Step five: Admitted to God, to ourselves, and to another human being, the exact nature of our wrongs.

I have been accused during this sermon series of being too sober - in my preaching. So: joke de jour. A minister, a priest and a rabbi were having lunch one day. They were talking about the spiritual support they gave the members of their congregation: listening to their confessions, saying words of absolution, visiting them when they were ill and comforting them in times of loss.

What the minister, priest and rabbi found they had in common was the sense of having ministered to their congregation, but having no one to minister to them. So they decided to go together for a retreat and provide one another with care.

They gathered on the appointed day and decided that they would begin with confession and absolution. The minister said that since Jews had been atoning for their sins for thousands of years, the rabbi should go first.

The rabbi said, "You know, I love my wife and would never cheat on her, but sometimes in a crowd where no one can tell who did it, I just cannot resist giving the ladies a little pinch." The minister and the priest assured the rabbi that God loves him and forgives him, and that they love him and forgive him.

Then the minister suggested that the priest go next, because for hundreds of years Catholics have practiced confession. The priest said, "You know I have taken a vow of poverty, but there are days when it is so hard to live on my little stipend. And there are times when I look at all the money we make on bingo, and I just can't help taking just a little of it for myself just to pay the bills." The rabbi and the minister assured the priest that God loves him and forgives him, and that they love him and forgive him.

Then it was the minister's turn. He said, "I know that God loves me and forgives me, but I don't think you will feel that way when I tell you about my besetting sin." The priest and the rabbi sought to comfort him and asked, "What awful sin have you committed?" He said, "I'm a terrible gossip!"

The Old Testament text tells about the struggle some 2,700 years ago of the prophet Isaiah as he faced the nature of his wrong. It happened the year the Uzziah, king of Israel, died. Uzziah was the greatest king of Israel since Solomon ruled hundreds of years before. Now he was gone, the nation's throne was empty and the nation's future was unsure.

This is the story of Isaiah's confession and his calling, not Isaiah's theory about guilt, forgiveness and calling, his personal experience. "I saw the Lord." When Isaiah had this overwhelming experience of God's presence, he also had an overwhelming sense of being unclean.

The temple area in which Isaiah had his vision was about 30 feet square and 30 feet high. I mention that because in our church we need to know that the size of the revelation of God has nothing to do with the size of the place of worship. What matters is not the size of the building but the size of the vision.

There is that tendency to judge ourselves in comparison to other people. If I compare myself to others, I will come out as well or poorly as my ego allows. I am fatter or thinner, earn more or less, gossip more or less, play a better game of tennis or worse. It is the ultimate comparison with God that brought Isaiah the true evaluation of himself. Confession before God is the necessary starting point, because God's holiness is the standard by which we are judged.

In comparison to God, Isaiah understood his uncleanness. It was not just his problem. It is a dirty world out there. We do not invent temptation and sin. It is waiting for us. We are unclean people in the midst of an unclean world.

Confession is not any more fun than having an appendectomy is fun. It is not a recreational activity. It is necessary surgery. We are led to confession because of what is on the other side.

One of the slogans popular today is, "Just say 'No.' " For some people that is all it takes. They say "No" to drugs and they are fine. But a lot of folks can see no reason to say "No." They will tell you, "I like what drugs do to me." Or they will say, "Everybody does it." Isaiah first had to say, "I am unclean." Then he had to say my world, my peers, are unclean. "Everybody does it" does not give anything moral approval.

In the church there are two basic kinds of confession: general confession and personal confession. That is because we need to do both kinds of confession. To confess the exact nature of our wrongs - I kicked my dog yesterday - we run the risk of ignoring the weightier nature of our sin - I never kicked my neighbor, but I hate him. To confess only the general nature of our wrong - I hate my neighbor - we can avoid the specifics - and I drove over his trash can with my truck. We need to do both - general confession as we do every Sunday, and the personal confession.

As a Protestant I grew up being told that we do not have to be like those Catholics. We do not have to go to a priest to confess our sins. That is true. You do not have to come to me to confess your sins. Isaiah does not tell us about anyone else being present when he confessed his uncleanness to God. Some Catholics and former Catholics will tell you what a turn-off the confessional can be. But some will also tell you how much it has helped them with life's journey. Having a confessor is good for our spiritual and emotional health.

What is important, whether we primarily follow the route of general confession or private confession, is to be led to the point Isaiah reached: to honestly see ourselves and our world for what we are.

The First Letter of John is more biblical foundation in understanding that this message is for all of us, not simply a message for the drunk lying in the gutter or the criminal in jail. Our capacity to have fellowship with one another has to do with our capacity for confession. "If we say we have no sin we deceive ourselves."

It reminds me of the story of a family arriving late for the service at a new church. They came in as the congregation was repeating, "We have done those things which we ought not to have done and we have left undone those things which we ought to have done." The wife turns to the husband and says, "I think we finally found a church where we fit in."

There are folks who choose to deceive themselves. You may have heard the little verse which goes like this:

At three I had a feeling of
Ambivalence toward my brothers,
And so it follows naturally,
I poisoned all my lovers.
 

But now I'm happy, I have learned
The lesson this has taught;
That everything I do that's wrong
Is someone else's fault.

Living in the midst of people of unclean lips, it is easy to find someone else being at fault for whatever is wrong in our lives. We admitted to God, to ourselves and to another human being, the exact nature of everyone else's wrongs.

Our God is a God who is not content to leave us in the dark. There is a story told of a boy from the country who visited relatives in London for the first time. This was in the days when London had streetlights, but they were unknown in the country. That first night in London the boy sat on the front porch of the house and gazed in amazement at the wondrous sights of the city.

As he looked down the street, he saw a man making his way toward him. The man would stop at each corner and pause beside the lamp post, and then a round globe of light would burst forth through the darkness as the man lit the lamp.

As the boy watched in wonderment, the street gradually changed from darkness to a place of light. He became so excited that he ran into the house and exclaimed, "There's a man outside poking holes in the darkness." Ours is a God who pokes holes in the darkness - if we confess our sins he is faithful and just.

I read somewhere a comment by H. L. Mencken to the effect that conscience is what makes us think somebody might be watching. It makes a difference to know that our God is watching us.

The text from this letter of St. John also makes clear that true faith produces both fellowship with God and fellowship with one another.They are inseparable. We need the integrity of being honest to God and one another. One reason we need to confess to another is that God works through others. We come to know we are forgiven by God when we experience forgiveness through others.

This is the sacramental statement. "If we walk in the light as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from all sin." Isaiah had that mystical experience of cleansing expressed in poetic terms. Here we find it in new covenant terms, cleansing through the blood of Christ.

Another biblical resource for honestly facing our life is the story of Jesus confronting a woman about her particular sin. This was not a general issue. Jesus was dealing with the exact nature of wrong in this woman's life.

There is no clue in the text how Jesus knew about the woman's personal life. He just knew and confronted her on it. Did you notice how she tried to shift the conversation? When Jesus unexpectedly reveals his insight into her personal life, she immediately tried to shift the conversation by talking about religion, the differences between Jews and Samaritans.

Jesus reminded her that authentic worship has to do with the truth. It was her willingness to be honest about her life that led this woman to know who Christ was.

Hans-Ruedi Weber relates a story from East Africa. A simple woman always walked around with her bulky Bible. She was never parted from it. So the villagers began to tease her. "Why always the Bible?" they asked. "There are so many other books you could read."

Yet the woman kept on living with her Bible, neither disturbed nor angered by all the teasing. But finally one day, she knelt down in the midst of those who laughed at her. She held up the Bible, high above her head, and she said with a great smile, "Yes, of course there are many books which I could read. Yet there is only one book which reads me."

God called Isaiah to face the uncleanness of himself and his world. Jesus called the woman of Samaria to be truthful about her past. St. John called us not to deceive ourselves in thinking we have no sin.

God's intention is never for us to live in eternal regret for the words that have come from our lips, as Isaiah could have. God's intention is never for us to live with eternal embarrassment for our past life, as the woman of Samaria could have. God's intention is never for us to live with an eternal cloud over our fellowship with one another.

We are called to honestly admit to God, ourselves and another the exact nature of our wrongs so, like Isaiah, we can hear God's calling to a greater life; like the woman, we can be freed of past guilt and be able to worship God rightly; and like the early church, we can have fellowship with one another with all the fullness and richness possible for those who love Christ and follow him.