On the Journey We Confess Our Sin
Lent 4, Year B ~ Numbers 21:4-9
Kenwood UMC ~ March 22, 2009
This morning our scripture from the Old Testament book of Numbers is one that can be difficult for us to make sense of. Some of the pieces of this text trouble us, and I wanted to begin today by setting some of those before us—and then explaining why we’re not going to tackle all the questions today!
In this text, we meet the Israelites during their wandering in the wilderness. This event takes place after they have been rescued from Egypt and delivered by God. And it takes place during the 40 years before they get to the promised land. But on this journey God has given them food to eat, water to drink and direction.
Nevertheless, the people get impatient, just like we would in that circumstance, and they grumble against God and against Moses. Now, here’s the part we struggle with—God sends poisonous serpents which bite the people so that many Israelites die.
What do we make of this God who sends serpents—how can we understand this kind of punishment? I don’t want to spend a lot of time unpacking this, except to say that clearly, the God of Jesus is not a punishing God. We don’t know why the Israelites perceived that God had sent these snakes—perhaps they stumbled into a den of poisonous snakes, and it was easier to blame God for sending them than to admit the hadn’t been watching where they were going.
But what’s really interesting for us today is what happens next. The Israelites come to Moses and confess their sin. And as a result, Moses makes a serpent of bronze which becomes a symbol of forgiveness and new life.
It is that act of confession that I would like to spend some time with today. Because the ability to confess is one of those practices that can draw us closer to God on our journey towards transformed living. Each week during Lent we’ve been focusing on one practice, and this week our practice is confession.
I am grateful to President Obama for knowing our practice for the week and giving us a great illustration on The Tonight Show this week. I don’t know how many of you caught this, but he was chatting informally with Jay Leno about his bowling skills—or lack thereof. He scored a 37 in a game he played on the campaign trail. For those of you who don’t know bowling, that’s bad. Really bad. And he told Jay that he’s been practicing on the White House bowling alley and he’s up to “Special Olympic” level now.
Ouch. You know what happens next. The Special Olympians get up in arms, the White House issues an apology, and Obama himself calls the head of Special Olympics. He says that he was wrong, asks for pardon, and invites Special Olympians to the White House.
That was confession. And make no mistake, it is hard to do. When we’ve done something wrong, it’s easy to want to brush over it, or forget about it, or hide it. You know, the special piece of china you broke when your spouse wasn’t home that has just kind of disappeared. Or the words you said in anger under your breath—only someone heard them.
When we confess, we let God know that we know that we’ve done wrong. And to do that we have to somehow state our confession. Now, if we were Catholic, and I know many of you grew up Catholic, that would mean that you confess to your religious leader. You will be relieved to know that Protestants are OK with going straight to God.
But I will say that an act of confession can be helpful. Having an intentional time or practice of confessing our sins makes a difference. Whether we mentally go over our day every night and talk to God in our heads, or whether we record our confessions in a journal, doing so regularly makes a difference. I have an accountability partner who is another clergyperson, and when we get together a couple of times a month, one of the things we do is try to confess our failings to one another. It’s important for confession to be personal and relational—between you and God or you and someone else. Because confession is about healing relationships—relationships with God and relationships with others.
God values confession. It is important to God that when we have not behaved as we ought to, we confess our sin—we acknowledge it. Why is that so important for God? Because when we fail to confess, when we just cover over the shortcomings, they grow and fester inside of us. And they become bigger than they are, more powerful than they should be. But when we admit them, when we come to terms with them, we are more able to feel God’s forgiveness and grace wash over us.
Earlier in the service, I broke some twigs during our corporate prayer of confession—corporate means we all do it together. You each have a twig for you to use now, as we enter a time of personal confession. I want to invite you to confess your sins to God silently, and to break your twig as a symbol that you are broken, that you are still on this journey of discipleship and still learning how to be faithful. I also want to invite you to take your broken twig with you when you leave worship today, as a reminder of the importance of the practice of confession.
Let us silently confess our sins before God.
