As I participated in corporate worship today, a question came to me: “does what we do in corporate worship keep us stuck in spiritual immaturity?” Let me share my thinking.
The question and the thinking behind it were triggered by the confession of sin that was built into the service. (I’ve participated in worship with this congregation enough to know that the confession of sin is a regular feature in their corporate worship services.) In the pastoral prayer, the pastor invited us to confess the sins we had committed this past week. The invitation to introspection and confession was coupled with a proclamation of God’s forgiveness of our sins.
On the surface, this practice appears to proclaim the gospel—i.e., God’s forgiveness of our sins. Something about the experience, however, seemed amiss. That’s when I started thinking about what we had just done. (Some would say I think too much!)
It seems to me the confession of sin(s) keeps the focus of worship on us, not God. In particular, it keeps the focus on our failures—how we fail to measure up, how we get it wrong. Implied in such confessions is the message that we are flawed, inadequate. It subtly defines us as “sinners.” In focusing on our failure to measure up, such confessions touch the guilt and shame with which so many of us live. Thankfully, the proclamation of God’s forgiveness is designed to cleanse our guilt and shame.
My question(s): does this practice help us experience God’s grace and forgiveness? Does it help us experience God’s cleansing power, moving us beyond our guilt and shame? Even more, does it help us see beyond our behavior to what it says about the condition of our hearts—i.e., sins as a visible symptom of the inner disease of Sin and Self-life? Does it help us process and learn from our failures so that we grow spiritually? Does it help us move beyond our sins? Does it help us claim and live out of our identity in Christ (as opposed to an identity as “a sinner”)?
Unless this practice of confession does these things—at least to some degree, it keeps us stuck spiritually, focused upon ourselves and our sins. It seems we never progress beyond our sins. We are simply practicing what Richard Rohr calls “sin management” instead of experiencing the transforming, life-giving power of Christ in our lives.
I can hear you arguing with me: “as long as we live, we will sin. We will always be sinners!”
Yes . . . and no.
As the apostle Paul argues in Romans 3, all of us sin. None of us are exempt. We all do it—repeatedly! Yet, in spite of our sins, God loves us and forgives our sins. God’s love was demonstrated “in that while we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). In spite of our sins, we have been “justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus” (Romans 3:24). These great spiritual truths underlie the proclamation of forgiveness associated with the corporate confession of our sins in worship.
There is, however, more to the gospel than the forgiveness of our sins! (Read that again.)
In Romans 7, Paul asserts that we are slaves to Sin—Sin-with-a-capital-S (Romans 7:14-23). The wrongs we do—sins (plural, small “s”) —are the symptoms of this inner disease. As I understand Paul, Sin-with-a-capital-S is the power of self-life that infects each of us. Self-life is the self-centered, self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit that colors everything we do. On our own, we cannot escape its power. It is too deeply engrained in our hearts and minds. Hence, we are slaves to it, doing what it commands.
The good news—i.e., the gospel—is that, in his death and resurrection, Jesus broke the power of Sin-with-a-capital-S and the power of death such Sin produces. Jesus sets us free from the enslaving power of self-life. As Paul wrote in Romans 6, “We know that our old self was crucified with {Christ} so that . . . we might no longer be enslaved to sin” (Romans 6:6, emphasis added). Paul pointed out the implication of this great truth; “so you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore, do not let sin exercise dominion in your mortal bodies. For sin will have no dominion over you” (Romans 6:11-12, 14, emphasis added).
The good news is that God accepts us unconditionally, just as we are, freely forgiving our sins as a gift of grace. In addition, the good news is that, in his death and resurrection, Jesus broke the power of Sin-with-a-capital-S that enslaves us. We have been set free from its dominating, destructive power.
In addition to these two great spiritual realities, there is an additional dimension to the good news! We have been given the Spirit to live in us. The Spirit works in us, transforming us into the likeness of Christ, displacing our self-centered, self-serving, what’s-in-it-for-me spirit with a servant spirit, empowering us to live the ways of God Jesus taught. In particular, the Spirit—living and working in us—gives us the power to move beyond our sins. As Paul says, “by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body” (Romans 8:13, emphasis added). As I understand what Paul is saying, because Jesus has set us free from the power of Sin-with-a-capital-S, the Spirit empowers us to move beyond the specific, individual sins—the symptoms of the inner disease. We can move beyond the sins we confess in corporate worship! We don’t have to keep repeating them.
To summarize my thinking, the goods news we proclaim has at least three dimensions to it: (1) the forgiveness of our sins so that we may live in relationship with God as beloved children (justified by faith), (2) through his death and resurrection, Jesus has broken the power of Sin-with-a-capital-S in our lives, setting us free from its destructive power, (3) through the work of the Spirit in our lives, we can move beyond the specific, individuals sins that are symptoms of this inner disease. We can move beyond our sins!
As we live into and out of the good news of God’s grace, we live into a new identity. We no longer think of ourselves as “sinners saved by grace.” We see ourselves as beloved children of God (Romans 8:14-17), created in God’s likeness, claimed by God’s grace as beloved children (Ephesians 1:4-5), called to be the followers of Jesus—learning and living the ways of God (the ways of grace and forgiveness) he taught, indwelt and empowered and in process of being transformed by the Spirit of God who lives in us.
It seems to me, if our corporate worship is to be truly transforming and life-giving, it would help us remember and claim our identity in Christ by proclaiming the full range of the gospel—the forgiveness of our sins, our freedom in Christ from the power of Sin-with-a-capital-S, and the empowering work of the Spirit helping us move beyond the specific symptoms of this Sin-with-a-capital-S (sins) that keep popping up in our lives.
Of course, this musing
is just my thinking that was triggered in worship today.
