Joe Gibbs, the former Head Coach of the Washington Redskins, tells a true story about a friend of his who owned a fine Labrador retriever. The friend, whom we will call John, looked out his window one morning and saw his faithful obedient dog sitting on his haunches near the front porch. John thought he saw something hanging from the dog's jaws. Sure enough, a closer look revealed it was his neighbor's pet rabbit that was now dead.
Well, John was not only stunned, he was scared. Not exactly sure what to do, he worked through several solutions until finally landed on one that he felt would be best for all parties concerned. He gingerly pulled the rabbit from the dog's mouth, brought the thing into the kitchen and washed off all the dirt and the gunk. He then took it into the bathroom, pulled out a hairdryer and spent several minutes blow-drying the dead creature until it was nice and fluffy. That night after it was dark and quiet in the neighborhood, John crawled over the back fence, slipped across the neighbor's backyard, opened the door on the rabbit hutch, placed the dead rabbit back in the cage and snapped the door shut. He then slithered back through the darkness, hopped the fence, went home and said to his dog, "Well, I saved your bacon."
Well, next morning there was a loud knock at his front door. John opened it, and to his surprise there was his neighbor holding that dead rabbit, and he was steaming. He said, "John, we have a real sick person in our neighborhood." John nervously said, "Oh really, why do you say that?" He said, "Well, you see, my rabbit died three days ago and I buried it. Some idiot just dug it up, cleaned it off nice and neat and stuck it back in the hutch. John, we're talking about a real sicko!" (As told by in a sermon entitled If The Confession Doesn’t Fit, You Can’t Acquit, by James Merritt, Collected Sermons, Globe Network, undated).
THE DARK SIDE OF THE HUMAN SOUL
Who doesn’t have a dead rabbit, somewhere? We are all sinners, the Bible says. So… what do we do next? Don’t we just need to get on with our lives and do the best we can? Well, certainly, we can get on with our lives, even though we are sinners, even though we fail, even though we make mistakes and have weaknesses as humans, but there is a potential problem which could bring “sickness” to our souls, if we don’t handle our vulnerability and weaknesses correctly. The point is this: dead rabbits don’t always stay buried. They have a way of getting dug up and showing up somewhere along the way either in our feelings, habits, personalities or our relationships. This “unresolved uncertainty” about life, or about ourselves, about our weaknesses, and our own struggle to deal with them can make us sick, or at least keep our souls from the true healing we need and the wholeness we desire.
Most of us have been watching with sadness the story about the murder of the young girl at Yale University. This whole tragic story about the murder of the young Annie Le has not yet come out, but the President of Yale, Richard Levin, said something very interesting when he said, “This incident could have happened in any city, in any university, or in any workplace. It says more about the dark side of the human soul than it does about the extent of security measures.”
( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-levin/what-happened-at-yale-and_b_290274.html)
( http://www.huffingtonpost.com/richard-levin/what-happened-at-yale-and_b_290274.html)
Of course, the Chancellor wrote this to defend his University, but the question arises, what is this “dark side of the human soul”, Chancellor Levin is referring to?
As most of us have heard in the news, the police do not think Raymond Clark, the suspected murderer to be a stalker, nor was he believed to be romantically involved with Le, though some think he might have had some hidden agendas, perhaps being insulted by her rejection. The only thing that came out early in reports is that the suspected murderer Raymond Clark is said by fellow workers to have been a “control freak.” Either he could not get her to like him, or he could not get her to keep the mice cages clean like he wanted them to be. Whatever turns out to be the truth, it appears Clark had this obsessive need within himself to have to control over certain situations and over particular people.
Where does this need to be a “control freak” come from? Many people deal with similar “control” issues, yet not so extremely and violently as Clark. But how could “the need to control” get to be such a dark part of the soul that someone would commit murder? Of course, we could say this was just a person with a sick mind, but others said he seemed very normal to them. What we need to understand is that the human soul can get sick, just like your body can. And though there are reasons that might be found, mind-sickness and soul-sickness can seem to come out of nowhere.
Scripture rightly says, we’re all sinners, which does not mean we are all bad people, but we all have the potential vulnerability for evil, and all of us, at some time or other will fall short of being good in our lives, and we always fall short of being perfect, like God). Given the right set of circumstances, pressures, problems or disease, we can all develop “dark sides” to our souls. This is exactly why we need to attend to the health of our souls, just like we need to attend to the health of our bodies. If we don’t, disease can get a beach head in our souls, just like in our bodies, and sickness or ‘soul’ darkness can overcome us.
There will probably be all kinds of analysis of what happened to Raymond Clark, but one thing sure to be found is that a person’s need to be “in control” often comes from our inner-most fears of our lives being unpredictable or out of control. It is this “unresolved uncertainty” about life, like the fear that a “buried rabbit” might suddenly appear, which can lead to feelings or misperceptions that your life is so unpredictable, so out of control, or so threatening to you that you can start doing some really sick, stupid and very irrational things to try to hold everything together.
Our Bible text today, speaks directly to the need for healing in both body and soul. I don’t think it is accidental that the opening chapter of James addresses the nature of the “double-minded” person, and that the closing chapter of James speaks of the need for healing. There is a very real connection between a person who has become divided within themselves, who is unpredictable, insecure, or as James says is “double-minded” and is “unstable in every way” and a person who needs healing in soul. The whole book of James is a book about how to heal the heart and overcome instability in both life and faith. James is a book about how to heal your life by having a better kind of religion. It is about having a true faith---faith that not only talks the talk, but walks the walk and really says what it does and does what it says. Thus, you overcome ‘double-mindedness’ by doing the word, not just hearing it. And you begin to “do” the word from the inside out, as you see yourself and you open yourself for God’s cleansing and reshaping.
When you come to the concluding chapter five, James applies everything he’s said about having a more stable faith with by linking physical illness with sick religion and sick behavior. Right in the middle of his discussion, he stops to give this major spiritual prescription for the soul: “Therefore, confess you sins to one another, pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” (James 5: 16). Here, is the ultimate cure for the insecure, unstable, double-minded person: Talk to somebody. If you’re struggling, don’t keep it all inside. Confess your sins, your worries, your fears, your frustrations and failures, even your lack of faith. If you don’t get the fear, worry, and the struggle that is going on the inside out to the outside so it can come to the light, darker things can happen in the soul.
This is how the Christian faith has seen the path to healing life’s hurts from its beginning. If you’ve got a “dead rabbit” that might get dug up, if you’ve got an albatross around your neck (as the poet Coleridge described) you need to deal with it, expose it, confess it, or it can have a negative power over your life that a dead rabbit should never have .
WHAT TO DO WITH OUR “DEAD RABBITS”
Before we look more closely at the need for transparency, openness and confession in our lives, let me bring up one particular dead rabbit that often appears in churches, just like it can in any of our lives. Several years ago, I attended a seminar about “Church Conflict”, because I knew my church was about to have one. The conflict was not going to be about me, but it was going to involve me—much more than I wanted to be involved.
During the seminar held in Greensboro, the leaders, Dennis Burton and Wayne Oakes described how every minister will sometimes feel a moment like a “pinch” in his ministry. You don’t even have to cause it, but the pinch comes. They said it can happen this way. One day you are standing at the door shaking hands and a church member comes through, saying suddenly out of nowhere, “Preacher, I won’t be coming back to this church.”
“What do you mean,” you (the minister) will say, being very surprised.
“I won’t be coming back because you didn’t come to visit me in the hospital.” ( or you didn’t visit me at home, or you said something I didn’t like….something like this)
Then you will answer, “I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were in the hospital.”
“It doesn’t matter preacher, you nor this church really care about me. That’s why I’m never coming back.”
As the person walks out the door, you find yourself standing there is total dismay, thinking to yourself: “Where in the world did that come from?” (Based on the Seminar, Surviving Conflict in Ministry, by Dennis Burton and M. Wayne Oaks, 2003)
Even if you’re not a pastor, if you’ve been around a church long enough, or if you’ve been around people long enough, sometimes you see this sudden, very irrational, obsessive and even “controlling” kind of behavior pop-up, seemingly out of nowhere.
Well, the truth is, it doesn’t come out of nowhere. In this person who suddenly lashed out there was a pain that was hidden, un-confessed, un-confronted and un-resolved. Even though the church did not know the person was in the hospital and even though the preacher did not know either, the person, at sometime or other in their life, had experienced some kind of hurt, be it rejection or neglect, from someone---either a loved-one, maybe the church or maybe from another pastor, or maybe even as a child from a parent and maybe they might feel God has rejected them. Even though the person might express their pain in some very concrete form (you did this or that), the truth is they may not really remember or realize where this feeling comes from. But because of person’s old, unresolved, unspoken, and even seemingly buried wound is now touched or some stashed away pain is retriggered by some unmet expectation or another hurt in life, the pain suddenly comes out once again. This person who felt threatened by another hurt did what their soul told them to do: They quick took control of the situation by making the pastor and church look like the bad guy. Because they needed help, but didn’t know how to confess or ask for it, all they knew to do was express the pain as anger, threat, or as an attempt to control. Even though the expectation on the pastor or the church was unrealistic, the person had so much hurt locked up in their soul, “they couldn’t see straight”, as the saying goes and they had to pitch a fight to try and protect their hurting, damaged soul.
One wonders how much “hurt” Raymond Clark must have had locked up in his soul---because the more hurt that is penned up inside, normally the more hurt is aimed at others. This kind of “trading within for hurt without” happens all the time to us humans in our relationships, though of course not always as violent or intentional. But feelings of hurt and pain can seem to come out of nowhere, especially in our close relationships, like with our spouse or our children. Those we love might hurt us or we might hurt them, without ever meaning to or we might suddenly lash out at them or they lash out at us for even the smallest, seemingly insignificant thing. The problem always is, that this small, little insignificant thing is hooked to a larger, very significant issue that is unresolved, unspoken, and has not been not openly confessed. The issue may be something bigger that the person is doing or not doing to us, or it could be some unrealized or unmet need we have within us, but don’t fully realize or understand, or it could that it is something that has never been addressed. In fact, more times that I can “shake a stick at”, I’ve had frustrated married couples come to me about issues where they are upset at their spouse, saying either, “he doesn’t love me like the used to”, or she doesn’t respect me anymore” (and I know because just about every marriage experiences this to some extent) but the real issue goes back to something else, or even before their marriage. In most all the issues that hurt people the most, there is normally something bigger behind what is currently going on, and more than that, the issue is normally connected to something neither has confessed, talked about, expressed, or seen.
A young man who came a counselor frustrated that his wife wanted to leave him. As the counseling sessions started, he described all these things his wife should be doing, but wasn’t. As the discussion went deeper, the counselor tried to help him look less at what his wife was doing—and what he could not control and more at what he was doing, and could control. The truth finally came out that he wanted a wife, but only if he could control her the way he wanted to. He also wanted to have a family, but only if it existed for him, not because he was with there for them. When the young man finally came to realize and confessed that the large part of the problem all along was him---and the weakness he had---which had triggered her coldness and desire to leave---but his confession was too late.
What this husband did not see, was that his irrational need to “control” his wife, came out of his own weakness and failure and lack of control—not our of his rightness or strength. This was the same kind of “control” issue the person exhibited who came out the church door, claiming the preacher and the church didn’t care. It was an attempt to have the “up” on the other, to control how things were perceived, because when you go after the reputation of someone—you wish them harm, don’t you and you try to make yourself feel better? In a more extreme and violent way, Raymond Clark was attempting to get or keep control of his mice and this young woman. Since he was such a big guy compared to this little woman, his need to control was so obviously out of the unexpressed trouble or un-confessed weakness in his own soul, not in any “real” weakness or trouble with her; how could he feel threatened by a girl who was only 4’11 and 90 pounds?
What needs to be understood, here is this: the dark side of the soul is most often developed out of the dark night a soul has experienced and now that hurting soul reaching out to control others because the pain still remains un-confessed, unspoken, and unresolved. In any life, when things happen, especially bad things, and they become secrets that are swept under the rug and not dealt with or resolved properly, there is a great danger of soul sickness---a sickness which doesn’t remain a secret because it eventually brings hurt not only to the one keeping the secret, but also to the one who hasn’t a clue.
HOW HUMANS MUST DEAL WITH THEIR HURTS: CONFESSION
What is behind every story of pain out there in the world ---be it seemingly subdued or has become violent, is the need for healing in all the corners of the human soul. Healing is needed both because unresolved pain deep in our souls eventually leads to sickness. No matter how insignificant the hurt, there is no real healing in our hearts until we find a way to deal with those “dead rabbits” that don’t stay dead because some “dog” keeps digging them up.
I personally think we are going to see more acts of incivility in our world, like we’ve seen in recent weeks in the news media. We are going to hear about more about the inner rage and pain in people coming out---be they politicians, singers, athletes---who scream out in rage because, because they are hurting. People are hurting from the outside in from the recession, but they are also hurting from the inside out because of unresolved issues they carry in their hearts—thinking nobody cares because nobody knows. We may read more about people, even seemingly “normal” people who suddenly have this surprising “dark side” which will surface more and more in our culture? Do you know why? I believe it is because we are taking less and less time to attend to the deepest needs of our souls. Who has time for confessing sins? Who takes time to study their hearts or to grow in their spiritual lives? As our culture pays less attention to the needs of the soul, we will see unresolved pains come out as an untamed, spiritual darkness in the soul---which can damage both not only our hearts, but also our bodies.
This, I believe, is why we need to pay closer attention to the practice of biblical confession. The virtue of integrity---this soul-healing virtue--- can be defined as being who we say we are and saying who we really are. Such integrity is an openness of heart in how we speak and live, and it implies not only a singleness of heart and spirit---being who we say we are----but it also points to the virtue being able to do and be the person we know we need to be. Only when we are willing and able to confess our hurts and our sins to each other, can the soul be made healthy, whole, even in the midst of our brokenness. When a culture forgets the importance of dealing with the inner life, and that fails to do the constant work of becoming a healthy in heart and soul, eventually forgets how to be a good.
So, if integrity comes through openness and confession, what does it mean to be a confessing person---a person who is able to be in touch with all their heart and soul, and is willing to open that soul to others? Let me make three concluding observations from our text in James.
CONFESSION IS MORE THAN CONFESSING SIN
The first thing we can see in James’ discussion about confession is that confession is more than about confessing sin. In most of our minds, when we hear the word “confession”, we think of a catholic Christian going to a priest to offer a confession. But that is not exactly the kind of confession this text is talking about.
Notice how James begins his discussion on healing and confession with several acts of worship. He begins, “Is there any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise….” (James 5: 13). As you can clearly see, the implied healing context is a worship service. Now, think about the primary purpose of worship as a time for prayer and music, but also think about what we do with prayers and singing when we worship. This is how we confess our faith, isn’t it? It’s how we get what is deep down in our hearts out into the world---all of worship is a way of confessing. We not only confess our sins, but we also confess our faith, our hopes, our prayers and we get all our need out in the open in what is suppose to be a very safe and sacred public place. When we confess our faith, we are telling ourselves, the church and the world, this is who we really are. We are not pretending to worship, but we are declaring fully and sincerely that we are people who confess to God and to each other, this is the kind of person and people we truly want to be. In worship, confession declares the deepest part of our hearts and is the very foundation of human integrity. When we worship as “confessing” people, we let others see into us, as we also open ourselves fully to God.
One of the reasons Jesus was so adamant about hypocrisy in worship is because insincere worship perverts human integrity and is not true confession of the heart. When religious people pretend to be something they aren’t we are in the deepest kind of trouble. When our confession---the opening of our heart to God and others--- is full of lies, it means we live a lie, and we are not who we really say we are. That is exactly what James meant by a “double-minded” person, who becomes “unstable in all their ways”. When we live this “double” way, we not only lie to others, we end up lying to ourselves, and because the truth is not in us, healing can’t come to us---and hurt goes on and on. In “true religion” our walk must match our words and our words must match our walk. When we worship God fully, truly, sincerely, openly and honestly----confessing what we truly believe, which includes also confessing our sins, our unbelief, our failures, our frustrations and our hurts---when our confession is honest to God and honest to our true, inner self, then confession has the power of healing we need.
A great illustration how confession of our deepest feelings has the integrating and healing power, consider the so called, “Confessing Church” that existed in WWII Germany. Led by the great martyr, Dietrich Bonheoffer, this newly formed church was made up of Christians who pulled away from the State Church that was supporting Hitler in order to maintain its true faith and integrity. It confessed loud and clear: We can’t go along with Hiltler! But listen also to how Boneheoffer described the true nature of confession. He wrote that confession is, “the renewal of the joy of baptism” which means that confession is not intended to be an unhealthy brooding over past sins, but confession is a turning to new life, which is done honestly when there is an acknowledgement of past wrong.” (From John Macquirrie in The Westminister Dictionary of Christian Ethics, 1967, p. 111, “Confession”.).
A couple of years ago in our American culture, there was a renewed interest in confession, but it was not that healthy. As one observer wrote about all the popular people telling about their “sins” and “struggles” in public, and that there was a great “urge to purge” through openness and public confession of flaws, failures, and sins. But what did not often go along with all that openness and urge to purge, was the urge to be changed.
Confession without a desire to change is the kind of short-sighted confession that might be attempted in a private confessional or in a small self-help group, but it cannot go on in a community of faith that is true to its calling and open to truth. True confession is more than feeling guilt, needing to release it, telling it to a priest or friend, and then secretly falling back into the struggle again. Confession of sin is a way to open to others so that the struggle is opened up to others for real help and true healing. Real confession must go beyond telling someone how wrong or how hurt we are. Confession must also included wanting things to be right, to get things right and to be in the right…that is, as Bonhoeffer said, finding the “renewal of the joy of baptism”. When we confess, not only our sins, but also confess our hope and desire to be faithful to God and to others just as we did on the day we were baptize, only then can soul healing come in God’s community. Until confession is the openness of our life to God and to others, the healing powers of confession are limited.
CONFESSION IS ABOUT FORGIVENESS WITHOUT BLAME.
Now comes another important lesson from James. Notice the way confession of sins is made. When James encourages the people to “confess their sins”, they are to confess “to one another”, and they are then to immediately “pray for one another, so that you may be healed” (vs. 16). The point of confession is not placing blame or even setting every things straight, but the point is the healing of the hearts---which puts everything in the healing mode and direction.
In fact, the most powerful healing prayer that is to be prayed has already been mentioned and provides the context for confession of sin. Notice already, in verse 15, how James said, “The prayer of faith will save the sick, and the Lord will raise them up; and anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven” It doesn’t say they might be forgiven, nor does it say consideration will be given to forgive, but it says firmly and authoritatively “anyone who has committed sins will be forgiven.”
You can’t be the church of Jesus Christ unless this there is unconditional forgiveness of confessed sin. The church can’t be a place of help and healing, unless it stands ready to forgive “any” and “every” sin that is confessed. There is no healing without confession, and there is no true confession of faith or sin, unless we can have a place where we can be open and honest about our true selves, including our faith and our sins. Only in this kind of healing community of forgiveness, where we know we will be forgiven and accepted, based on our sincere confession, where we don’t have to fear being judged or hurt for exposing our hearts, can we find and give the healing power we all need.
Most of us recall several years ago in Pennsylvania, when a mentally disturbed man when into an Amish school and killed innocent children. It was a horrible, tragic event. No one would be expected to offer any kind of immediate forgiveness in that kind of situation. But what did those hurting Amish families do, but they immediately, went against all their feelings to reach out to the killer’s family and to express their forgiveness of him.
I know that many would say that the offer of forgiveness was premature. Others would say that the families needed time to come to terms with their hurt and pain. This could be true, because there is no real healing in pretending to offer something we can’t offer. But there is also another great truth here. These Amish Christians said they were offering forgiveness, not because they felt it, but because they knew that unless they offered forgiveness there would be no ultimate healing in their own hearts. The greatest healing power for hurt is the power not only to be forgiven, but to forgive. These Amish were being true to what they believed and they knew that being true to their hearts, is what would finally aid the healing of their own broken hearts.
CONFESSION IS BUILDING A COMMUNITY THAT SAVES SOULS.
Finally, confession is not just about making us feel better, or just to heal our own hurting souls, but it is about something even bigger than this: It is about becoming a community that is soul saving and soul building.
Look at the end of James’ discussion and what he hopes will happen within the faithful, believing, and confessing congregation: “My brothers and sisters, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and is brought back by another, you should know that whoever brings back a sinner from wandering will save the sinner’s soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” (James 5:20).
There is a great difference in people who “cover up” their sins by denying them and what James means by bringing “back a sinner from wandering, saving the soul from death” and “to cover a multitude of sins.” This is not in any way a covering up of sins, as we might use the word “cover”, but what exactly is James talking about?
It helps to see that James word echoes 1 Peter 4:8-9, where Peter writes a similar word to encourage the church to be the true church it confesses to be: “Above all, maintain constant love for one another, for love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Be hospitable to one another without complaining.” What is vital see is how Peter makes James clear that “covering of sin” is a two-way street. A “multitude of sins” is covered because both people are involved in the confessing, forgiving and healing process. As Martin Luther commented years ago, “to turn a sinner from error confers a double benefit. It helps not only the “converted” but it also helps the one bringing them back to be “converted.” (Quoted from The Interpreters Bible Commentary, Vol. 12, Abingdon Press, 1957, p. 73).
What both James and Peter both may be echoing is Proverbs’ wisdom which says “Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses (Proverbs 10:12). People who work to bring forgiveness, healing and hope through mutual sharing, worship, and confession of their whole hearts to God, breed love and love covers and heals just about anything that breathes. People who work against forgiveness and confession, who hold things in, who try to go it alone, end up holding on to hurt and getting sick and making the whole community sick as well. The only way healing comes is when we live together and work for each other in a community where healing is invited through mutual confession and unconditional love expressed in the forgiveness of sins.
Can we be that kind of healing place---where we share our true hearts----where we not place blame, but seek to forgive, and more than anything else are we the kind of community where this kind of “confessing” fellowship is the norm, not the exception? I don’t know of any other group of people who can be this but the church. The question remains, however, whether we are the true confessing church Jesus called us to be or do we simply shadow our hurting culture, where people promote themselves, brokenness, strife and competition, and hide their sins and hold on to hurts?
One answer in why hurts are hidden, unconfessed and still hurting us, even at church, is revealed in a story, about a Baptist preacher, a Catholic priest and a Jewish rabbi who were having lunch one day. They were talking about the spiritual support they gave the members of their congregation: listening to their confessions, saying words of forgiveness, visiting them when they were ill and comforting them in times of loss. What the preacher, priest and rabbi found they had in common was the sense of having ministered to their congregation, but having no one to minister to them. So they decided to go together for a retreat and provide one another with care. They gathered on the appointed day and decided that they would begin with confession and absolution.
The preacher said that since Jews had been atoning for their sins for thousands of years, the rabbi should go first. The rabbi said, "You know, I love my wife and would never cheat on her, but sometimes in a crowd where no one can tell who did it, I just cannot resist giving the ladies a longer hug than I should." The minister and the priest assured the rabbi that God loves him and forgives him, and that they love him and forgive him.
Then the preacher suggested that the priest go next, because for hundreds of years Catholics have practiced confession. The priest said, "You know I have taken a vow of poverty, but there are days when it is so hard to live on my little stipend. And there are times when I look at all the money we make on bingo, and I just can't help taking just a little of it for myself just to pay the bills." The rabbi and the minister assured the priest that God loves him and forgives him, and that they love him and forgive him.
Then it was the Baptist preacher’s turn. He said, "I know that God loves me and forgives me, but I don't think you will feel that way when I tell you about my besetting sin." The priest and the rabbi sought to comfort him and asked, "What awful sin have you committed?" He said, "I'm a terrible gossip! (Popular story as told by John Terry).
Are we going to be a healing community that seeks to bring healing to many hurts of life or are we going to be a church that only goes around repeating the hurt? Before anyone will be able to hunt down their dead rabbits, they need a safe place to find forgiveness. And the only way hurting people can find a safe place in this church, or any church, is when we too have dealt with our own dead rabbits that might get dug up. Only in as much as the “dead rabbits” have no more power over us, can we say that we have become are both a people of integrity and a place of healing. Amen.
© 2009 All rights reserved Dr. Charles J. Tomlin
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