SERMON LENT 2, 2005  Year A 

In the name of God, who calls us to repentance.  Amen. 

There are very few jokes that I actually remember but there is an old Dave Allen joke which has always tickled my fancy and has stayed in the memory banks. 

A spinster lady of mature years goes to her parish priest and announces that she is to be married. ‘That’s wonderful news’, says Father O’Flaherty, ‘I hope you will both be very happy. Now what can I help you with?’

‘I just have one question about marriage, Father, that I hope you might be able to answer for me.’

A little nervously, wondering exactly what the question might be, Father O”Flaherty says, ‘And what might that be?’

‘Well, Father, I’m not sure what colour dress I should wear for the wedding.’

Somewhat relieved, Father O’Flaherty says, ‘ Oh, that’s very simple. If you’ve been pure you wear white, if not, you wear blue’.

‘Oh Father, thank you. I will wear white’. ‘I’m delighted to hear it’, says Father O’Flaherty. And then she adds, ‘with little blue spots’. 

Well, we all have blue spots on our white dresses – perhaps not in the area of sexual sin (though that is one of the big ones for all of us), but certainly in many parts of our lives. Sin is one of the universal experiences of humanity. And the confession of sin is an essential part of our spiritual practice.  

We are now in week 2 of our examination of the General Confession which forms part of our Eucharistic liturgy. There are some senses in which we could regard the General Confession as a soft option. No longer are we obliged, as the earliest Christians were, to stand up in front of the congregation and spill the beans on every transgression, large or small. Nor are we obliged to meet face to face with a priest and name our particular, individual sins. The shame inherent in exposing your particular sinfulness publicly, either to a group or another individual, is not part of the dynamics of this particular act of repentance. 

But, the General Confession is no soft option. Taken seriously, it forces us to confront the all-pervasive nature of sin, in a way which we might not otherwise do. It provides a comprehensive checklist against which we can, and should, test our behaviour.  

The two lines we are exploring today are the heart of this checklist: ‘We have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, and in what we have failed to do.’ 

Let us take it piece by piece. The first challenge to us is to examine the ways in which we have sinned against God in thought. We can be tempted to avoid confronting the sinfulness of our thoughts. It is, of course, a good thing, worthy of praise indeed, that we do not actually put into action a number of our thoughts. There would be many more murders, many more adulteries, many more thefts, many more ruptured relationships, if we did. But while we are congratulating ourselves on that fact that we have NOT strangled the teenager who yet again has answered back rudely or taken the car without permission, we should also be aware that the thought itself, however fleeting, is something to repent of.  

Jesus is quite clear that thoughts are within the range of sin. In one of the more challenging gospel passages we are told that even to look lustfully at another person is tantamount to committing adultery in your heart. (Matthew 5: 28) This confronting saying is probably there as a salutary reminder to people not to feel self-righteous – even if we haven’t acted on our impulses or temptations, we are still in the same ballpark as those who have. After all, Jesus reserved his most scathing comments for those who thought they were better, more righteous, more holy, than others. But the warning is there –  thoughts of violence, infidelity, theft also come between us and God, and need to owned up to. 

There are also other types of thoughts which should bring us to our knees. As I have just said, Jesus roundly condemned the proud and the self-righteous. To think that you are better than others is to have missed the point of the gospels. Of course you may be better than other people at a particular thing – Ian Thorpe is a much better swimmer than I am, I am a much better French speaker than my husband. But that does not make Ian Thorpe a better person than I am, or indeed me a better person than my husband. We all come before God in our brokenness and in our beauty. It is as simple as that. Jostling for position and respect, while it is endemic in our society, is profoundly unchristian. 

At the other end of the scale, despair, self-criticism and self-hatred are also far from the wholeness that God desires for us. The psychological and physiological causes of such distress are manifold and often completely out of the control of the person concerned. In that sense, there is no fault attaching to the person who is their captive. But a failure to acknowledge that such thoughts are not healthy and to try to deal with them is a failure to understand the great, compassionate love God has for us. These are difficult waters – I am not suggesting that all anyone needs to do is pray, receive forgiveness, and they will be healed of their self-hatred. Oh that it were so easy! The journey is often an extraordinarily difficult one, with many turnings and detours, but it is one that is walked with God and one that needs to be undertaken.  

The General Confession also challenges us to examine our words and our actions: ‘We have sinned against you in word and deed’ 

Words are extraordinarily powerful – the old saying ‘sticks and stones may break my bones but names will never hurt me’ is simply not true. Malice, gossip, idle chatter – all can cause great harm. I was telling the Tuesday morning congregation about the Sufi gates. The Sufis are a Muslim sect who preach tolerance, inclusiveness and love. They have many great poets of whom the most famous is probably Rumi. Those who have seen the ‘Romancing the Stone’ series of movies may remember the Jewel of the Nile. The Jewel of the Nile turned out to be a wise, highly eccentric mystic. He was a Sufi.  

The Sufi gates are three questions or gates we should ask ourselves before we say anything. If what we propose to say passes each gate, then we should say it. The first question is ‘is it true?’ If not, it should remain unsaid. The second question is ‘is it kind?’ If not, it should remain unsaid. The third, ‘is it necessary?’ If not, it should remain unsaid. As many have observed, if we all followed this, the world would be a much quieter place.  

Our deeds also speak loudly and at times can speak more truly of our beliefs and thoughts than the words we speak. Fine words are all very well but if our actions tell a different story, as they so often do, we can stand justly accused of hypocrisy.

There are, quite simply, things that we should not do – things that cause pain and distress, things that deprive others of their livelihoods, things that destroy the creation on which we all depend, things that disrupt relationships, betray trust. Attempts to provide exhaustive lists, sin by sin, so to speak, are doomed to fail – they cannot hope to deal with the complexity of human motivation and action. But the general principles are clear and we will look at them in more detail next week. 

It is not just our thoughts, words and deeds which are brought to scrutiny. It is also our omissions, the things ‘we have failed to do’. As well as there being things that we should not do, there are things that we should do. The prophet Micah lists three: act justly, love mercy, walk humbly with our God. Ignoring the suffering of others, failing to offer a compassionate word when it is needed, refusing to give other people the care and attention they need, refusing to give ourselves the care and attention we need: these are all sins of omission and as destructive of our relationship with God as the sins of commission.  

In our spiritual lives, Jesus invites us to a scrupulous honesty about ourselves, promising that the truth shall set us free. The General Confession gives us a framework within which to practise this honesty. It takes courage. To see the truth about ourselves, the real truth that acknowledges both our beauty and our brokenness, is difficult, requiring the peeling away of layers of self-delusion, cultural conditioning and wishful thinking. But it is to see with the eyes of God and to know freedom of the spirit. 

‘Merciful God, our maker and our judge, we have sinned against you in thought, word and deed, and in what we have failed to do.’ Amen.