Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father, and from our Lord Jesus Christ.
Verse (John 20:21-23):
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” And when he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of anyone, they are forgiven; if you withhold forgiveness from anyone, it is withheld.”
Cu Yecu kɛ nyɔk kɛ jio̱k i̱, "A mal tekɛ yɛ. Ce̱tkɛ min ci Gua̱a̱r ɣä ja̱k, ɣän ja̱kä yɛ bä." Kä mëë cɛ mɛmɛ lar, cuɛ kɛ ŋök yiëë, kä cuɛ kɛ jiök i̱, "Ka̱nɛ Yiëë in Gɔaa in Rɛl Rɔ. Mi wä yɛn dueer ran wä päl, ba kɛ päl. Kä mi rɔm yɛn dueer ran, ba kɛ rɔm."
Prayer: Lord God, our heavenly Father, enlighten our darkness with the light of your Holy Spirit, so that I may preach well and we all may hear well, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
And God said, “Let there be light,” and there was light.
We know what God said, but have you ever wondered about what he was thinking. It’s not told us.
Normally we would think a master builder would have to plan out something in his head or on paper before he picked up his hammer and began to work. But not so with God.
With him, his words and his thoughts are the same. What he doesn’t reveal to us, we don’t need to know, because we don’t even know whether he thinks what we think he’s thinking. We take God at his word.
God doesn’t think, “Let there be light”. He says it. His thoughts and his words are the same.
But it’s not the same with us. We have a voice going on inside us, and we also speak. And the further we move away from God, the more our thoughts and our words move further away from each other.
It’s a sign of our times that people think one thing and they say another. We go to the supermarket and someone says, “How are you?” and they say, “Well”, when they’re not. It shouldn’t be like this. And maybe you say, “But the person did want to say, “I’m feeling rotten”, because they wanted to be polite, and they didn’t want to burden them.” But then we testify to the fact that the person who said, “How are you?” wasn’t really interested in how they were at all.
Not so with God. God is always interested in how you are, and always wants to know the truthful answer.
+++
Tonight on this Ash Wednesday, I would like to talk to you about a topic which is very close to my heart, a topic which is an old friend of mine, a friend on whose shoulder I’ve laughed and cried, and that is: Private Confession and Absolution.
We are living in a time when it is more important to say what is polite than to say what is true. We are suffering as a church because we are more worried about saying what is polite than saying what is true. Some people even believe that there is no such thing as truth. That is because they are so mixed up in their own hearts, that they can’t find the right direction any more.
A polite society which is not a truthful one is a pagan one.
A church which says what is polite rather than what is true is an apostate church.
A pastor who says what he thinks rather than what God says is a liar and a cheat and a fraud. We as pastors are “called and ordained servants of the Word”, not of “our own thoughts”. When we want to go beyond the word of God and speak our own opinions, then we have corrupted our ministry.
If the devil really wants to try to destroy the church, the thing he will do is attack the office of the ministry. He will attack those people who have taken vows in the presence of God to speak the Word of God. The devil wants nothing else than to silence pastors saying what they should say and what they are called to say.
But it’s not easy for pastors either. Because almost no pastor anymore is judged by their people on the basis of what they say, but how polite they are. “Why did the pastor upset you? Did he say something wrong?” “No, but it was the way he said it. He was insensitive.” Most people in this parish who don’t come to church anymore and were upset with a previous pastor have never been upset with whether or not they said something that was untrue, or wrong, but they were upset with him about how he said it. He was insensitive. He didn’t consider their feelings. He wasn’t polite about it.
Do you think St Paul was polite, when he said “You foolish Galatians”? Do you think Jesus was polite when he said, “You brood of vipers!”
God is not polite. Even if churches are polite, God still won’t be. He will still throw his 10 commandments at us, and he will still be mending broken hearts with his powerful gospel.
God says in Deuteronomy: “I kill and I make alive; I wound and I heal.” There’s nothing polite about it, it’s only truth.
+++
Lent is a time when we come to reflect on ourselves and is traditionally a season of repentance. And tonight on Ash Wednesday we will be marked by the ashes as a sign of our mortality.
Now in talking about private confession and absolution, there are few things I want to tell you. First of all, most Lutherans think this is a Roman Catholic thing. Well, of all the things that Luther and the reformers threw out at the time of the reformation, they did not throw out Private Confession and Absolution. They reformed it, they didn’t force people to it, but they didn’t throw it out. In fact, it survived in the Lutheran church for up to 250 years after the reformation.
Private confession and absolution in fact was the main way in which pastoral care was conducted in Lutheran churches. Even the way we understand church membership has changed over the years. Now we have a list of church members, but in the early days of the Lutheran church you had a list of Beichtkinder, which in German means “someone who makes confession”. If you want to know what Luther said about private pastoral care of people, the only thing he really talks about is confession and absolution.
The book of concord which is the Lutheran church’s official teaching, which every pastor swears at their ordination to uphold, says:
About confession we teach that Private Absolution ought to be retained in the churches, although in confession an enumeration of all sins is not necessary. For it is impossible according to the Psalm, “Who can understand his errors?”
Also, because of the great benefit of absolution, and because it is otherwise useful to the conscience, Confession is retained among us.
Also, I’d like you to open up the Small Catechisms which you received on the way in and we can look at what it says about this topic.
What is confession?
Confession has two parts. First, that we confess our sins, and second, that we receive absolution, that is, forgiveness, from the pastor as from God Himself, not doubting, but firmly believing that by it our sins are forgiven before God in heaven.
What sins should we confess?
Before God we should plead guilty of all sins, even those we are not aware of, as we do in the Lord's Prayer; but before the pastor we should confess only those sins which we know and feel in our hearts.
Which are these?
Consider your place in life according to the Ten Commandments: Are you a father, mother, son, daughter, husband, wife, or worker? Have you been disobedient, unfaithful, or lazy? Have you been hot-tempered, rude, or quarrelsome? Have you hurt someone by your words or deeds? Have you stolen, been negligent, wasted anything, or done any harm?
During this Lent, I’d like to commend to you to consider this. Especially consider it, if you feel that you are close to death, or if when you experience a sense of your mortality, or if you are about to embark on something unknown in life. But private confession now in the church is normally something that we do in emergencies. Martin Luther meant that it should be the normal way in which people receive private pastoral care. The normal way in which people receive public pastoral care is in the Divine Service and in the Liturgy. In a sense, the Lutheran church has lost it’s footing about what true pastoral care is. It has to do with acknowledging sin and receiving forgiveness.
It’s not something that polite people do. If you worry about being polite, don’t worry too much. The devil is also a polite man, and he’ll sort you out.
Ask yourself, have I ever spoken what is the truth about myself?
But remember, that there is nowhere in the bible where it says that people must confess their sins to their pastors. That’s why the Lutheran church doesn’t force people into it. It also doesn’t force people to confess all their sins, because our understanding is clouded to such an extent that we can’t know all our sins. But we know what bothers us. That’s why Luther says in his catechism, “before the pastor we should confess only those sins which we know and feel in our hearts.”
As a personal testimony, I don’t know how I would have got through seminary without private absolution. I don’t know how I would get through my marriage without it. And I don’t know how I would get through my ministry without it.
Luther said in the Large Catechism: “A Christian should want to travel 100 miles to make confession.” Never did I think in my entire life that one day I would be almost exactly 100 miles from my closest pastor, and this is my greatest – if not my only – sorrow in my ministry here, is that I can’t go to my neighbouring pastors more often.
And so I commend this practice to you, not as someone who wants to burden you, but as a fellow sufferer, a fellow sinner, as your pastor who loves you and wants to best for you, as St Paul says in Romans, “I long to see you that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to strengthen you, that is, that we may mutually encouraged, by your faith and mine.” What better gift can you receive from your pastor than to hear the absolution, the forgiveness of sins?
If you don’t like me personally, or if in the future you have a pastor that you don’t like, then my best advice to you would be to go and confess to him. If he won’t listen to you, then beat him over the head with a stick or something, and make him! That’s what he’s there for! Don’t worry about being polite to him, just be truthful. And something better than politeness will blossom from it – you may even be blessed with friendship!
In 2009, the General Synod of the Lutheran Church of Australia passed a resolution to encourage pastors to teach people about private confession and absolution. And the reason why I have kept so quiet about it over the last two years in my ministry here is because I desire so much to win you over in all of this, not that you reject it and say, “I’m not a Catholic.” “Who needs pastors? I can confess my sins to God!”
But you might wonder how to go about all of this. Well, you might want to come to confess your sins for a variety of reasons: You might like to just come and receive the absolution and speak a confession prayer like we always do in church. Or something might have been bothering you for years that you really need to say. Or maybe you might like to ask some advice about something which is ongoing. Or maybe you might like to tell the story of your spiritual life. It might be difficult for you to say things in English – then come anyway, and let God hear what you’ve got to say, and let yourself hear the absolution in the language which I can speak!!
Confession takes different forms: you might to write something down in advance, or even send me a letter so I can read it and come and give you absolution afterwards.
If you want some advice about going about it then just take some time, go somewhere quiet by yourself, pray to the Holy Spirit for enlightenment to reveal to you your sins, and also to reveal to you how serious they are. Then read the Ten Commandments, one by one, slowly, or The sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5-7, and let each word sink into you. Read the words of Luther in the catechism to you. Think about them. Then you might like to write something down, or jot down some notes, or whatever. You might not need all that.
If you find you’ve got one excuse in your mind after another then take that as a sure and certain sign for you to come and make confession. Conflicting thoughts and excuses are a thing of the Old Adam and the flesh. St Paul says: “Their conscience also bears witness and their conflicting thoughts accuse or even excuse them.” (Rom 2:15)
But you still might think, “I can confess my sins to God.” And you’re right. Do it. Do it every day. St John says, “If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just and will forgive our sins.” The reason why pastors are there is not to stop you confessing your sins to God, but to speak God’s answer to you on his behalf. “On behalf of my Lord Jesus Christ and by his authority” [An Gottes Statt und aus Gottes Befehl]. So often did I used to confess my sins and wish then that God would tear open the heavens and send the Angel Gabriel and speak the words of forgiveness to me so that I could hear it and believe it. But even the Angel Gabriel’s job is not to speak the words of forgiveness, that’s the job of pastors. That is the duty of the office of the ministry.
That’s the whole point. There are many groups who for all kinds of psychological reasons think confessing sins is a good idea, Christian and secular groups alike. But if there’s no absolution, then they’ve cheated you out. If there’s no forgiveness, then all they’ve done is made you into a Pharisee who says, “Aren’t I good? I confessed!” “I thank you Lord that I am not like that man over there because I’ve confessed my sins.” Your confession is not perfect and will never be perfect, but God’s words of forgiveness – the absolution – is perfect and you build your faith on that.
Everyone’s looking for the key to church renewal. Why not the keys to the kingdom of heaven? Why not the office of the Keys?!! Let’s read together on page 18 of your catechisms once again.
What is the Office of the Keys?
The Office of the Keys is that special authority which Christ has given to His church on earth to forgive the sins of repentant sinners, but to withhold forgiveness from the unrepentant as long as they do not repent.
Where is this written?
This is what St. John the Evangelist writes in chapter twenty: The Lord Jesus breathed on His disciples and said, 'Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive anyone his sins, they are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven' (John 20:22-23).
What do you believe according to these words?
I believe that when the called ministers of Christ deal with us by His divine command, in particular when they exclude openly unrepentant sinners from the Christian congregation and absolve those who repent of their sins and want to do better, this is just as valid and certain, even in heaven, as if Christ our dear Lord dealt with us Himself.
There it is, my friends, the Catechism’s chapter on pastoral care. I commend this to you. It’s a great treasure of the church, and of the Lutheran church, and in a sense it is one of our greatest gifts to the world even though many Lutherans don’t use it!
You are not forced to make confession, but I am forced to absolve you. You are not forced to confess your sins, but I am forced and I am bound in chains as your pastor to speak the words of forgiveness. You are not under orders, but I am under orders. That’s what it means to be ordained – to be under orders.
And I close with the words of St Paul: “I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.”
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment