Confession is Good…
Confession is Good for the Soul
The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven. Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed. – James 5: 15-16
“Confession is good for the soul.” I am not sure who coined the phrase first, but few Christians avail themselves of its wisdom. Actually, it is best to qualify that statement – few Protestants avail themselves of its wisdom. The Roman Catholic Church maintains the sacrament of confession, though modern Catholics are just as likely to be seen going into confessional rooms rather than the older individual booths made famous by the big screen. For Protestants, however, we have a history of “protest” against ecclesial acts like confession. For many, this rite smacks of a disordered clerical hierarchy at best and a distorted understanding of Christ’s true role as High Priest at worst.
I am aware that many Protestant services of worship contain corporate prayers of confession, even ones accompanied with words of assurance and pardon. In our own way, perhaps, we do take heed to this clear imperative from the book of James – to “confess your sins.” Unfortunately, we consistently leave out the part about confessing sins “to one another.” At the very best, we may actually pause after a corporate prayer to allow time for silent confession, though even this is often hurried and awkward (are we too time conscious? too uncomfortable? too holy and sinless?). No doubt many people think confession is best kept a private, individual affair between a believer and God alone. Others denigrate regular confession altogether, assuming that grace abounds and this whole idea of confession is depressing anyway. Whatever the objections, I am convinced that we non-Catholics “doth protest too much.”
James makes clear that confession, like Eucharist and Baptism, is an “embodied” act – it calls for our bodies to be present with other bodies, gathered in the name of Jesus. Our Christian faith is personal, but never private. I am not suggesting that we should air all our “dirty laundry” in worship, as if we were on one of today’s many obnoxious TV talk shows. I am suggesting that there are good reasons to “confess our sins to one another and pray for one another” in specific ways that bring love and accountability to bear. Sometimes it helps to get specific about sin, not just in the privacy of our own devotional time, but with a trusted pastor, a Christian companion, or a spiritual director who can pray with us, for us, and who can be bold enough to articulate out loud what our faith affirms: “if we confess our sins, God who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.” (I John 1:9) It is a well known truth that Martin Luther, the original “Protest”ant and Reformer, continued to go to confession throughout his adult life. Perhaps he was aware of something we have forgotten. Confession is good for the soul.
