Please join us at our Holy Week services:
- Maundy Thursday at 6:30 pm
- Good Friday at 6:30 pm
- Holy Saturday at 7:00 pm
- Easter Sunday at 8:00 am and 10:00 am
Below read Pastor Andrew’s letter to the congregation. Follow up with more from the April newsletter and previous newsletters. Also visit the calendar page to know more about events at Faith Lutheran Church in Columbus, Wisconsin.
Alleluia, Christ is risen!
Spring is here and the weather is warming – a favorite time of year for me. I’m thankful for the arrival of spring as I am thankful for you all and our continual arrival to the moment of witnessing God-with-us and the potential of ministry in this place.
Last month, I mentioned using this space for addressing questions within the congregation concerning the Bible, or theology, or spirituality, etc. The question I received recently that I’d like to address this month was stated as follows: “What does it mean when we make public confession of sin on Sunday morning?” I’m grateful for this question because recently I had a member mention to me that at times, the words in our confession feel too “passive.” By this they meant how we state our sin before God didn’t feel like there was enough “ownership” on our part taking place. I appreciated what this member was saying (and I encourage you to let me know if likewise, you have felt that way on Sunday mornings). I want to address this question in two parts: first, what we mean by “sin” in the act of confession; secondly, why we do it publicly.
So, what is meant by sin? Here I have always appreciated the rather simple definition given by Martin Luther; he described sin as a “curving in on the self.” Often you have heard me describe the spiritual life in God as a journey, one that is headed to a destination – or at least in a specific direction – and that means movement. Sin, in this metaphorical understanding, then becomes like when we recognize our footprints in the ground in front of us, a realization that we have been walking in circles – our movement in the spiritual life is stuck in a circuit that never moves outside of ourselves.
We can understand then why the ancient Christians began to interpret Jesus’s sacrificial death on the cross as something that God willed – it is to say that God came into our world and through the man Jesus disrupted that movement that curves in on the self to now make a way for a movement that moves beyond the self into the world, towards the other. We see this relation in our understanding of the Trinity: one-in-three persons who are all in movement towards one another. This same relation is now brought into our world as the movement that we now can articulate as like the wind (that is the Spirit) in the sails of the ship of our faith, bringing movement towards that union with God.
Ah, but this is all a bit too abstract. What does this look like in the practical reality of our lives? Recall this line from a traditional confession you are perhaps familiar with: “We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.” See the choice to move towards the self or the other within that line? See how so much of what plagues our current discourse in our culture really relates tothe temptation to find ways around that simple confession? Indeed, we find a plethora of ways to convince ourselves our actions are not really forsaking our neighbors; because we narrow our definition of neighbor, or because it is for their good, or because “God helps those who help themselves” and so our own efforts will only get in the way of God’s work – the need justify the self is to curve in on the self.
But you may think to yourself to live in such a way is not practical at all, indeed, it seems more like what I am suggesting is to annihilate the self. Recall in the Lord’s Prayer that we pray not only for forgiveness, but for God to give us “our daily bread.” To live in this way of Christ (the way of the cross) is not to annihilate the self, but to discover the goodness that God ordains coming back from the darkness, from the dead, and (in the work of Christ) bringing all things together in the life of God. In our efforts to move beyond the self we join with Paul in his desire to “know Christ and the power of his resurrection and that sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death.” Therefore, our lives of faith are discovering union with God, which we do not acquire all at once, but over time and often only in momentary glimpses.
We might also understand now why we confess in public. For the role of community is vital in keeping this movement like the wind (Spirit) in the sails of the ship. I think of one of my favorite paintings, Storm on the Sea of Galilee, by Rembrandt depicting the disciples in a boat captured amid the waves of the stormy sea before Jesus hushes the tumult. As a faith community, we have been brought into this same boat together and we are present with one another in calm waters and stormy waters. But even more it is essential in our confession together we do not stand in silence and confess inwardly our faults, but state them out loud to each other. For now we have been witnessed by all in the boat that we have been making our efforts to be Christ-like, to obtain union with God, but have still found ourselves curving in. In so doing we have given all in the boat a permission to hold us accountable that we did not speak only in habit but truthfully in our efforts to live and to die like Christ. We stand shoulder to shoulder recognizing it is all by God’s grace that we have come into this boat and find it moving in any direction at all!
But even more, we have witnessed each other receive forgiveness. We are accountable as well, then, to the reality that God has not abandoned any, but continues to offer grace. We are accountable to the reality that all receive and so we must remind each other of this grace and not let any fall into despair over the struggle to move.
Our public confession (and forgiveness) then is a vital expression of our spiritual lives in proclaiming the truth of God-with-us. We now behold one another in a manner that reflects the Trinity, seeing the beauty of God expressing forth that is the movement of love to this world that God is bringing into redemption, into union; we here confess, we here receive.
May God’s good purpose for you burst forth like the bulb of the tulip from the thawing dirt, ready to unfurl in the bright, colorful expression of the beauty that is Christ-in-you.
Pr. Andrew