“LIVING REGRET FREE”
1 John 1:5-10 / James 4:1-10; 5:16
In the early years of our marriage we became the proud owners of a beautful green/white-striped sofa. The man at the furniture store warned us not to get it when he found out we were expect-ing. “You don't want a white and green sofa, folks! Get something the color of dirt!” We didn't appreciate him talking dirt to us, so convinced we could handle our kids, we bought the jailbird sofa!
From that moment, we safeguarded that sofa. Don't jump on the sofa! Shoes off on the sofa! Don't eat on it, don't touch it, don't breathe on it! Don't even look at it! Remember the forbidden fruit in the Garden of Eden? “On every other chair in the house you may sit, but upon the jailbird sofa, you may not sit, for on the day you sit thereupon, you shall surely die!” Then came the Fall!
One day there appeared on the sofa a mysterious stain. So my wife who'd chosen the sofa, adored that sofa, lined up our three children and began her interragation! “That stain is not coming out no matter what I do! It's going to be there forever! Do you kids know how long forever is? That's how long we're going to stand here until one of you tells me who put that stain on our sofa!”
Christopher was the first to break. “Nicola did it!” Nicola quickly pointed to Melanie, who looked around and pointed at our dog, Snickers, who whimpered and slinked off to his crate to hide.
Then came the silence . No one said a word. I knew they wouldn't crack because they had never seen their mother so angry. I knew they wouldn't crack, because forever is a long time, and besides, I was the one who was responsible for that ugly stain on the couch..., and I knew I wasn't saying anything, at least not until many years had passed and the kids were all out of the house! Sorry dear!
Here's the thing. We have all fallen short and stained the sofa. Some of the stains are small and barely noticeable, but some of them bleed through the entire fabric of our lives. They are the stains that we regret, wishing we could go back and relive certain moments and get things right this time. They are the stains that, if we don't regret, we should, and we would if our hearts were working right.
Chief anesthesiolgist Dr. Rajiv Parti's heart stopped while undergoing surgery and he found him self in a place of torment. Rajiv felt shame as he thought about how loveless his life had been, how dismissive of his patients he'd been and downright mean to his son. “There appeared to be no way out, but I prayed for one anyway. 'God, give me another chance!' I prayed, repenting of my mean behavior.
I found myself transported by two beings with wings into the presence of a divine light, where I was bathed in love. I knew I was loved and that this Being of Light knew more about me than I did about it. 'You need to look at your life again,' it told me. The divine being wanted me to understand the changes I needed to make as it made clear it was sending me back. During the review I revisited the many thing I was not proud of. In spite of it, I felt a deep sense of love from the Being of Light, the kind of love I should've exhibited with my son. In retrospect, I think this Being might've been Jesus.”
(from John Burke's Imagine the God of Heaven)
Here's the thing: God has given us the gift of confession and Jesus, like John the Baptist, urges us to repent of those things we do and say that are wrong or hurtful. It's why Jesus' followers like James and John urge their fellow followers, like us here tonight, to “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. Such prayers have great power...!” (James 5:16)
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Some times people wonder, If I'm a Christian and God has already forgiven me, why should I have to confess? But this is looking at confession the wrong way. Confession is not primarily some-thing God has us do because He needs it. God is not clutching tightly to his mercy, as if we have to pry it from his fingers, like a child's last cookie. We need to confess in order to heal and be changed.
When we practice confession, two things happen. First, we're liberated from guilt. Second, we will be far less likely to sin the same way in the future. That sin will look less attractive. Scripture urges us to confess our sins because as James writes, by it we are healed, from the inside out. Such confession can be seen as a five-step process for spiritual stain removal.
The first step is preparation. We begin by seeking and asking the Holy Spirit to help us. Charles Steinmetz was a genious electrical engineer for General Electric in the early 20th century. On one occasion after his retiremeent, when the other GE engineers were baffled by the breakdown of a complex of machines, they asked Steinmetz to come back to see if he could pinpoint the problem. He walked around the machines, then took a piece of chalk out of his pcoket and made a cross mark on one particular piece of one particular machine. To their amazement, when they took apart that part of the machine, it turned out to be the precise location of the breakdown.
A few days later, the engineers received a bill from Steinmetz for $10,000 – a staggering sum in those days. They returned it with a request that he itemize it, which he soon thereafter did. Making one cross mark: $1.00. Knowing where to put it: $9,999.00!
The hard part of self-examination is knowing where to place the mark. 'How can one know all the sins lurking in one's heart?' writes the psalmist. 'Cleanse me, O Lord, from these hidden faults!'
(Psalm 19:12)
Confession starts with our placing ourselves under the protection of God and asking Him to put the cross mark on the right spot. The second step is self-examination.
Confession should be specific and concise. One “I lied to my boss or spouse when I said I was working when I wasn't” is far more significant than any number of “I haven't been truthful enough”. It is this aspect of Christian confession that moved Bill W to speak of the fourth of the twelve steps of AA as a 'fearless' and 'ruthless' moral inventory.
At the heart of it, confession involves taking appropriate responsibility for what we have done. This is not easy to do. We try to slip out of it. What starts as a confession often ends up an excuse: “I didn't mean to yell at you; I was having a bad day.”
To confess means to own up to the fact that our behavior wasn't just the result of bad parenting, poor genes, jealous siblings, or a chemical inbalence from too many Twinkies. Any or all of those factors may be involved, but confession means saying that somewhere in the mix was a choice, and the choice was made by us, and it does not need to be excused, explained or even understood. The choice needs to be forgiven. The slate has to be wiped clean.
In the third step of confession, we ask for honest perception. We seek to see our sins thru a new lens. We begin to see them thru the eyes of the person we've wronged, and that of God. Jesus often spoke of the need for this different perspective, as he articulated it in his sermon on the mount:
“Why do you see the speck in your neighbor's eye, but do not notice the log in your own eye? How can you say to your neighbor, 'Let me take the speck out of your eye', while the log is in your own eye? You hypocrite! First take the log out of your own eye....!” (Matthew 7:5-7)
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When we have a log in our eye – not a twig, but something the size of a canoe – our ability to perceive accutely greatly diminished. This is what happened to Jesus' listeners. They saw the sins of prostitutes and cheaters and had nothing to do with them. Jesus' listeners were proud of their spiritual superiority, but Jesus accused them of being in denial. They needed to have a radical keratotomy performed on the eyes of their soul. Then they would perceive their behavior in a new light.
True confession is not just an exhange of information; it also involves entering into the pain of the person we have hurt and entering into God's pain over our specific sin. It's an act of grace.
The fourth step is acknowledging that confession is made in the context of grace. Feelings of remorse are no guarantee of authentic repentance, as some times they are counterproductive. It helps to know what our tendencies are, whether we tend to beat ourselves up or let ourselves off the hook.
The Apostle Paul made a distinction between two kinds of sorrow. There is what he called godly sorrow, (2 Cor 7:10), which is a fitting emotional reesponse to our wrongdoing. It leads us to seek restitution and reconciliation. It compels us to change and grow and leads us to grace.
The other kind of sorrow is what Paul calls worldly sorrow. It's toxic sorrow that instead of leading to new life, leads to inner death. It condemns the person rather than convicting the heart. The convicting power of the Holy Spirit is that still small voice that nudges us and says, “You have spoken harsh words that hurt someone. You need to go back and make things right.” Or: “You acted selfishly and you need to make restitution.” Or: “You lied and you need to go back and tell the truth.”
Confession is not just naming what we have done in the past. It involves our intentions about the future as well. The fifth step requires a promise. As God does his work in us through the process of confession, we feel a deep desire not to do this hurtful, prideful thing again. We resolve that, with God's help, we will change. This will involve trying to set right what we did wrong, to the extent that such is possible. This is what Zacchaeus determined to do. “I will repay anyone I've cheated four times over, and half of my goods I will give to the poor.” (Luke 19:8)
That is echoed in the climatic scene in Charles Dickens' “A Christmas Carol”. Scrooge, convicted by the Spirit of Christmas, commits to living differently, no longer living a miserly, self-serving life, but one of generosity and grace, starting with his belabored employee, Bob Cratchet!
And what has moved readers and viewers of that story, one of the most reproduced stories on film of all time, is the freedom that confession and profession of intent to make right where he had been wrong and wronged those around him brings. It's Scrooge's change of heart and newfound joy. My favorite version of that story is a musical staring Albert Finney, in which Scrooge not only dances in joy but leads the people of London in a Christmas Day parade of new found delight in life and people, singing, “Thank you very much! Thank you very much, that's the nicest thing that anyone's ever done for me!” He sings that initially to those he'd once cheated and hurt, but by the end you realize that he's more fully singing it to the God who has forgiven him, shown him grace and given him a shot at living a better life, a liberated life, one in which he seeks to live out God's grace to the fullest!
That's what confession is for us! As James writes: “Humble yourselves before God. Resisit the devil and he will flee from you. Come close to God and God will come close to you. Wash your hands, you sinners and purify your hearts... Let there be tears for what you have done. Humble yourselves before the Lord and he will lift you up in honor! Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. Such prayer has great power!” (James 4:7-10; 5:16)