The abuse of Confession. . .

Lutherans are ripe to talk about the abuses of Rome in 1517 with respect to confession and absolution.  We are quick to gloat with pride over Rome's preoccupation with the sincerity of the confession equated with the desire and pledge not to sin again and with Rome's focus on the satisfaction or penance that seems to pay the cost of forgiveness.  The truth is that at the beginning of the Reformation few in Rome were interested in absolution except Luther.  Instead confession and absolution lived comfortably in the realm of the sincerity of the penitent (as adduced from the pledge and promise not to sin again) and the willingness of the penitent to atone in some way for that sin -- if not to pay for it at least to offer something to justify the forgiveness.  The end result of all of this was that people were not really interested in absolution.  That which Lutherans say is the beating heart of the sacrament of penance is something people did not seem to desire greatly.

How can you say that? -- you might be thinking.  But the fact is that people did not really confess their sins -- they did not name them or own them.  Instead they spoke in a round about way of the wrongs they have thought, said, and done.  They did not dare admit to the grave sins they had committed in thought, word, and deed for fear that they would have been banished from the Church and outside the realm of salvation.  They did not focus on the absolution because they did not really believe that God could or would forgive them unless there was some redeeming quality in them.  It was much easier to practice a sacrament of penance that turned forgiveness into a business proposition in which the dirty details of sin did not have to be admitted and proof of sincerity and a willingness to do the penance justified the granting of grace.

Now the strange thing is that we are not far from being exactly where the Roman Church was prior to the Reformation.  Again, you are thinking I am talking out of my head but let me explain it.  In the Lutheran Church today people are not really interested in absolution.  If they were, they would admit the sins they have committed in thought, word, and deed.  But we have grown content in a confession which admits little except that we are just like everybody else but no worse.  When was the last time a Lutheran pastor had a penitent confess a specific sin?  Yet the rite suggests that at the awkward pause it was time to mention specific sins that still stung the conscience.  Even in private confession we have come to confess general sins without ever mentioning specific sins.  We have sinned in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, by what we have left undone, but we cannot name a specific sin???? Really???  We have borrowed the vagaries of the general confession and use them in individual confession.  It may make us feel better because we have not given up anything of substance but it has not made us feel better because we were absolved.

Furthermore, we spend far too much time on the question of penitence and have confused sincerity and sorrow over sin with a real vow and promise to stop doing it.  If you were really sorry, you would never do it again.  That might be a conversation we have with our kids or our spouse but it cannot be the shape of confession before God.  God knows better.  God will not be fooled nor will He confuse penitence with the resolve not to sin again.  Why do we sin?  Is it because we have not tried hard enough to stop sinning or is it because we are sinners?  God knows us better than we admit and far better than we know ourselves.  He asks of us not that which we cannot give but what we can -- He asks of us faith to trust that whoever confesses in sorrow will receive absolution beyond what he deserves or dare ask.  Confession and absolution are not about how sincere we are and how hard we try not to sin (all of which we ought to be and do) but about faith in God's promise.  Only this promise of absolution could coax out of our mouths the dark, dirty, and death-causing sins confessed not in theory but as real, specific, and evil. If we really sought absolution, we would go to confession often and not be shy about admitting those sins that trouble our conscience.  We have danced with the devil often and a sure mark of that dalliance with evil is that we use weasel words for sin and our guilt.  Finally, we take up far too much of the conversation trying to make the case for our repentance when we need to just shut up and believe God's answer.  Ego te absolvo.  Period.

I do not know the state of confession in the Roman Church but I presume that it is not good -- certainly even worse than it was in 1517 -- at least as evidenced by the few who bother with it at all.  But I do know the state of confession in the Lutheran Church and it is hardly better.  We do not confess sin with specificity, we do not seek or trust absolution, and we content ourselves with the fact that we are bad but not the worst and if we tried a little harder we just might improve.  For the time is come for judgment to begin at the house of God: and if it begin first at us, what shall be the end of them that obey not the gospel of God?  Now more than ever.