Prophetic Week 4

Hi, I’m Lewis, and I’m a sinner

I went to one Alcoholics Anonymous meeting in my life

Not the way you though this sermon was going to start out was it?

I was on a service trip in college and the professor who was leading the trip was a recovering alcoholic, a pastor of several years, and now a professor. And she had gotten sober 20 years earlier at a particular AA meeting in Denver Colorado.

So when took students to Denver to do these service learning trips she would say if you are thinking about ministry or about social services for your career, you should think about sitting in on an AA meeting

Just to know what they are about, and to have an idea so that if that is resource that is right for people you could point them in the right direction.

So we went to this meeting that my professor had gotten sober at 20 years ago and we sat down in a dimly lit room at a big circular table with tons of people there were probably 30 people in the room, more than right now.

The format that meetings start with and my stereotypes of them

Does two things:

Reminds them that they are able to chance, and that is they are able to change

But it also reminds them that their name come before their sin

That ritual of is the initial catalyst for change

It is a starting point that helps us along the way

AA provides for us a model of what confession looks like

Of what taking bold responsibility for my own actions looks like

Because it is really only me who can admit that I have messed up

If I hurt people and continue to keep going as if nothing happened then I will continue to hurt people

Isaiah 59:8–13 NRSV

8 The way of peace they do not know, and there is no justice in their paths. Their roads they have made crooked; no one who walks in them knows peace. 9 Therefore justice is far from us, and righteousness does not reach us; we wait for light, and lo! there is darkness; and for brightness, but we walk in gloom. 10 We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead. 11 We all growl like bears; like doves we moan mournfully. We wait for justice, but there is none; for salvation, but it is far from us. 12 For our transgressions before you are many, and our sins testify against us. Our transgressions indeed are with us, and we know our iniquities: 13 transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning away from following our God, talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.

I want to just really quickly Re-Read the first two verses for a really subtle shift in words is made

THEY have sinned Vs. WE have sinned

This is maybe the first shift that has to occur in order to confess

Isaiah stops pointing the finger to other people, and instead takes responsibility

No doubt this week has been experienced very differently

Some are walking into this space lamenting

others are walking into this space celebrating

So in other words it is just another week of church

But also throughout this week you really don’t have to look too far on social media to find one people group pointing a finger at another people group

Isaiah starts with this Look at all of the ways they have sinned

Look at all of the ways those other people that aren’t like me have messed up

look at all the flaws in their logic

Isaiah almost seamlessly pivots to say and WE do that too

My people do very similar things

And other people will always cause us harm I certainly do not want to minimize that

When we confess we can still admit that other people do things that are wrong, but we join them as well

We say that the groups that I am a part of are also wrong

WE have sinned Vs. I have Sinned

Being blind

Isaiah 59:10 NRSV

10 We grope like the blind along a wall, groping like those who have no eyes; we stumble at noon as in the twilight, among the vigorous as though we were dead.

Sins that we have committed that we don’t even know until we listen honestly to people around us

We all have blindspots

This requires us to

We confess of not just the things that we did wrong but the things that we didn’t know that we did wrong

Johari window

Things that we know that we did wrong and people around us know that we do wrong - explicit violence

Things that we do wrong that people don’t know about us

lying successfully

There are things that other people know that we do wrong that we don’t know we are doing

Forgetting a friend’s

There are things that we do that we don’t know we are doing and others don’t know that we are doing

Hunger

We confess the things that we are blind to

Lying

Isaiah 59:13b NRSV

13 transgressing, and denying the Lord, and turning away from following our God, talking oppression and revolt, conceiving lying words and uttering them from the heart.

There is some sense in confession that we are being honest with God, and with ourself, and with others

Being Prophetic takes into consideration the realities of the present and confesses them, but it also bring in hope for the future

In the times of the Hebrew Bible a prophet did that on the people’s behalf, a prophetic confessed of the sins of Israel, it is now our job to come clean on our own

Confession is a starting point not an ending point

Justice

Last week we talked about Justice as doing right instead of doing wrong

Justice starts with confession

Look I get it no one likes being wrong, no one likes being told they are wrong, and no one likes admitting that they are wrong, so why would we ever do it?

The truth is that if confession in and or itself was an end not a means to an end it wouldn’t be worth it

It would not be worth confessing anything if that confession did not lead to something redemptive

We confess so that we don’t walk into the same traps in the future

We confess so that our past does not weigh down our present

We confess so that