Why Do We Confess?
A Pastor’s Reflection on the Brief Order for Confession and Forgiveness
Why do we begin nearly every service with a confession of sins and a declaration of forgiveness? To Christians from some other churches, this may seem strange or even disturbing. But in fact, it is an old and treasured tradition, which reveals much about the Lutheran understanding of who we are, and who God is.
To put it simply, we believe that one purpose of our worship is to comfort troubled souls. (I’ll describe the other purposes in later pages). So we begin by offering a word of comfort — the assurance of God’s pardon, and of each person’s worthiness to take part in the service to come. But this word of pardon is meaningless if it comes in isolation. “I forgive you” means nothing, if we do not know, or admit, that we need forgiveness. (Indeed, that is nearly the definition of cheap grace, according to Dietrich Bonhoeffer in The Cost of Discipleship: “the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance, baptism without church discipline, communion without confession.”)
Therefore, we begin by inviting every worshiper to reflect, privately, on what things he or she may have done wrong, or failed to do right. Our liturgy offers suggestions, common to the human condition — failure to love God and our neighbor. No less important, it offers silence, and a time for self-reflection. This is when the worshiper is invited to examine his or her own soul. If this is done, not as a matter of rote repetition but of existential honesty, any man or woman will be left hungering for the words of pardon, which come at once to heal the spirit like sunshine after a storm.
Surely, there are other ways to examine one’s conscience, and to be reminded of God’s forgiveness. Some churches place a penitential rite like ours in the very center of their liturgy, after the sermon and before Holy Communion. In the Middle Ages, and indeed among Lutherans until fairly recently, all the members of a parish who intended to receive Holy Communion were invited to gather a day or two earlier, for a more elaborate service of corporate confession and forgiveness. Such services are now used rarely, although many of their elements have been included in the Brief Order.
People whose souls are severely troubled by the memory of some particular sin can always confess privately, to their pastor. This is by far the best-known form of confession, although it may well be the one that is least used. Lutherans have a very high regard for this private confession, and especially for the words of absolution.
Other people, of course, may be unable to speak the name of their sin aloud in the presence of another human being; but even they can confess it to God, and read the promise of forgiveness in Scripture (e.g., 1 John 1:8-9).
But to be honest, it is often the experience of hearing God’s forgiveness spoken aloud by another human being that does the most to comfort troubled souls. Luther himself suggested that, if pastors could simply explain to Christians how beautiful a gift God’s absolution was, “such a desire and love for it would be aroused that people would come running after us to get it, more than we would like.”
Just as surely, there are ways other than confession and forgiveness to prepare the soul for worship. The Brief Order is not integral to the Mass. It can be omitted sometimes, and it is. Since the 1970s, some of our liturgical books have offered alternative services of Thanksgiving for Baptism, which are frequently used during the season of Easter. There are many good things about such a service. After all, it is in Holy Baptism that we die to sin and are raised to new life in Christ. It is right remind ourselves of this gift, and often.
Yet the Thanksgiving for Baptism has been slow to catch on among Lutherans. My own experience has been that, after using it for a few Sundays, members of a congregation often begin to suggest — sometimes subtly, sometimes less so — that it is time to “get back to Confession.” To some ears, this may sound like stubborn people who want what is familiar. But I believe that many, many Christians value the invitation to begin worship by examining their own hearts, and hearing the assurance of God’s unfailing love.
Of course, some people don’t. I have encountered a few people, over the years, for whom all of this rings false. They do not believe that they are sinners, or at least they do not want to be reminded of it. Martin Luther spoke sharply of such people — “if you despise it, and stay away from confession, then we must come to the conclusion that you are no Christian, and that you also ought not to receive the sacrament.” Few pastors today would judge so harshly. We know, as Luther certainly did, that the confession of sins cannot and must not be compelled. We recognize that each of us is called to “work out your salvation with fear and trembling,” or to make thoughtful decisions about our own spiritual life. Some people may choose to abstain, and perhaps even for valid reasons. Still, we remember and honor the intensity with which Luther defended confession as a part of that life.
Another objection, perhaps easier to sympathize with, is that the Brief Order is too individualistic, and neglects the social, corporate dimension of sin. One man doesn’t make an unjust society; one woman doesn’t pollute the air and oceans. Isn’t our little service all about the single worshiper, preparing himself or herself for worship?
In fact, it is not. The Brief Order is spoken in the first person plural, and for a reason. It is about all of us — our sins, our alienation from God. Each individual’s actions and inactions have a place in this vast drama, to be sure. A man who accepts privileges given just because he is a man has helped to make society unjust; a woman who throws plastic bottles into the ocean has helped to create the drifting continent of garbage in the pacific Ocean. To reflect on these things is never wrong. But the Brief Order is also a chance to reflect on the human condition, and its collective turn from God’s will. It is, above all, a chance to hear the promise of God’s love, not only for one person, but for the whole broken world.
So why confess? And why begin our Sunday worship with confession? Here’s why: because it is a moment of truth, about ourselves and about God. And because that moment of truth is followed, in the declaration of pardon, by something even better: a return to baptism; a return to our original blessedness, the state of innocence in which were created. Here is an affirmation of our dual identity, as both sinner and saint. Here is a chance to say, up front and without preliminaries, what we know in our hearts, that we are flawed — and to hear what we have come longing for, God’s promise to make us whole.