been reconciled to God; we are also reconciled
to one another. The act suggests that we
do more than simply forget their slights and trespasses against us; we actually
reach out to them in love and communion.”
(Dyrness) I want to try this new
pattern of worship for a while and I am eager to hear any feedback you may have
on how this affects your worship experience.
In the simple practice of confession
and assurance we are led through the entire story of redemption. We are called to acknowledge who we are as
individuals and as a community before
God; sinners in need of redemption. We hear
the assurance of pardon and are once again reminded that we are made new in
Jesus Christ. We sing the Gloria,
praising God for his grace. And we share
the good news of forgiveness with each other by passing the peace of
Christ. This section of worship has much
to say about who we believe God to be and God’s work in our lives. It is my hope that this new order of worship
will be meaningful to you as individuals and to us as a church community. Amen.
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