Confessions

He confessed, and did not deny, but confessed, “I am not the Christ.”

John 1:20

I love this response of John the Baptist when he was asked if he was the expected Messiah. Commentaries and different translations make confess and deny have the same meaning, but to me there is a difference – a confession is positive and a denial negative. He didn’t just say No, no, no, you’ve got that all wrong, he made an open, honest assessment of himself, he declared the truth – that he was not the Messiah. They went on to ask him who he was and he could only respond with a verse from Isaiah, that he was a voice crying in the wilderness, prepare the way of the Lord. John wasn’t trying to work out who he was, he was only interested in doing the work he’d been called to – getting ready for the One who was to come.

Confessions are not just things Catholics do when they go into a booth with a priest to unburden their consciences. I’m thinking of the Confessions of St Augustine – an autobiographical work by Saint Augustine of Hippo, consisting of 13 books written in Latin between AD 397 and 400. (Don’t get your Augustines muddled up, this is not Augustine of Canterbury who brought Roman Christianity to England in the 6th century). The work outlines the African bishop’s sinful youth and his conversion to Christianity and is full of wisdom and faith. It is far more than a list of things he’d done wrong!

So I was honoured when a good friend made this comment having read a post last week: “Your blog had a confessional resonance and sense to it. What do I mean by being ‘Confessional’? …in the sense of being an honest statement of faith where you are. In the sense of not being unrealistic or unquestioning”

I am totally committed to being honest, open and real. What pleases me most is when readers say they love the reality and vulnerability of what I write. I hate pretence, religious superficiality and hypocrisy – what is the point of that?! Our testimony is only valuable if it is true, warts and all. When we reveal our weaknesses we simply show up the grace and kindness of God more, to bear with and rescue us. My mandate is ‘True stories, word and pictures’

One of the passages I’ve found most helpful regarding this is 1 John 1:7-9: ^“if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness”. God doesn’t demand that we continually say sorry, sorry, sorry! He wants us to walk in light – so that it shines through us and reveals the truth about us. If we live openly and honestly, admitting who we are, not hiding in the shadows where sin can trap us, letting others see our struggles, confessing not denying, we will live forgiven and in fellowship with others, no barriers between us and God or others.

I know in the past this has made me quite negative and open to correction by those who propound positive speaking and ‘the word of faith’. I’ve always said how I feel and brought up difficult issues rather than glossing over them or saying the ‘right’ thing. I have had to learn to be more positive, grateful and trusting over difficult issues in life in the same way that CBT helps people nail their ‘hot thought’ and replace it with the true one. But God doesn’t need us to defend Him, it’s OK to ask questions, be angry or sad and wrestle with the Lord over things: we are human, Jesus knows.

I asked a priest at the Cathedral once why we have to confess our sins in every service when we’re not specifically convicted of wrong doing, as if we’re always coming under condemnation feeling bad about ourselves. He pointed out we are all involved in structural sin, maybe that we can’t even see: living off the poor because of historical injustices, part of political systems that are less than holy. That we are confessing on behalf of the society in which we live, owning the ways the greater “we” we represent fall short. I don’t worry about joining in on that basis. If I really did have personal issues coming between me and God regularly I’d be wondering if I am really following Jesus at all!

So, in all the right ways, this blog is my version of Confessions – that’s my genre. What you see is what you get.