Making a good confession

Sounds a bit like an oxymoron, doesn't it.  Few people think that the act of confessing has any good in it, mostly because making confession makes us feel pretty bad and how can something which makes us feel so bad be good for us?

 (Just as an aside, I think that is a most foolish question - and we know it - which doesn't keep us from avoiding all things uncomfortable as long as possible.)

We see this dynamic in hundreds of police dramas.  Folks think that if they simply avoid telling the truth that life will go merrily along with no consequences.  Hmmm.  Possibly.  Unless of course, we look deeper than the surface and consider the state of our soul - or spirit if you prefer.

Too few people talk about the freedom that comes with confession - the freedom from hiding, the freedom of being who you actually are, the freedom of walking in this world in truth instead of dragging along a matched set of baggage stuffed with all our wrongs, misdemeanors to felonies.

The hemorrhaging woman in Mark 5 decided to lay down 12 years of pain and anger and sorrow and isolation.  She decided to tell Jesus the whole truth and let the chips fall where they may.  The bleeding had stopped and she was free.  Now she was going to free herself of the stigma and brokenness of the last 12 years.

I have always assumed it was a good confession:  a confession that reached down inside her dark places and dragged them into the light.  But more than that, a good confession recognizes the freedom that has been won, that vast open space where one can live a new and different life.  A good confession not only lays to rest the past, it opens up the future and allows us to breathe deeply.

Listen to this confession (my characterization, not the author's).  It is an excerpt from Ted Loder's prayer Keep Me in Touch with My Dreams, Guerrillas of Grace: Prayers for the Battle, p96

O Lord,

deliver me

     from the arrogance of assuming

        I know enough to judge others;

deliver me

     from the timidity of presuming 

        I don't know enough to help others;

deliver me

     from the illusion of claiming I have changed enough

        when I have only risked little,

that, so liberated,

     I will make some of the days to come different.

O Lord,

I ask not to be delivered

     from the tensions that wind me tight,

but I do ask for a sense of direction in which to move once wound,

     a sense of humor about my disappointments,

        a sense of respect for the elegant puzzlement of being human,

            and a sense of gladness for your kingdom

               which comes in spite of my fretful pulling and tugging.

I invite you into the gift of confession.  Risk being judged wrong.  Be ready to receive the glory of forgiveness.  Go forth and live life.

What does freedom look like?

"If you continually live in my Word....you will know the truth and the truth will set you free"  Jn8.31

Freedom.
To a 2 year old it looks like an open space where running is encouraged.
To a 14 year old it looks like a weekend without parental restraints.
To a 30 year old it looks like a job you like doing.
To a 45 year old it looks like no more college education to finance.
To a 60 year old it looks like retirement.
To a 80 year old it looks like a ride to the grocery store.

To a Christian it looks like the cross.  There we learn that God's love frees us from the crippling of sin in our lives and sets us totally free to be God's people everywhere, every time, and with every person.  We've got nothing to prove and God's love isn't going to run out.

Freed to be a child of God.  To love.  To serve.  To heal.  To forgive.  To share.

Lord, help me to live
as the person you know me to be.  Amen

The creativity of God

Today a young girl spoke about her amazing adventure as a Lutheran representative to the World Conference on AIDS recently held in Washington, DC.  She is a member of the Matera Lutheran Parish.

This trip represented many 'firsts' for her.  It was the first time she'd been out of the country.  It was the first time she had flown in an airplane. 

And it was the first time she felt safe enough to admit out loud that she is HIV positive.

There in the company of people whose work is the care of those infected with HIV/AIDS and the eradication of new cases, she finally could say what she felt unable to say in her own country. 

For the first time in her life, she told us, "I felt I had been set free."

Salvation comes in many forms, although we cynics rarely expect it to arrive in Washington, DC.

May God continue to be at work in her life so she might be just such a blessing to others.  AMEN