Confession is Good for the Soul

A Sermon Preached by

The Rev. Karen Hill

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Have you ever done something you knew was wrong, tried to cover it up and found that the cover up spiraled out of your control? 

A friend told me this story.  When she was in high school, she desperately wanted to go out one night with her friends, but her parents said “no”.  And they meant it.  Well, she was not going to let anything stop her, so she waited until her parents were asleep, snuck out of the house and walked into town.  Amazingly, everything went smoothly, and she got out without waking her mother or father.  Unfortunately, while she was out, it snowed.  As she approached home she realized that as soon as her parents went out to get the morning paper, they would see her footprints heading into the house and know exactly what she’d done. 

She had to shovel the driveway in order to hide the evidence.  Once she finished shoveling, she got nervous.  Her parents would see their shoveled drive and know that neither one of them had done it.  They would figure out that it had to have been her.  So, she decided that she had to shovel the neighbor’s drive also, so that maybe it would look like the neighbor had shoveled both.  But what if the neighbor thought it was one of her parents, who’d shoveled his drive, saw them in the morning and thanked them for it.  So, she shoveled another driveway.  Her thinking spiraled like this until she had shoveled every driveway on the street.  She got no sleep that night, and by morning, when she finally snuck back into the house, she couldn’t even remember the good time she’d had with her friends. 

I wonder if that’s what it was like for David.  Remember the story?  King David is at the height of his power when he sees a woman, Bathsheba.  He wants her; takes her from her husband, Uriah; gets her pregnant and then arranges to have Uriah killed. 

David’s cover up was, of course, a lot more serious than my friend’s, but it also spiraled way out of his control, and his sin had terrible consequences for everyone.  Listen to the next part of the story.  This is our lectionary reading for the day from II Samuel 11.26-12.13

“When the wife of Uriah heard that her husband was dead, she made lamentation for him. When the mourning was over, David sent and brought her to his house, and she became his wife, and bore him a son.  But the thing that David had done displeased the Lord, and the Lord sent Nathan to David.  He came to him, and said to him, ‘There were two men in a certain city, one rich and the other poor.  The rich man had very many flocks and herds; but the poor man had nothing but one little ewe lamb, which he had bought.  He brought it up, and it grew up with him and with his children; it used to eat of his meager fare, and drink from his cup, and lie in his bosom, and it was like a daughter to him.  Now there came a traveler to the rich man, and he was loath to take one of his own flock or herd to prepare for the wayfarer who had come to him, but he took the poor man’s lamb, and prepared that for the guest who had come to him.’

Then David’s anger was greatly kindled against the man. He said to Nathan, ‘As the Lord lives, the man who has done this deserves to die; he shall restore the lamb fourfold, because he did this thing, and because he had no pity.’  Nathan said to David, ‘You are the man! Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel: I anointed you king over Israel, and I rescued you from the hand of Saul;  I gave you your master’s house, and your master’s wives into your bosom, and gave you the house of Israel and of Judah; and if that had been too little, I would have added as much more.  Why have you despised the word of the Lord, to do what is evil in (God’s) sight?

You have struck down Uriah the Hittite with the sword, and have taken his wife to be your wife, and have killed him with the sword of the Ammonites.  Now therefore the sword shall never depart from your house, for you have despised me, and have taken the wife of Uriah the Hittite to be your wife.  Thus says the Lord: I will raise up trouble against you from within your own house; and I will take your wives before your eyes, and give them to your neighbor, and he shall lie with your wives in the sight of this very sun.  For you did it secretly; but I will do this thing before all Israel, and before the sun.’  David said to Nathan, ‘I have sinned against the Lord.’

Nathan said to David, ‘Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.” 

This is the word of the Lord.  Thanks be to God.   Let us pray:

God, we are sinners, too.  We do things that separate us from you and from one another.  We ask, God, that you cleanse us, create in us a clean heart and renew your spirit within us, so that we might again experience the joy of your salvation. We pray all of this in Jesus’ name.  Amen.   

I know a man who does not believe in confession.  He is a life-long Presbyterian (not a member of this church, I’ll tell you that right away!)  He attends church regularly, but won’t participate in the prayer of confession.  He says that he doesn’t need it; he doesn’t feel like he’s done anything wrong, and so why should he confess?  He is an awfully good person.  I know that for a fact.  Still it seems hard to believe that he has nothing to confess – no small sins – a lie or a fight with his wife – nothing?  I find that by the end of the week, I have plenty to confess. 

Christians sin, and it gets in the way of our relationship with God and with other people.  It’s a part of life, everyday life, and even if our sin is nowhere near as big as adultery and murder – it’s still sin – we know that and God knows that. [1]

Maybe this is why David’s story is so fascinating.  It’s so real and so human.  This larger than life man, this hero of our faith, takes a great fall.  We want to romanticize David, to believe that maybe he fell in love with Bathsheba, maybe Uriah was cruel and unkind to her, and maybe David saved her from a bad marriage.  Or maybe it was all Bathsheba’s fault.  She tempted David into sin.  He couldn’t help himself.  Maybe she used him to help her get rid of Uriah, so that she could marry a king.  Maybe, but probably not. 

Romanticizing this whole affair, changes nothing.  If we can’t be honest about David’s sin, how can we be honest about our own?[2]  David did a terrible thing.  He took another man’s wife, and then arranged for his murder in order to cover up her pregnancy.  It seems for a while that everything will be okay for David.  Bathsheba finishes mourning for Uriah; she and David marry; she has his son.  All is well. 

Well, it’s not okay with God.  Uriah may not have been the king of Israel, but he was a beloved child of God.  II Samuel says that “the thing that David had done displeased the Lord.”  God sends the prophet Nathan to speak to David.  Nathan is a very cautious man – he knows that it is very dangerous to tell a king straight out that what he’s done is wrong.  So, he tells David a parable.  You know the parable.  There are two men – a rich man who has everything, including many flocks and herds.  There’s a poor man with only one little ewe lamb.  He raises it in the bosom of his family; he shares his food and his home with it – it is like a daughter to him, that’s how much he loves it. 

The rich man has a visitor and doesn’t want to slaughter one of his own animals to feed his guest, so he takes the poor man’s lamb, kills it and feeds it to his company.  David is outraged.  It’s so unfair, so unjust.  The man who did this should die.  He needs to pay 4 times the worth of that lamb.  How could he have so little compassion, so little pity on the poor man!

Finally Nathan speaks plainly.  “You are the man.”  You are that man, that rich man with no compassion and no pity.  You took what wasn’t yours.  God gave you everything, everything, and you “despised the word of the Lord” and did what was “evil in (God’s) sight”.

What a terrible moment for David.  What a terrible moment for us, when we are confronted with our sin – forced to look at it and acknowledge that what we’ve done is very wrong and that we’ve hurt someone.  Most of the time, we can hide our wrongdoing.  We certainly don’t want to admit it to other people.  We feel defensive and angry when we’re confronted.  Maybe we downplay it – blame it on some social or psychological issue, and maybe those are real problems.  BUT as believers, as followers of Jesus Christ, we live by a different standard. 

For us, sin is more than a moral or ethical problem.  Sin is a theological problem.[3]  Sin violates our relationship with God.  It gets in between us and God and leaves a huge gap between us. 

The Book of Common Worship in describing confession says, “the people are called to confess the reality of sin in personal and common life.”[4]  The reality of sin.  We are called to confess our personal sin and our corporate sin – over and over throughout scripture, and so we do it every week in worship, whether we think we need it or not.  Now, I know sin is old fashioned.  It’s a word that’s been so overused and so misused that it’s hard to hear.  I don’t want to contribute to that sort of spiritual abuse, but I also know that sin is dangerous.  It hurts us; it hurts people we know and love; it hurts people we don’t know, and it hurts our earth and our planet.  It has very real consequences.  Our Presbyterian Book of Order says that “Christians are forgiven sinners living in a sinful world, involved in brokenness which they suffer, involved in brokenness which they cause.”  [5]

We are on both sides of the brokenness – we cause it and we suffer it.  David’s story demonstrates so clearly that sin is not just for the completely wicked.  It is quite possible for that kind of brokenness to exist within a very righteous person, a devoutly, religious person. 

There is a way forward.  Repentance and confession bring healing, for us and, hopefully, for the person we’ve injured.  They are the only way forward to healing and transformation.  Alcoholics Anonymous is amazing at this.  It is a part of the 12 step process to make a full and honest confession of your wrongdoing before God and others and then to seek reconciliation with those you’ve harmed.  The goal, of course, is to help alcoholics recover from their addiction, but many people also find reconciliation with loved ones and transformation. 

So, why is confession so hard when we know how meaningful and helpful it can be?  Why is it so hard to admit that we’ve sinned?  Frederick Buechner writes, “To confess your sin to God is not to tell (God) anything (God) doesn’t already know.”[6]  Maybe that’s what we’re really afraid of – that God does see and that maybe God really does know us and that maybe God doesn’t really love us and won’t really forgive us.  Maybe God is the mean and scary God we’ve always secretly feared.  Well, that’s not God.  It just is not.  When Nathan accuses David, saying, “You are the man.”  David immediately repents.  He says, “I have sinned against the Lord.”  God could have given David the punishment that David intended for the rich man – he could have sentenced David to death, but he didn’t.  God loves David.  Nathan says to David, “Now the Lord has put away your sin; you shall not die.” 

I think that’s what God longs to say to each one of us.  “I have put away your sin.”  God’s love is so deep and so true that nothing can change it.  Marjorie Thompson in her book, Soul Feast writes that “God loves us with an overwhelming love that none of our sins can erase.  While we can grieve and disappoint this love, nothing we do or fail to do can alter its depth or reality.  It is a gift, a given.” [7]  If we don’t really trust God’s mercy and God’s grace, then no wonder we find it so hard to confess our sin.  We know that human love can be conditional and judgmental; maybe a part of us expects God’s love to be the same.  When we accept God’s love and grace, it gives us a way back to God, back into right relationship. 

Accepting God’s love and forgiveness also gives us greater compassion for those around us.  When we know that we are sinful, broken people; we can identify with that brokenness in other people.  None of this means that there are no consequences to sin.  Unfortunately, sometimes sin brings terrible consequences, no matter how repentant you are.  That was true for David.  He did not get off easily and neither did his family.

David’s sin had tragic consequences for his family.  It left scars.  Just like the scars which addictions and unfaithfulness, or abuse and neglect have left on some of us.  Even when people love each other and mean no harm, they can hurt one another. 

God has given us a means to confess and to be forgiven, so that God can redeem and transform that which is so painful.  Barbara Brown Taylor writes that “There is no reason why anyone should ever believe our talk of God’s transforming power unless they can also see that transformation take place in us – and through us, in the world. “[8]  This is the hopeful message, the gospel message that we have to offer the world.  God’s love can and will transform and redeem broken lives.  No matter the cause of the brokenness.

More good news, it is from David’s messy family that Jesus is descended.  David and Bathsheba went on to have another son, Solomon, and all of them are listed in Jesus’ genealogy in Matthew.  It’s sort of reassuring.  If God can forgive David, if God can transform David, if God can redeem David, then I know that God can do the same for me and for you. 

Amen.