It can be rightly said that the difference between a “saint” and “sinner” is that the saint is the one who is willing to confess his or her sins. The practice of confession happens in church life in one of two ways. Either the Church provides a formal means of confession of sin and pronouncement of forgiveness (as in the Catholic Church, for example). Or, church people find informal ways to share their need for confession and forgiveness when they deem it “necessary,” which usually means in cases where the situation has become too far gone for much reconciliation to take place. As a Protestant Evangelical pastor, I have to say that I have experienced the latter quite often: a parishoner has gotten so deep into a situation or a habit that he or she in desperation comes to the pastor or a trusted friend and “comes clean.” These times are important, of course, and they can be turning points for us. However, at those times I often wonder if having a more consistent means of confessing our sins “one to another” wouldn’t be a useful element of our Christian experience. For the Early Church it was.
Perhaps we as Protestants could recapture the lost art of confession. Scripture reminds us to “. . .confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another that you may be healed” (James 5:16).
Confession is a kind of agreement: we come to agreement with God and with one another about what is sin and what has been harmful. This agreement with God and with each other allows the grace of God to shine through in our midst: we admit our need for the forgiveness of God and for a community that embodies God’s kind of peace. At first glance, there is a lot of trepidation involved in confessing and reconciling, since it requires us to become more transparent even in our closest friendships than we are accustomed to in our culture. Most of us, even in church life, have friendships that are sentimentally deep, but biblically shallow. Indeed, some are not even sentimentally deept! The kind of friendship the Bible emphasizes is one in which “iron sharpens iron” and in which we can go to one another “speaking the truth in love”, trusting that love and grace are at the heart of our existence as the people of God.
When we trust God and one another enough to truly confess our sins to God and to another, we are becoming the kind of people God envisioned us to be. The reason confession is such a key component to the Christian gospel is because once a person experiences the joy and release of being able to invite a brother or sister in Christ into his or her life, a kind of deeper healing can occur – the kind of healing that is written about in the Book of James and throughout the Bible.
So, that is the “why” of confession. What about the “how”? First, it takes trust: I must trust God enough to be transparent with Him about my need for His grace. And, I must trust another person enough to want true accountability and honesty in my life. The second part is often much harder than the first. However, just as loving God and loving our neighbors are virtually inseparable in the Bible, according to Jesus, so too is the eventual inseparable nature of confessing to God and to a trusted brother or sister in Christ. Especially for the deepest scars or most difficult and destructive habits in our lives, adding a trusted brother/sister in Christ to the mix is crucial for the deepest healing.
Second, this confession is not to be confused with gossip, which seeks to pass along information in order to justify sin in the life of the “teller” or the listener. Rather, confession makes both the speaker and hearer vulnerable, and it calls for the grace of God instead of the judgement of humans that gossip often evokes. No deep relationship is needed for gossip to flourish; only a listening ear and a willing talker! However, for biblical confession to occur, a depth of trust and a maturity, combined with a reliance upon God’s grace are all necessary. Therefore, we must first be willing to invest ourselves deeply into the lives of others in order for the kind of trusting relationship necessary for confession to flourish. This means speaking the truth in love, risking discomfort at times, being open to correction, etc. Generally, this means taking big steps from immaturity in the faith to becoming a mature and trustworthy Christian in the Community of Faith God has created.
The world longs for such a community. Jesus brings that kind of community to those of us who choose to trust Him enough to be His instruments of grace. Let us join Jesus in this endeavor as local churches. Let us move from shallow relationships of gossip and passing niceties to deeper walks with God and with our brothers and sisters. From this journey there can emerge among us relationships that invite true confession, which according to Scripture, fosters wholeness and healing.
We will not and should not have this kind of relationship with everyone. However, I believe that if we are genuinely seeking God’s direction in this regard, God will bring into our lives those to whom we can confess “...that we may be healed.” May God’s healing flourish among us!
-- Charles W. Christian
(Revised and reproduced here from the June 2010 Edition of Grace Encounters)
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