Confession

Virtually every Sunday we confess each others’ sins. Why? Of course—it’s in the Prayer Book! But isn’t sin a personal matter of “missing the mark,” “crossing the line,” “venturing outside the circle of God’s will”? And if so, what right do I have to be part of, or interfere with, your asking God’s forgiveness for your sins? Although as a group we do some sinful things or manifest sinful attitudes, does God want me to beg for anyone else’s forgiveness? Isn’t that presumptuous? Isn’t forgiveness a private matter between me and God, or you and God? Does the forgiveness you need correspond so exactly with what I need [not to mention all the other folks in church at the time] that I can lump them all together as needing the same kind or amount of forgiveness? What business is it of mine anyway what forgiveness you think you need? Is it enough to water down the flow of his forgiveness to include the speck in your eye when I’m needing a ton of it for the log in mine? Is it just possible that God knows what each of us needs and apportions his forgiveness appropriately? Or is that just an excuse to include you in my praying so I won’t have to face the enormity of mine? I’m sure there’s a place for corporate confession/forgiveness, even though we each can’t have committed EXACTLY the same quantity and quality of sins—but isn’t that sort of broad-brush approach the province of our clergy, who represent us to God and God to us? As Hercule Poirot would comment, it gives one to think...