“No Confession Required” Vance L. Toivonen
READING Luke 15:1-3, 11b-19
Now all the tax collectors and sinners were coming near to listen to him. And the Pharisees and the scribes were grumbling and saying, "This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them." So he told them this parable:…"There was a man who had two sons. The younger of them said to his father, 'Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.' So he divided his property between them. A few days later the younger son gathered all he had and traveled to a distant country, and there he squandered his property in dissolute living. When he had spent everything, a severe famine took place throughout that country, and he began to be in need. So he went and hired himself out to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed the pigs. He would gladly have filled himself with the pods that the pigs were eating; and no one gave him anything. But when he came to himself he said, 'How many of my father's hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger! I will get up and go to my father, and I will say to him, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands."'
READING Luke 15:20-32
So he set off and went to his father. But while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him. Then the son said to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.' But the father said to his slaves, 'Quickly, bring out a robe--the best one--and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. And get the fatted calf and kill it, and let us eat and celebrate; for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!' And they began to celebrate. "Now his elder son was in the field; and when he came and approached the house, he heard music and dancing. He called one of the slaves and asked what was going on. He replied, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fatted calf, because he has got him back safe and sound.' Then he became angry and refused to go in. His father came out and began to plead with him. But he answered his father, 'Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you have never given me even a young goat so that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you killed the fatted calf for him!' Then the father said to him, 'Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and has come to life; he was lost and has been found.'"
SERMON
Some of you who have spent time in the Catholic church know all too well that Confession is an essential rite. Even those of us who have grown up in other church traditions have seen the obligatory confessional booth scenes in movies and television shows enough to be familiar with it. Confession involves a purging of the conscience, a means by which one can unload the guilt one is carrying around, guilt which can be quite heavy at times.
In the church, confession is then followed by some sort of penance. Traditionally some prayers might be offered at the altar, a few candles lit, a Hail Mary or two; but I’m sure there have been much more creative forms of penance offered by priests. I do not want in anyway to diminish or downplay this process. I think it has merit, especially if it is used in lieu of nothing else. Confession, as they say, is good for the soul. The unburdening of guilt may even help to ward off bodily disease, and may contribute to better mental health as well. So there is much to be said for confession as a legitimate process.
The story that comprises today’s readings is both familiar and compelling. It is familiar not just because we have heard it read over the years, but also because we have seen it played out time and time again, and we are in one way or another the players. One of the first things to ask ourselves with this Jesus parable is, “which son do I most identify with?”. Am I the child who runs off into the world to do his or her own thing, or am I the child who stays close to home, taking care of parental property, and the parents themselves?
It seems in every family there is a primary caregiver, a super-responsible sibling who bears the burden of caring for the parents, especially when aging issues begin to emerge. Perhaps you are that child. Or you may be more like the prodigal, having devoted your life to doing your own thing. You may also see yourself as the parent in this story, and take this as an opportunity to reflect upon how you relate to your children. There are many different facets to this parable.
I want to focus especially on the confessional aspect of today’s reading. A word that is closely related to confession is repentance. Frederick Buechner writes the following definition of repentance:
To repent is to come to your senses. It is not so much about something you do as something that happens. True repentance spends less time looking at the past and saying, “I’m sorry,” than to the future and saying “Wow!” (Buechner, Wishful Thinking: A Theological ABC).
When we isolate the prodigal’s canned confession, we find little or no “wow” in it. It is locked in the past, a bemoaning of past behavior, and a pleading for a way out. He rehearses his speech as follows, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son; treat me like one of your hired hands." It is a kind of pity party, and a groveling, of sorts. How many of us have found ourselves rehearsing a confession over the years? For some of us this has not occurred since childhood. For others this may have happened as recently as this morning.
Nevertheless, coming to our sense is an important element of this process. Our awareness of our own brokenness, our shadow selves, is essential for a healthy spiritual life; or for that matter, for a healthy life, period. In her book Amazing Grace, Kathleen Norris recalls a poem written by a little boy titled, “The Monster Who Was Sorry.” In the poem the boy writes about how much he hates it when his father yells at him. This hatred is expressed by throwing his sister down the stairs, wrecking his room, and then wrecking the whole town. The last line of the poem reads, “Then I sit in my messy house and say to myself, ‘I shouldn’t have done all that.’”
Sitting quietly and being aware of our messy houses is an important process. There is a humility that is born of our willingness to look at the darker sides of ourselves, to admit our brokenness first to ourselves, and to God, then perhaps to someone else. The traditional rites of the Church are simply intended to jump start this process, to make sure that attention is being paid. But if we are willing to engage in this process in some other way than a formal confessional booth, then it is not necessary for the external rite of confession. The internal process of repentance, of coming to our senses, is the essential behavior. The prodigal son does this.
The older brother, the one who stayed close to home, does not engage in this process. One might say he has it all together, his ducks all in a row. He is the good son who has a difficult time finding any darkness at all within himself. He is the righteous child. He is the dutiful child. He is the resentful child. He is the child that harbors jealousy in his heart. And we realize that there is indeed darkness here, even though the elder son may not be conscious of that darkness.
And then there is the father, the parent who interrupts his prodigal son mid-confession, for he never gets out the part about treating him like one of the hired servants. How many of us would exact some sort of penance from those who wrong us? How many of us project guilt and shame on those children who do not act as we would wish them to act? How many of us drop little verbal bombs of guilt upon our children now and then? This parent does none of this.
In fact, this parent acts in every way contrary to what we would expect. The son who has most obviously misbehaved is given a party. The son who deserves punishment receives nothing but reward. The son who squandered his inheritance is given more. I don’t see how we can hear this story without cringing just a little. Wouldn’t we want to engage in some sort of ethical forum to discuss the strange behavior of this parent? This is a crazy man. A parent who acts like this will just make it that much more difficult for us to raise our children and our grandchildren. Doesn’t something seem just a little wrong with this picture?
Just ask the older son. He’ll tell you that everything is wrong with this picture. After all, he is the one who deserves a party! He works long hours, and he works hard. He has no time for fun and games. Where is his reward?! If you find yourself identifying with the older son in this parable, you may find that a little ire has begun to fire in your soul.
On the surface we are aware of three primary characters in this story, a father and his two sons. But there are also a few others, namely those to whom Jesus is speaking. The Pharisees and the scribes, who were attendants to Jewish law, open this text by grumbling because of the company Jesus is noted for keeping. Jesus, you see, spent time with people of the common classes, some of them considered by the scribes and Pharisees to be sinners. Some were unclean according to Jewish law, unclean and untouchable. Tax collectors and yes, prostitutes were among those Jesus was seen with. Jesus, it seems, did not care too much about keeping up appearances. He simply cared for people – period. And the more ostracized they were, the more he seemed to care.
Jesus responds to their grumbling with this parable, which may come into clearer focus now. God, the Father does not keep score. God, the Father is all love and compassion. God, the Father accepts all people wherever they are in life. God, the Father or Mother, if one prefers, stands there constantly with arms wide open to receive us. God, the unconditionally loving Parent, is not interested in our confessions. God wants above all else to say YES to us, to engender in us the best of who we are, and to patiently let us grow to become everything we were intended to be from birth.
The tree in the garden of Eden, the fruit of which ushered in the downfall of humanity, was the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. When human beings ate of that tree, and when we eat of it still, we set ourselves up as little judges, little gods who are nothing like the loving parent in the parable. Henri Nouwen asks, “Can we free ourselves from the need to judge others?” He writes,
If we think of ourselves as the sum total of our successes, popularity, and power we become dependant on the ways we judge and are being judged…Only when we claim the love of God, the love that transcends all judgments, can we overcome the fear of judgment. (Henri Nouwen, Here and Now).
This is what we need to confront in ourselves, the fear of judgment. The younger son was filled with this fear. Actually, both sons were filled with this fear. They just reacted to it in different ways.
It is ironic that the only one in the universe who is truly in a position to judge chooses not to judge. If God alone is judge, and God chooses instead to love beyond judging, then our emulation of God, our imagining of God, our sense of being made in the image of God, is all predicated upon our non-judgmental, unconditional loving of the human community, which starts right here at Hope. This is where we can practice this non-judgmental, unconditional loving. This is where we can work on becoming more and more like the crazy father in the parable, surprising one another again and again with love when it seems the opposite is in order.
In his book A Field Guide to the Soul, James Thornton offers a prayer for the expression of our own brokenness before God. Although I have made a case this morning that God does not require such confession, this does not mean that the spirit of confession, and an awareness of our own brokenness is not a healthy and necessary component of our spiritual life. It certainly is. Besides, it is God’s unconditional love that can free us to explore those deep, dark crevices in our lives without fear of rejection.
So I offer in closure now the prayer found on page 155 of Thornton’s book. Following a brief silence I invite you to make this prayer your own as I articulate it.
Father and Mother, I come to you today with all the pain in my life to ask for awakening. Show me now the truth of who I really am. Help me to face everything I have run away from all my life. I am tired of running, tired of not knowing, tired of this small self.
Let me open completely to You. Let me live in You, through You, and for You in everything I do. I give You myself completely, now and forever. I hold nothing back.
I give You my life and all its pains and problems. They are Yours now. Show me how to take care of them. Show me everything I need to see so I can awaken fully and remember You always. And give me the courage to accept it, whatever it may be.