The Confession app
In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Well, I went and made a purchase last week for $1.99. I couldn’t hold myself back any longer. I bought the Confession app that was the subject of Maureen Dowd’s column in the Times this past Wednesday, and the subject of a report on NPR the same day.
This Confession app is billed as an aid to examining one’s conscience in preparation for confessing one’s sins—and it is anchored in Roman Catholic practice.
Three laymen and two priests put this together. When you sign in, you register yourself with the app as male or female. You register your age and your station in life.
I registered as “Religious”, which the app takes to mean I am a nun. I couldn’t register as a priest with the app. That would not compute. And I couldn’t register as a married woman at the same time I registered as a religious. Oh well.
So you go through the different categories on the app and it asks you if you’ve violated any of the rules in that category. For instance, I am asked if I have not been reading the Bible or if I’ve not had a proper Christian concern for the poor and needy.
One priest likens the app to the “cheat sheets” he sometimes sees when people come into the confessional with their sins written out in a list so that they won’t forget any of them.
I wrote one parishioner this past week that the app gives me the “heebie-jeebies” and I think that’s because it has that legalistic ring to it that I remembered from childhood.
Such scrupulosity comes out of the practice of the Christian Church in the Dark Ages and in the Middle Ages whereby the clergy followed what are called “Penitential Books.” These books were actually catalogues of all the various sins they could imagine someone confessing, and all the various kinds of penances that would be appropriate for the sins. These Penitential Books came out of the Celtic tradition originally—the Irish Church.
And those of you who saw the movie “Angela’s Ashes” and remember the hilarious scene with the little kid in the confessional won’t have any trouble seeing the link between the Celtic mind and this most legalistic approach to sin and absolution.
It makes me breathe easier that we are Anglican Christians here—comfortable with the idea that there are shades of gray in most situations, and uncomfortable with legalistic approaches to coming before God to ask forgiveness. Even though we definitely offer a service of confession in the Book of Common Prayer, we definitely do NOT use any penitential books.
Most people opt for the communal confession of sin in the Eucharist, and that almost always is all one needs, except in cases where people really need to talk things over.
And so today we see Jesus holding forth in the gospel about the complexity of human actions and human thought, and basically inaugurating an era of gray thinking to supplement the black and white that most people were comfortable with in his time (and still today).
Let’s take a look at what he has to say.
He emphasizes how our intentions are sometimes as unhealthy as our deeds. Yes, it is most definitely wrong to murder, but it’s also wrong to allow the anger that can encourage murderous thoughts to fester inside. That’s why Jesus tells us to make peace with each other—and soon.
Jesus doesn’t want a bunch of hypocrites coming to celebrate the divine mysteries, but in reality that is often who we can be (as I hope we recognize).
Jesus acknowledges that adultery—sleeping around with those who are married to other people—is wrong. But even thinking about someone lustfully is wrong too. Again, there is complexity in wrongdoing—the intent to do wrong or the relishing of forbidden thoughts is as sinful as the act itself. That immediately condemns the Super Bowl commercial for Pepsi Max that I saw last Sunday featuring the couple in the restaurant. Ask me about it later and I’ll tell you what it was all about.
He goes on to talk about divorce from the viewpoint of the male, because at that time only the man could initiate a divorce. He says that a divorce causes a divorced woman to commit adultery if she remarries, and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.
My! This one is full of problems for us nowadays, isn’t it? Practically half of our marriages end in divorce. How in the world can we make our peace with Jesus’ words, and with Jesus himself?
Again, it’s important to remember that he looks behind the action of divorce to consider the relationships that follow it as less than whole according to the intent of God for marriage. But we know, don’t we, that divorce is just one symptom of the brokenness of our society, our world. Some relationships really need to end—especially the ones marked by abuse of any sort as well as the ones where the people are just plain miserable.
I think it’s helpful to know something interesting about this passage. It contradicts the same kind of passage in Mark’s gospel (10:10-12). In Mark Jesus says that divorce is always wrong, no matter what. In Matthew—our gospel today—Jesus says that it’s wrong except in cases of unchastity.
It is as if Matthew stretched Jesus’ words to include this escape clause—for unchastity. The church today has stretched the teaching more, basing it on a compassionate response to brokenness. Note that when previously divorced people want to marry in our church, there are all kinds of hoops they need to jump through with the priest, some of which may involve counseling prior to the new marriage. The Church is trying very hard to help people heal from the past so that the future can be healthier.
So to relate this divorce passage to the teaching of Jesus today, note that he is taking a deeper look at the issue and again relating this difficult issue to the intent of the parties involved.
Jesus goes on to treat swearing oaths in a similar vein, teaching what lies behind the prohibition and considering a healthier way to be in relationship with another.
We can be really happy that even as Jesus deepened his teaching, he understood that our lives are complex. He didn’t reduce his teaching to simplistic rules and lists and penitential formulae.
Moreover, Jesus desires us to be in good relationship with each other and with God. That’s why his forgiveness flows so readily—from his own intent that his Kingdom be born on earth and take root within each of us. He understands us, and he wants to help us not to be broken people. He wants us to be good ground to bear good fruit.
So turn to him and know that he understands all the ins and outs, all the twists and turns that underlie our lives. When we confess our sins in a few moments, let him see everything within, and know he understands the complex struggles we each have.
And take heart: God has mercy on us, God forgives us our sins through the love of Jesus, God desires to strengthen us in all goodness, and by the power of the Holy Spirit working now in this life, he forms us for eternity.
Amen.
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