The Power of Confession

I have a confession.

I’m realizing anew the power of those four words.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the power of confession this Lent. I have to say, I have not always been big on confession. As a recovering perfectionist (Enneagram One), I have been both painfully self-aware and self-critical most of my life. Add to that, I was raised in a stream of Christianity that often focused more on our original sin than our original goodness, and you had a recipe for someone who found it far more difficult to believe she was loved by God, than to believe she was falling short.

I know I’m not alone in this. Early in my pastoral ministry, I was partly responsible for writing the prayers of confession for our worship service. I remember a friendly church member taking me out to lunch, and kindly suggesting I lay off the acknowledgement of our waywardness. Did we really need help feeling more shitty about ourselves than we already did? I took his point to heart. I would grow to spend more of my ministry trying to remind people (myself included) of God’s grace and delight in them, and less time pointing out all our flaws.

I still believe we could all use heavier doses of God’s love and acceptance (often passing through human channels) than criticism and judgment. If we don’t tear ourselves down internally, there are certainly plenty of external voices pointing out how we don’t measure up in one way or another.

And yet, these last several years, I’ve also been so aware how difficult it is for people to take responsibility for their words and actions that are hurtful, if not downright violent toward others. How quick we are to point the finger and blame someone else, to defend and absolve ourselves, whether it involves our racial prejudices, the handling of the pandemic, the insurrection at the capitol, or our greed and sense of entitlement that poison just about everything. I’m hard-pressed to think of many examples of public leaders who humbly confess wrongdoing.

And to get all up in each others’ business, when’s the last time we humbly confessed wrongdoing about any of those things, or just the garden variety hurtful words we spoke or grace we withheld from the people under our own roof?

Shortly before Lent, I listened again to the full, unedited version of one of my favorite podcasts of all times. In it, Krista Tippett interviews Alain de Botton on the “True Hard Work of Love and Relationships.” Their conversation was first recorded and released in 2017, and she offered it again, as so many people have been struggling in their relationships during the pandemic

It is one of the most refreshing exchanges I’ve ever heard on how to be human, and how to live and relate with other humans. What I love so much about it, is that de Botton just says up front, we are all deeply wounded and flawed beings, making us tricky to live with in particular ways. And wouldn’t we all be better off if we could confess this from the get-go, instead of working so hard to prove and protect and defend ourselves? It’s exhausting trying to pretend we have it all together, comparing our insides to other people’s outsides. Not to mention, it’s lonely, leading us to believe we’re uniquely flawed, and isolating us from the love and mercy that can actually heal us.

This got me wondering if there are ways we can confess our flaws, our shortcomings, our wounds, without that crippling guilt and shame that often accompanies confession. Are there places where we can own the full truth of who we are, that includes our shadow as well as our light, our sinner parts as well as our saintly parts? Do we have at least one human soul with whom we can share our whole truth, bringing light and air to those things than can poison us when we keep them in the internal dark?

I do not pretend this is easy. It takes great courage on the part of those confessing, great mercy on the part of those receiving the confession. Humility and humor go a long way. But I’ve been trying to practice more honest confession this Lent. Confessing more of my trickiness to my merciful spouse. Apologizing when I’ve spoken unkindly to one of my boys or a friend. Naming how I am complicit in systems of inequity in this country, and prone to my own greed and self-centeredness. So far, I have not become an oil spot on the sidewalk. In fact, it has felt quite liberating.

But here’s the thing. I think you have to get the order right. Or at least I did. As long as I wondered if God really loved me, just as I am, I could not bear to see all the wounds and imperfections, the ways I hurt others, intentionally or through neglect or ignorance. But once I knew deep in my soul that I am loved, and that nothing can separate me from that Love, I could see myself more clearly. And I could entrust myself to that Love and Grace, because God knows, I’ve also learned I cannot heal or change myself, despite all my efforts to just try harder.

Dear friend, whoever you are, however flawed you feel, or shamed so deeply you can’t bear the flaws, I pray you will know the Love and Delight of God for you deep in your bones. And I pray you have places and people who love you with such tenderness and mercy, you can lay down the exhausting pretenses, and just be your delightful, tricky, human self among other delightful, tricky humans.