July 25, 2004
Pardon Me
Linda A. Knieriemen
"Pardon me," it's what you say when you need to ask a stranger for directions. "Pardon me," you say with a polite smile to the store clerk, "Where is the children's department?" It's what you say when you need to get off a full elevator and you've been shoved to the back corner. "Pardon me, pardon me, pardon me," the words spilled out of my mouth as I was scurrying to my center seat at DeVos Hall at 7:58 p.m., past a dozen already settled concert goers. "Pardon me," the plea heard in the ears of a governor from the man on death row who maintains his innocence. "I beg your pardon," were the first reactive words out of my mother's mouth when I as a child talked back. "Pardon me." It's what you say at Meijer when four people are blocking the cereal aisle and you're in a hurry and thinking about plowing them down if they don't move. We say it routinely and more often than not don't wait for an answer. It becomes a false politeness, something we say before getting on with what we were going to do anyway.
"Pardon me." We say it in church too. You could call the elements of worship after our opening hymn, beginning with the Call to Confession, the "Pardon Me" liturgy. With what kind of attitude did you say it this morning? For some of you it was the contrite plea born of real remorse. Some of you resented being asked to pray the general confession. Maybe you even looked ahead before the service began to see if it spoke for you. I know that because your pastors hear every now and then, "I didn't do all those things; I'm not going to pray that prayer" (forgetting that our corporate prayer which acknowledges the whole of the human condition precedes your opportunity to confess your particular sins in the silence). Some of you are annoyed because you have been battered with enough sin-talk in church for 1001 lifetimes. Some of you pray it instinctively, without much thought, allowing this part of the service to function as nothing but a tedious preface to the rest of the service. It's something to do before getting on with what you came to church for -- the music, or the prayers, or the sermon, or the sacraments, or the coffee hour.
My hope is that the sermon today can be a reminder for all of us of the purpose of the part of our worship between the Call to Confession and the Passing of the Peace. It is my hope that we might adopt a new appreciation and sincerity regarding it because I believe we need it more than ever and more than we realize.
You might take out your bulletin and notice with me that we have a five-part conversation with God.
The dialogue begins with the Call to Confession as God says, "I love you no matter what; that's what I did in Jesus; now speak up and talk to me honestly."
In the Prayer of Confession and Kyrie we say, "Pardon us" (in the printed corporate prayer), and "Pardon me" (in the silence), and then "send your mercy" (in song).
In the Assurance of Pardon God responds, "This is the Good News. I love you no matter what. You are forgiven no matter what. It's all right."
In the Gloria we thank God because what we have just heard is more than we could ever have hoped.
With the Passing of the Peace we turn to one another and remind each other that God's peace is for each of us, and is the example of the peace we try to build between us.
This simple conversation holds the kernel of the Christian faith (the Good News) which is why it is found early in the worship service.
Each part of this liturgical conversation has a purpose:
The Call to Confession tells us God's grace is available, reminds us of our need, and assures us that we need not fear speaking truth honestly with God.
The availability of forgiveness and pardon is a little bit like the availability of a $100 rebate on the digital camera David and I bought recently. It's been advertised; it's waiting in the company bank account with our name on it. But in order to feel that money in my pocket, I have to take action. I have to act according to the instructions on the rebate form that spewed out of the cash register. I don't earn that $100 by asking for it. I receive what already exists in the form of a promise. God's offer of forgiveness involves an interaction with us. It's not a cheap handout.
The "Pardon Me" conversation affords us a much needed opportunity for honest self reflection. In the last century the psychiatrist, Karl Menninger, wrote a seminal book entitled Whatever Became of Sin. In this postmodern, rationalist world we are good at denying our culpability. Our troubles are someone else's fault -- our parents, our teachers, or the government. Our quest for self-esteem and our desire for ego strength have directed us to dump sin into the kitchen sink, dilute it with torrents of water, and grind it up into unrecognizable bits in the garbage disposal. Try as we might to disguise it, we sin. We "miss the mark" (a better translation of the word used in the Greek). Or as Calvin Seminary President Neil Plantinga says in the title of his book on sin -- Life is Not the Way It's Supposed to Be, and deep inside we know he's right. The odor of wrongs we tried to cover up by pouring them down the drain still stink up the kitchen like last night's garlic peels. The good news is that once we admit sin's existence, we can deal with it.
Owning up to the truth about us doesn't come easy, so we wait as long as we can. We know, and God knows, and the author of Psalm 32 knows that feigning innocence by appearing strong makes us sick -- heart sick, soul sick, and even physically sick. Listen again to the Psalms: "While I kept silence, my body wasted away, my strength was dried up, and I groaned all day long." Cover-up or silence about the truth bars life-giving grace from entering our souls. Even Spiderman learned this (can you believe I'm using a Spiderman illustration).
Denying his love and need for Mary Jane reduces his super power and makes him listless. He can no longer leap successfully from building-to-building; he can no longer spin webs out of his finger allowing him to make dramatic rescues. He consults a doctor whose wisdom gives him courage to face his inner reality. He finally announces his love and need to be loved, and his power returns. This is what God says to us in the Call to Confession saying, "I love you, speak up!"
Admitting our true nature or our complicity in societies' injustices is frightening -- especially when that truth conveys a human weakness or exposes a vulnerability. Speaking our embarrassing truth to another human being is a gamble. A teenager knows it's risky to tell his mother about a speeding ticket, or to tell her father of an unintended pregnancy, or a teacher about cheating on a quiz. In Thomas Hardy's book, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Tess (the young bride) risks everything by telling her new husband about a tragic mistake in her past relationship with another man. As she confesses he backs away, his eyes grow deep and fixed, his shoulders stiffen, and his mouth becomes dry. Even digging deep within he cannot find grace enough to forgive and accept her. In making her confession she risks a perfect future and loses the gamble for a grace-filled response. It's never like that with God. Promised in the covenant with Abraham, then with Moses, then with David, and finally, fully in Jesus, God has already promised to forgive us. Speaking honestly with God is risk-free. God will never let us down, never turn us away. We hear that up front in the Call to Confession.
In Part Two of this dialogue, the people of God pray a Prayer of Confession because speech has value, and acknowledging our shortcomings prepares our hearts for receiving grace.
Psychologists tell us that one of our greatest human needs is the need to confess. The public prayers of confession endure because they meet our needs, not God's needs. I understand that in the Jewish tradition one of the requirements for efficacious confession at Yom Kippur is that the "Pardon Me" must be audible to the one praying (I am not advocating a cacophony of voices replace the silence of prayer of confession next week)! At one time an organization in L.A. operated the Apology Sound-off Line. Each day up to 200 callers anonymously contacted the service which allowed them to leave a 60-second message -- and they paid a fee for the call. Men, women, and children called the answering machine to confess their sins out loud. For them this audible confession had value enough that they paid for it. At Westminster on a Sunday morning, we won't charge you!
Those who attend A.A. or another 12-step group know the value of corporate confession. At each meeting the person with the addiction introduces him or herself as an alcoholic. Wholeness and recovery don't have a chance until they can say, "I am powerless over alcohol; my life has become unmanageable." Writer Phil Yancey quotes a friend who told him a 12-step meeting "is the only place I know where status means nothing. Nobody fools anybody else. Everyone is here because he or she made a slobbering mess of his or her life and is trying to put the pieces back together." We aren't so frank in church, but our Prayer of Confession functions in the same way. Coated in proper Presbyterian parlance we confess we are powerless over our sins.
But we said that God already knows that and we have already been assured that we are forgiven so why do we have to say it? The message of today's psalm is that our silence is the rejection of grace. Breaking that silence with our prayers beaks the shell around our hearts and allows us to experience God's grace.
In Part Three of the dialogue, following our spoken and silent confession, God's voice again reassures us in the words of the Assurance of Pardon.
So insecure and desperate are we that we need to hear that we are okay before and after our confession. Ernest Hemingway suggests how needy we are in a story of a Spanish father who decides to reconcile with his son who has run away to Madrid. Now remorseful, the father takes out this ad in the Madrid El Liberal newspaper: "Paco, meet me at Hotel Montana noon Tuesday. All is forgiven. Papa." Paco is a common name in Spain and when the father goes to the square, he finds 800 young men named Paco waiting for their fathers.
Maybe guilt does not seem so much your problem and the assurance of forgiveness doesn't strike a chord. Maybe it is alienation from God. To you, God assures welcome. Maybe it is self hatred. God's assurance to you is love. Maybe for you it is lack of self worth. God's assurance to you is that you have value.
In the Assurance of Pardon God says, "It's okay," and God means it. These are not words which substitute for a hidden anger, like when a guest spills on a fancy tablecloth at a dinner party and the host says, "It's okay," (and she's really thinking how much the cleaning bill will cost). With God's grace Lewis Smedes writes, "Everything can be all right when everything is all wrong." It's such a paradox. But I believe with all my heart it is true. If I were to hope for one thing, it would be this -- that through this liturgy each week you would hear and believe the good news that God accepts you no matter what; that God loves you no matter who you are; and that God forgives you always.
It is because he experiences forgiveness that the Psalmist concludes Psalm 32 saying, "Be glad and rejoice O righteous and shout for joy!" And that's why we sing the Gloria. After hearing the assurance from God, how could we stay in our seats? It would be like watching a homerun and not cheering, or hearing the Grand Rapids Symphony and not clapping!
The final line of this conversation is not between us and God, but with each other. We turn to one another, assuring one another that the same reconciliation we have with God we desire with our fellow human beings. We say, "The Peace of Christ".
A story is told of a wealthy Scottish nobleman, richly attired who was riding his magnificent horse and came beside a poor peasant dressed in rags who was knelling in the mud and praying. "You must be close to God," the nobleman mocked. "Aye," the peasant responded with unmistakable bliss. "He is very fond of me." And that's where the Pardon Me conversation has taken us. God is very fond of us -- fond of us, loving us, accepting us. That is the gift we receive when as the people of God we come before the throne of grace humbled and praying -- even in the mud. And it is there, even there, we know happiness enough to sing.
Hear the good news of salvation: Jesus died to show God's love.
Such great kindness! Such great mercy!
Come to us from heaven above.
Jesus Christ, how much I love You! Jesus Christ, You save from sin!
How I love You! Look upon me. Love me still and cleanse within.
All the sins I have committed to my savior now I bring.
I bow down with tears of anguish; Christ forgives and so I sing:
Jesus Christ, how much I love You! Jesus Christ, You save from sin!
How I love You! Look upon me. Love me still and cleanse within.
Amen.