Pancakes and Confession

At first I wrote, "Pancakes and Forgiveness," and that would be right, too. Because in confession, there is forgiveness. This day of indulgence, pancakes and whipped cream out of a can, is also the day of Confession. Today in a weekly email from our pastor in Chicago, he invites the congregation to step into his office on the day before Ash Wednesday to confess. It is a practice often overlooked in Protestant churches because of its strong associations with indulgences -- or wait, does anyone really associate those two things? Do most Protestants even remember what the protest was all about anyway? Even if indulgences were just a mere piece of the long standing (long before Luther, there were protests) division of the church, the confessional booth in which they were thought to have arose has all but disappeared from Protestant and other non-Catholic churches. And there may be nothing wrong with that at all. But getting away from the booths and getting away from confession are two different things.

Pastor Gorder's email reminded me that I am baptized, and I so I am called to confess. I've been given this new life; and confession renews that life. Not only when I am in weekly worship, seated a comfortable distance from my brothers and sisters in this life in Christ. And not only when I am restless on my pillow with words that would have better been unsaid. I am free to, and even called to, confess with the ones we call pastor or priest.

Confession is the one part of their job description, or office, that they cannot do unless we step forward. A pastor can lead us in worship, or bless the sacraments, or pour water over a young child in baptism, but without us, without our practice of confession, a priest cannot stand with us and say, "You are forgiven."

It is an uncomfortable one. I know I have rarely done it outside of worship or prayer. There have been few knocks on the door over the years Pastor Gorder has offered individual confession. An adult Sunday school class I was in read Bonhoeffer's chapter on confession, but was not excited about confessing to each other. I was among them. At the same time, to confess to a pastor or a brother or sister in Christ puts our lives in the balance of what God has done. It is no longer us holding on to whatever it is that in our humanness we have done, but putting ourselves in our rightful, uncomfortable, place as God's child. But on the other side is forgiveness, just as Easter is on the other side of Lent.