Foundry UMC DC: Sunday Sermons
Religion & Spirituality:Christianity
Lament as Confession
A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger E. Gaines-Cirelli with Foundry UMC, March 7, 2021, Lent 3, “Learning to Sing the Blues” series.
Text: Psalm 51:1-17
Lament is what we do when bad things happen to us or those we love. We’ve been focused on that kind of lament the past couple of weeks. But what about when we do bad things to ourselves or to others? This also inspires lament, when guilt at the damage we’ve done causes us to experience anguish, that terrible weight of realization that you can’t undo the thing, that it’s just out there in the world. It might be public. It might be just between you and the person you’ve hurt. It might be secret. But in any case, it’s happened and it’s in you. What will you do with it? As with any suffering, difficult emotions, or reality, we are invited to bring it to God in prayer.
The so-called “penitential psalms” of lament are models. Today we received Psalm 51, the Psalm traditionally included in the Ash Wednesday liturgy. Every year these lines land in my being with a thud:
…I know my transgressions,
and my sin is ever before me.
Against you, you alone, have I sinned,
and done what is evil in your sight,
so that you are justified in your sentence
and blameless when you pass judgment.
Indeed, I was born guilty,
a sinner when my mother conceived me. (Ps 51:3-5)
Another, perhaps less familiar prayer, Psalm 38, includes these lines:
For my iniquities have gone over my head;
they weigh like a burden too heavy for me.
My wounds grow foul and fester
because of my foolishness;
I am utterly bowed down and prostrate;
all day long I go around mourning.
I am utterly spent and crushed;
I groan because of the tumult of my heart. (Ps 38:4-5,8)
These lament prayers in scripture give us words that viscerally describe the experience of suffering both the guilt and consequences of our own iniquity, sin, and “foolishness.” In that often railed against verse, Psalm 51:5—the verse that makes it sound like babies are horrible sinners—what we receive are words of pain and grief at the unavoidable participation in sin even from our earliest moments of life; because none of us, even as children, are free from the capacity for self-centeredness and ignorance and doing harm.
There is a difference between such awareness of human sin, true remorse, and confession and words spoken or actions taken in an attempt to evade responsibility or do damage control. For some, what really makes them upset is not that they’ve hurt someone, but getting caught in their wrongdoing. They may do a press conference or release to issue a public apology to try to cover their backsides. But at the end of Psalm 51 it says:
For you (God) have no delight in sacrifice;
if I were to give a burnt offering, you would not be pleased.
The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit;
a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. (51:16-17)
Going public with your transgression will be deeply painful, but notice here that the public act of making a sacrifice is nothing more than hypocrisy unless that public act is attended by a true acknowledgement of the harm done and a heart broken by the pain of it.
At this point, some of you may be tempted to check out of this conversation, turned off by all this sin and guilt stuff. So let me acknowledge that, for ages, there has been an unhealthy and unbalanced emphasis on sin and judgment in Christian preaching and teaching. Whether intended or not, the message received by thousands upon thousands of the faithful is that we are born bad and that God is mostly interested in judging us, giving us grades based on performance, and deciding who’s “in” and who’s “out” of heaven. As a result of this long imbalance, lament as confession will likely feel much more familiar and “traditional” than the rage and searing accusations against God we’ve encountered from Jeremiah the past couple of weeks.
Wanting to balance “original sin” with “original goodness” (Gen. 1:31) and out of an impulse to bring healing to battered spirits schooled in fire and brimstone theology, many protestant churches stopped praying prayers of confession in public worship and stopped emphasizing human sin in preaching. As with most pendulum swings, there is danger of throwing out the proverbial baby with the bathwater. For grace to mean anything, we have to acknowledge why it matters. In short, it matters because, as the apostle Paul says clearly, “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” (Romans 3:23) We do things that are destructive and harmful to others, to the planet, to ourselves. We do these things personally and systemically, by choice and by being part of a culture infused with sinful systems. Sin is what separates us from God and from others. It takes the form of all kinds of actions that cause broken places, fractures, distance, disintegration, separation. Sin is a real thing. And, if we have caring hearts (as I believe the vast majority of people do), it feels awful to know we’ve done harm.
The purpose of penitential prayers of lament is not to cause suffering or to rub in that we are separated from God or to draw us into a place of self-loathing. Rather, the confessional laments give us space to be with God in the suffering we feel because of our sin, to acknowledge how our actions have created separation, and to be honest about the ways we beat ourselves up for our transgression. In other words, as with all lament, we are encouraged to turn toward God and to be honest. Psalm 51:6 says, “You desire truth in the inward being; therefore teach me wisdom in my secret heart.” As anyone in recovery will tell you, the first step is admitting there is a problem—to yourself and to your God. The first step is to stop trying to keep secrets from God, to tell the truth; to name the harm you’ve done, name the pain you’re feeling, know you can’t undo it, and acknowledge you need help.
In Psalm 32 we receive the invitation clearly:
Then I acknowledged my sin to you,
and I did not hide my iniquity;
I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the Lord,”
and you forgave the guilt of my sin.
Therefore let all who are faithful
offer prayer to you;
And in our Psalm today, Psalm 51, the whole prayer pleads with God for mercy and forgiveness, for cleansing, restoration, and deliverance.
Have mercy on me, O God,
according to your steadfast love;
according to your abundant mercy
blot out my transgressions.
Wash me thoroughly from my iniquity,
and cleanse me from my sin.
Create in me a clean heart, O God,
and put a new and right spirit within me. (51:1-2,10)
Lament as confession invites us to trust that God loves us even when we have messed up and done harm. That doesn’t mean God will magically remove consequences of our actions or that we will magically be relieved of responsibility or pain. But it does mean that our failure and foolishness and cruel mistakes are not the full measure of who we are. It does mean that we are assured of meaningful life, new life, a fresh start as a beloved child of God. No matter what. God doesn’t cancel us. God will walk with you through humiliation, retaliation, loss, illness, and any other consequence of your sinful action. And God will give you freedom and power to do better in the future.
Once you experience the way God is present to you and remains with you in the destruction and disorientation wrought by your sin, things like steadfast love, grace, and mercy are no longer just pleasant words. Those gifts from God are finally understood as the only firm foundation to stand on, they are liberation from despair and fear, they are hope and life.
Brilliant lawyer, author of Just Mercy, and founder of the Equal Justice Initiative, Bryan Stevenson, says this: “Each of us is more than the worst thing we’ve ever done.”
Hear that: You are more than the worst thing you’ve ever done.
In my heart I know it’s true. But, wow, it’s hard to really believe.
Life with my dog Harvey teaches me. Harvey is an 80 pound Clumber Spaniel. He is hilarious, adorable, and our angel. There was a time, however, when Harvey became obsessed with the cat’s food and would go to any length to get the cat’s dish once he realized he could reach it. He could get very mean about the cat food. It came to pass that, before I’d discovered a solution to the cat bowl access problem, Anthony and I took a trip and had a sitter stay with Harvey, Daisy, and AnnieRose. While we were gone, the sitter startled Harvey when he had gotten ahold of a cat food dish and he reacted from his primal protective-of-food space and bit her hand, causing real damage—like needed surgery damage. It has only ever happened that one time in all his 10 years, but my angel of a dog did real violence to one reaching out in care.
That moment was awful and did real damage, lasting damage. That is part of what’s in Harvey, part of Harvey’s capacity in certain scenarios. But that is far from all of Harvey’s being. He is more than this worst thing he has done.
I can see that in him. Our spiritual practice of lament as confession is a way to try to see that in ourselves.
The wonder of this practice is that you will be humbled, but not in a way that makes you feel like less, but in a way that reminds you just how much you matter, just how much you are loved, just how much God believes in your capacity for goodness. Lament as confession doesn’t leave you in sackcloth and ashes, it frees you to rise from the ashes with a clean heart and a new and right spirit, ready to try again in the power of God’s grace.
Silent Prayer of Confession…
Jesus, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us.
Jesus, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Have mercy on us.
Jesus, Lamb of God, you take away the sins of the world. Grant us peace.
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