Lost and Found

Week of Monday October 25, 2004

           Lectionary Readings (Revised Common Lectionary, Year C)
           Habakkuk 1:1–4, 2:1–4
           Psalm 119:137–144 or Isaiah 1:10–18
           Psalm 32:1–7
           2 Thessalonians 1:1–4, 11–12
           Luke 19:1–10

Zaccheus welcomes Jesus

           In his much-maligned film Dogville (2003), the Danish film director Lars von Trier paints a dark and disturbing portrait of human nature, both individual and communal. The fugitive Grace (Nicole Kidman) seeks refuge from gangsters in the tiny Colorado town of Dogville. The people in Dogville are petty, insular, and suspicious, but to their credit they eventually loosen up and welcome Grace. But when Grace becomes a threat, despite the many ways she helped the community, the town turns on her. For her part, Grace is at first forgiving, the victim blaming herself. But then she turns into the new oppressor, rejoins the gangsters, and exacts vengeance by burning down the town. Von Trier seems to suggest that lurking beneath our outward veneer of social respectability, and even our good intentions, there is something badly askew deep in the human heart. I think he is on to something.

           The Christian Gospel is fundamentally one of "good news" for all people. But appropriating this good news presupposes that we acknowledge some "bad news" about our human condition, which is the politically-incorrect notion of sin. Even for Christians the regular, explicit confession and repentance of sins, both personal and communal, is something of a lost art; I know that in my church it assumes a very low profile in Sunday worship. The Psalmists for this week bring us back to this essential and ultimately liberating spiritual practice.

           Oddly enough, our own religiosity, no doubt well-intentioned, often short circuits our confession and repentance, and that in at least three ways. First, we "keep silent" (Psalm 32:3) about our sin. Admitting faults and failures triggers a whole series of predictably negative consequences, some of which come from other people but some of which we inflict upon ourselves —shaming, exposure, embarrassment, censure, and rejection. The Psalmist even describes psycho-somatic illnesses that resulted from his silence, what today a therapist would identify as symptoms of clinical depression as the consequence of repression—weight loss, sleeplessness, anxiety, and lethargy (Psalm 32:3–4). If punishment by others or even by myself is the result of confession, then it stands to reason that keeping silent feels safer than making yourself vulnerable. Our Christian communities and friendships need to make confession a safe practice, not a threatening one that elicits shame and condemnation, because in God's eyes the goal is always His healing embrace, not exclusion and exposure.

           Another Psalmist for this week boasts that "my zeal wears me out / for my enemies ignore your words" (119:139). His zeal might have worn himself out, but I am sure it wore out others first; this is not the type of person whose company we enjoy. Placing yourself in the vanguard of religious enthusiasm, and construing others as spiritual slackers, is a sure warning sign. Self-righteousness makes it impossible to confess and repent because, living in a world of self-deception, we imagine ourselves as better than we are and others as worse than they are. Projecting our inner darkness on to others, scape-goating them, wanting to "fix" them, we boast that we alone "have the magic." In a number of his books Brennan Manning recounts the character Mrs. Turpin from the short story "Revelation" by Flannery O'Connor. Mrs. Turpin is a good, decent, upright, and proud woman who does everything right, except for the unpleasant fact that she is a self-righteous racist. She is a person who when she entered eternity needed "even her virtues burned away." Self-righteous perfection is an oppressive, exhausting burden to carry; the Psalmist spoke more than he knew when he admitted that his religious zeal wore himself out. We do far better to acknowledge our deep need for confession, repentance and forgiveness.

Zaccheus welcomes Jesus

           The prophet Isaiah reminds us that religious ritual can also form one of the biggest obstacles to genuine confession (Isaiah 1:10–18). Going through the motions, perfunctory performance, and rote recitation are all obstacles to repentance. Yahweh describes this sort of worship as "meaningless offerings" that he finds "detestable" (Isaiah 1:13). Here our mistake is to substitute form for substance, our external religious persona for the deep work of God in the inner recesses our our hearts.

           Beyond silence, self-righteous zeal, and outward ritual, there is a practice (and it does take practice) of genuine confession and repentance of sin. What does it look and sound like? To confess means to agree with God and say the same thing as He does about my condition; to repent signals a change of heart leading to a change of action. Here is a fine example from the Episcopal Book of Common Prayer. Some people might find the language too starchy or traditional; I find it clear-headed, refreshingly candid, comprehensive and liberating.

Most holy and merciful Father:
We confess to you and to one another,
and to the whole communion of saints
in heaven and on earth,
that we have sinned by our own fault
in thought, word, and deed;
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.
We have not loved you with our whole heart, and mind, and strength. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We have not forgiven others, as we have been forgiven. We have been deaf to your call to serve, as Christ served us. We have not been true to the mind of Christ. We have grieved your Holy Spirit.

We confess to you, Lord, all our past unfaithfulness: the pride, hypocrisy, and impatience of our lives,
Our self indulgent appetites and ways, and our exploitation of other people,
Our anger at our own frustration, and our envy of those more fortunate than ourselves,
Our intemperate love of worldly goods and comforts, and our dishonesty in daily life and work,
Our negligence in prayer and worship, and our failure to commend the faith that is in us,
Accept our repentance, Lord, for the wrongs we have done: for our blindness to human need and suffering, and our indifference to injustice and cruelty,
For all false judgments, for uncharitable thoughts toward our neighbors, and for our prejudice and contempt toward those who differ from us,
From our waste and pollution of your creation, and our lack of concern for those who come after us,
Restore us, good Lord, and let your anger depart from us;
Accomplish in us the work of your salvation,
By the cross and passion of your Son our Lord.

           In Luke's Gospel for this week we read about Zacchaeus, a despised "chief tax collector" who exploited others and, as a handsome consequence, became "a wealthy man." When Jesus invited Himself to the home of this despicable outcast, the outcry was predictable: "he has gone to be the guest of a sinner!" But Zacchaeus had a change of heart that led to a change in actions, giving away half of his wealth to the poor and promising restitution for those whom he had cheated. That had to be a long list of angry, aggrieved taxpayers. The words that Jesus spoke to him He speaks to us today when we move beyond silence, self-righteous zeal, and religious ritual to deep seated confession and repentance: "Today salvation has come to this house...for the Son of man came to seek and to save what was lost (Luke 19:10).