Rancho Bernardo Community Presbyterian Church

What mental image do we picture when we think of confession? A person sitting with head bowed in solemn prayer? Do we think of confession as a private activity, getting alone to admit our sins to God? If these are the kinds of images we associate with confession, then we need to rethink our understanding. As we study Jesus’ example of confession, we recognize how far our images of this spiritual app are from his life. For our images leave out the most important aspect of confession: joy.

Luke 10:21 describes an instance of Jesus practicing the spiritual app of confession. It tells us that Jesus rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, “I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth …” Other translations give the prayer as, “I praise you Father, Lord of heaven and earth…” So what does this have to do with confession? Here is the surprise, the word translated either as “thank you,” or “praise you,” is the same Greek word for “confess.” In other words, we could accurately translate that Jesus rejoiced as he prayed, “I confess to you Father, Lord of heaven and earth …”

Jesus’ confession was accompanied by joy. No sooner do we read this statement then most of us have a couple of troubling questions come to mind. First, what does joy have to do with confession? We do not normally associate these two words joy and confession. Second, since Jesus was sinless, what would he have to confess? Most of us think that confession is always about sin.

Jesus confessed how much he enjoyed God’s surprising ways. As I meditate on this Bible story I picture Jesus smiling, maybe even laughing, as he confessed that those least expected to come to God were indeed encountering god. For Jesus, confession was the same as praising God. How many of us equate confession with praising and thanking god?

As I read about Jesus’ confession, I am struck by a second surprise in this story. His confession occurs in a public prayer. Most of us associate confession with privacy. We whisper our sins to God in secret, hoping that nobody else will know the truth about what we have hidden in our closets. For Jesus, confession happens in public. James reinforces this idea that confession is a public act when he calls followers of Jesus to confess their sins to each other. James makes confession a spiritual app of community rather than a spiritual app of solitude.

So for Jesus, confession is associated with joy and it happens in public. This is nearly opposite what most of us think of when we hear the word, “confession.” We think of feeling guilty before God and confessing our sins in private. What then is the real meaning and purpose of the spiritual app of confession?

Read Romans 12:3.

Three pastors met together for confession. The first pastor confessed, “I have a gambling addiction. I feel terrible about it but I can’t seem to stop.” He further confessed that he had even used some of his church’s money for his gambling addiction. The other two pastors comforted him by reminding him that the Lord still loved him and could forgive such sins. The second pastor confessed, “I have a serious drinking problem.” He felt guilty about getting drunk on most Sunday evenings. What if his congregation knew? The other two pastors offered words of assurance that the Lord was surely loving and forgiving. Then the two pastors who had already confessed their sins turned to the third, but he was extremely hesitant. He was afraid that his sin was so terrible they would never understand. He told them he was sure they would be quite upset when they heard his sin. He was sure they might find it very difficult to assure him of God’s love and forgiveness. They persisted until finally he admitted, “My sin is that I have trouble maintaining confidential information. I tend to spread rumors once I know something about a person. And I can’t wait to leave this room!”

I suspect we have made the same mistake with the word “confess” that we tend to make with the word “repent.” Two weeks ago, in our consideration of the spiritual app of study, we learned that the word “repent” is not so much about feelings as it is about our thoughts. The word for repent actually means to change our thinking. In this same way, confession is not about feelings of guilt or sorrow over sin. Jesus did not feel guilty about sin since he never sinned. So what was he doing? The Greek word for confess, exomologeo, actually means to agree with someone. When Jesus confessed it means he agreed with God that it was a good thing for the unlikely ones to be finding God. If confession means we agree with someone else, it helps us understand why James saw confessing our sins as an act which takes place in community rather than hidden away in a private closet.

How does confession work in the church community? Our church community consists of the people God brought into our lives to help us see the truth about ourselves. Feedback from our Christian friends is a gift from God. Confession begins when we agree to let God speak to us through these trusted friends. Confession progresses as we receive both compliments and concerns in the feedback of these friends.

For some of us the hardest part of confession is coming to agreement about the gifts and abilities others recognize in our lives. “Who me? I couldn’t do that.” However, as we pray about it we come to agreement that God has indeed given us particular gifts to bless others. Confession means we agree with others that God wants us to share our gifts and talents.

We also confess by agreeing to search our hearts about those things our friends tell us need to change. Our trusted friends may help us identify not only the sins, but also the deeper areas where we need God’s transforming heart surgery. We confess when we agree that something we have tried to cover up is really in need of Jesus’ healing touch.

Years ago I attended a conference for pastors where we experimented with this approach to confession. In one activity we were asked to identify someone in our lives for whom we felt genuine hostility. The leader of the conference then challenged us to consider what we found most frustrating about that person. If we could give that person some honest feedback and they would really listen, what would we like to say to that person? Instead of simply focusing on their outward behavior, what in the person’s character did we feel needed transforming? “It is not just your tone of voice; it is your arrogant attitude that is most frustrating.” We were encouraged to write down the character traits that were really at the core of that person’s faults. On our lists we came up with things like arrogant, insensitive and judgmental. We were good at identifying several areas for others’ improvement!

Next the leader of the conference asked us what positive qualities in our own lives did we most wish others would notice. If we asked for positive feedback, what would we hope they would tell us? Most of our lists included things like caring, patient, articulate, and trustworthy. We completed this exercise in the morning. Then, just before lunch, the leader presented this challenging idea. What if the reason we are upset by the other person is because we actually have not dealt with some of these same character issues in our own lives? Is it possible we are really reacting to our own shadow side?

After lunch we engaged in an exercise of confession. We were instructed to write down on a large piece of paper all the positive aspects of our character and specific gifts that we hoped others would appreciate. Then, we took masking tape and taped these papers onto our shoulders and draped them across the front. Once everyone had a sheet of paper naming their own gifts and positive qualities, we wandered around the room and greeted each other with words of affirmation. We agreed together that it was healthy to recognize the good gifts and abilities God has placed in our lives.

Then we took down the positive papers and wrote a list of these negative character qualities, our shadow sides, which we react to in others and try to hide from ourselves. Again, we taped the papers onto our fronts and wandered around.

I learned something that day. We are all gifted, but none of us is perfect. In fact, I realized that some of the same things I listed on my shadow sheet of paper, others had on their shadow papers as well. There is room for God to keep working in all of our lives. None of us is alone in our struggles. Confession then is the joyful discovery that we are all in this together.

Confession leads us to deeper levels of truth about ourselves. The Apostle Paul called it “sober judgment.” The first step of confession involves listening to feedback about which parts of our lives are intended to bless and which parts need Jesus’ transforming, healing touch. The second step of confession is to agree with others and offer ourselves to the Lord for his loving, transforming touch.

“There was a boy called Eustace Clarence Scrubb, and he almost deserved it.” This intriguing line opens C. S. Lewis’ Narnia book, The Voyage of the Dawn Treader. Eustace is a bully who enjoys manipulating others and getting his own way. As a result he has no friends. But when his cousins come to visit he ends up in an adventure that takes him into the fantasyland of Narnia. As part of a group that is exploring new regions, Eustace picks fights with others, pouts, runs away from the group and gets lost. He is the troublemaker in the story. Finally, his consequences catch up with him when he finds a dragon cave on an island and falls asleep on the dragon treasure. When Eustace wakes up he is fearful that dragons are sleeping on either side of him. He wants to quietly creep away from the cave, only to hear the movement of the dragons right behind him. As he arrives at a pool of water to drink, he looks into the pool and discovers to his horror that he has become a dragon. In fact, the dragon claws to his left and right were his own arms and legs. His dragon heart has turned the rest of him into a dragon.

Eustace, as a dragon, realizes for the first time how lonely it is to have no friends. He recognizes that he has been mean and hurtful to his cousins and others on the trip. He begins to appreciate how terribly he has treated the rest of the group. He doesn’t like what he is learning about himself.

Poor Eustace heads back to camp in the form of a dragon. At first the group is fearful, but eventually he is able to communicate that he is really Eustace inside the dragon’s skin. As a dragon he discovers that he can help his fellow travelers. He flies and gets food for them. He uses his breath to light their fires. It quickly becomes clear that they like Eustace better as a dragon than as a human.

Then, after nearly a week as a dragon, Eustace returns to camp one day as a boy. With humility he tells the story of his transformation to his cousins. Aslan, the huge lion who represents Christ in the land of Narnia, came to the dragon at night and invited him to bathe in a pool of special water. Before dipping into the water, the lion insisted that the dragon undress. Eustace, at first, was confused by the instructions. How does a dragon undress? Then, realizing that dragons are similar to snakes, he came up with the idea of scraping the outer layer of skin off like a snake shedding its skin.

Indeed, Eustace tried to change back into himself by rubbing at his dragon scales for some time until he could feel the outer layer begin to peel. He then tore enough of a hole in his outer dragon skin to allow him to step out of the skin. But when he shed the entire outer layer, stepped out of it and returned to the water, he could see in the reflection that he was still a dragon. He worked to scrape off another layer, but found, though he was slightly smaller than before, he was still a dragon. He continued peeling off layer after layer like an onion, but still discovered that he was not turning into a boy. Finally, Aslan offered to help. If Eustace would lie down on his back, Aslan would take his sharp lion’s claw and cut through the layers of the dragon skin all at once.

Eustace says it felt like peeling a scab. At first it hurts, but then it feels good to have the tender but healthy skin exposed. So Eustace lay on his back, with his arms and legs open, and let Aslan do the painful surgery. Aslan’s sharp claw dug deeply into the dragon’s chest. Eustace thought for a moment that Aslan would cut into his heart. Aslan’s claw hurt immensely for a brief moment, and yet it felt so good to have all the layers of dragon skin peel away. The new, nicer Eustace emerged from the dragon by letting Aslan perform surgery on him.

Here is the question. When we think of confession, do we think of it as scraping our own scales off? If we work really hard, can we break our bad habits and change ourselves? If this is our image of confession, then we are doomed to failure. On the other hand, what if we saw confession as opening our lives to the Lord’s surgery? Confession is the joyful discovery that we all need help and none of us can change ourselves. Only Jesus is able to do the soul surgery needed to transform us.