“In those days, there was no king in Israel,
and everyone did what was right in his own eyes.”
--Judges 17:6
There are two excuses I hear Catholics use when it comes time to go to confession. First is the excuse that they cannot think of what to confess, as far as they can tell they haven’t committed any real sins; i.e. Nothing to see here, so what’s the point? This excuse implies either a willful blindness or a saint-like innocence. Second is the somewhat more reasonable excuse: What’s the point? I’m just going to sin again. I will go confess, get absolved, have a good day or two, then fall right back into my old habits. Again, what’s the point?
If you are like me and you find yourself falling into both of these camps, spend a little time this Lent reading the Book of Judges. It is a book of sin and failing, a book of broken promises and wasted opportunities. It is a book of God’s mercy and man’s repeated efforts to turn (even flee) from it. It is a disheartening book in many ways, but reading it in the midst of Lent it seems a bitter reminder that no matter how hard we try, we cannot escape the power of sin, the weakness of the flesh; that regardless of our efforts, and despite our best intentions, we will stumble and fall again, and again.
This is a truth sadly confirmed in my own life; blessed by the grace of God with friends, family, work that I love, a roof over my head, food on the table, a bed to sleep in, I still find myself envying others, still find my eye wandering, appraising, objectifying others—not only lusting in my heart, but envying their gifts, coveting their achievements, bearing false witness against them (at least in my imagination), desiring not only their homes and their lives but even their asses!! In general, making of my own desires a false god and making of my own stomach an altar for his offerings... And sadly, this is on a good day!
Before lunch...
But the Book of Judges bears witness to the truth that this is part of the human condition. In Judges we get the story of how God’s chosen people kept straying from God’s will and losing the Promised Land. No matter how many times God rescued them, forgave them, brought them back... they kept turning away from the grace of God’s love and toward the desires of their hearts. We are a people born into a sinful world, and shaped by that world, even the best of us may find ourselves falling into the habit (the excuse) of “doing what is right in his own eyes.”
And that is the barrier behind that first excuse: nothing to confess. Many of us may feel we truly have nothing to confess, nothing to ask forgiveness for, because we were always only doing what seemed right at the time, at least in our eyes. How often every day do we justify and rationalize our choices, for some of us we turn our every desire into a “need,” and our every need into a right. Until we find that we are owed everything we want. As a teenager, I stole a pair of sneakers from a store I worked at. I justified it by telling myself I wasn’t being paid enough. I wasn’t receiving a fair wage! They owed it to me. I convinced myself that stealing those shoes wasn’t a sin, it was my right. I walked in those shoes for weeks thinking I had nothing to confess. Because, in my eyes, I had only done what was right. But clearly—I was wrong, and luckily when I bragged about it to a friend, he set me straight.
The other excuse, that going to confession could be pointless because regardless of my intentions ----I’m just going to sin again; that is the truth lurking beneath every chapter of Judges. No matter what God does for them, no matter how often God rescues them, the Israelites stumble into sin again and again. They set up altars to false gods, they make alliances with pagan kings, they glorify themselves instead of God, celebrating their own power and cleverness and courage until something happens and they realize how helpless they are and once again cry out to God for mercy and help—for a savior.
They repent, they get saved, then—after a while—they fall back into their old ways, old habits, their sin. For me, it is a quite familiar pattern, one I know all too well. And yes, there is some value in facing up to the truth of our story, patterns of behavior that seem to guide us through life—as if a kind of auto-pilot. Yes, we should be honest about our habits and our weaknesses. But we mustn’t let ourselves be discouraged. Though we stumble—again and again—we must never fall into despair.
For me, going to confession, isn’t a quick-fix solution to a lifetime of bad habits and half-hearted struggles with sin; it is more like the forming of a new habit. A habit that will—I hope—one day replace the old ones. A habit of contemplating my choices, my patterns of behavior not with judgment and finger waving, but with honesty and compassion. Am I addicted to certain pleasures? Have I been self-centered or prideful? Mean-spirited or cold-hearted? How can I change those patterns? Well, the first thing I need to do, the first step in any twelve-step program, is admitting that I need help. And for me, that is what confession is—a chance to come before God and admit that I need help. That the same sins of lust and avarice and envy and pride that I struggled with in college are still with me. That fear of want still drives me to dreams of gluttony and greed... And those fears too often drive my every decision. Bless me Father, for I have sinned... Hello, my name is Herman and I am a sinner...
One last word here: the other day, sitting in mass, I looked up for the first time and noticed that the pew we were in was right next to the sixth Station of the Cross: Jesus falls a second time. Looking at that image, I realized something I had never noticed before: that He fell a second time. Think of that: Jesus on His way to the cross, stumbled and fell a second time. That means He had already fallen once before. And that He fell again. And, He got back up again. He took up His cross and continued on the way to Calvary. And, I realized something else, that He would fall again. Tradition has it that Jesus fell three times on the way to His death. Sitting there at the edge of the pew, looking up at that image, I had a kind of epiphany. Jesus fell a second time. He had already fallen once before and He knew He would fall again. But He still got back up, took up His cross and, even knowing how it would end, He kept going.
The next time you are thinking –what’s the point of going to confession? I’m just going to make the same mistakes, I’m just going to fall again. Think about that image of Christ, falling under the weight of our sin, a second time... Meditate on that image, and ask yourself if it isn’t time to get back up and try again.
Because we do have a King, a King who took the form of a slave and died on a cross--for us. Confession is a way of asking myself: What do my choices look like through His eyes?
