Confess our Sins

O God, you teach us compassion, and yet we practice bigotry. You implore us to trust you while we create idols. You send Christ as a witness that you will not forsake us; yet we fret over matter as though you cared not at all. Forgive our compulsion to control our own destiny. Look kindly upon us when we fear for our future. Have mercy upon us when we mismanage your grace. We are your people; help us to dwell in your promise, through Christ our Lord. Amen

Tears welled in my eyes as we read this Prayer of Confession. I tried to wipe them away at first but then they flowed freely from my eyes. I never think of confession as a big part of my relationship to the church. As a Congregationalist, we don’t have confessionals or a requirement to confess our sins to our priest. Confession is left between you and God, except for during the once a month communion where a joint prayer of confession is read. This one hit me hard. . .”Control our own destiny”, “fear for our future”, “mismanage your grace”. Here lay my greatest faults.

We often think of sin as murder, adultery, lying, cheating, but sin also lies in these much simpler faults: putting our needs before God’s, believing that we are in control of our destiny, silence. It is easier to think of ourselves as good people when we think of the first list and equate sinners with “bad guys”. It is much more difficult to realize that we are all sinners that need forgiveness. We are all sinners that can walk a straighter path. We need prayers of confession and supplication. Step one according to www.allaboutprayer.org is to “recognize that we are all sinners in need of forgiveness.”

Fortunately, after the “prayer of confession” comes the “words of assurance” and then the “invitation of the Lord’s Table”. Sinners as we are, Jesus loved us. God sent him to this earth to wipe away our sin. We do not have to be perfect to come to his table. We just have to believe.