I get to write a monthly introduction to my church’s Faith Formation Newsletter, and here is October’s:
You know how in the church service there’s a point when we silently confess our sins? Every week I’m like, “Shoot. I always forget this part,” and then I go over my to-do list.
Well, today I have a confession.
Last Sunday, as Jesse and I made our way to church for a new member breakfast, my plan was to tell him that I am going to resign from being an elder. I don’t know if that’s a thing – to resign from a volunteer position – but I was going to do it and I would tell Jesse on our way to church. He had to make a phone call though, so my plan was foiled.
“I’ll tell him on the way home,” I brooded, looking out the car window.
I think I understand that when you confess, you don’t say why you did what you did. No, “because he hit me first” stuff. You just say what you did, so I won’t bore you with the becauses. I was quitting and that’s that.
I don’t proclaim to know a thing about God, but do you know that scene in “Beauty and the Beast,” when Bell is tying sheets together to escape, and Mrs. Potts comes in and finds her? Mrs. Potts says something like, “It’s a long journey. How about some tea?” That’s what it’s like when I walk into First Pres – the music, the liturgy, the sermons – all of it is a tangible expression for what it is that cannot be expressed.
“Yes, yes,” I imagine God saying. “You are going to leave, I know, but have you eaten anything? And do you have a scarf? It’s cold.”
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Jesse and I were asked why we wanted to be members at First Pres when we joined in 2017. I said, “This is a place I don’t want to leave,” and maybe that’s another part of confession – I am at home here in church, with my doubts and my frustrations; my failures and all I’ve done and will do wrong. Not only that, I feel so loved, so welcome, I don’t think I have to push these things aside. First Pres makes me believe all of me is usable. At breakfast that morning, David Prentice-Hyers said that in a response to why they wanted to join the church, one couple said, “We felt wanted.” This is my sentiment too, but I think there’s a response to that wanting.
A few months back, I sat in the social hall, this time for dinner and to listen to the 2022 confirmants give their statement of faith. One boy expressed reluctance and doubt in one of the most vulnerable and honest statements of faith I’ve ever heard. He was confident and clear as he spoke and I’m not sure anyone in the room moved or breathed as we listened, probably because what he said was a little or a lot true for all of us.
“But I will try,” he ended, and this last sentence, I believe, is how we respond to being wanted. This is the redeeming work of the confession: I am overwhelmed. I am frustrated. I am exhausted. I am wanted. I believe; help Thou my unbelief.
I will try.
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