Lenten Vespers 2007 Prayer is Honesty Psalm 51

Every Lutheran probably has a favorite Luther quote. Mine (besides “Pull my finger”) is “A theologian of glory calls evil good and good evil. A theologian of the Cross calls the thing what it actually is.” My goal in life is to make as many people as possible theologians of the Cross. That is why I like, in many ways, the modern version of the Lord’s Prayer. I stand by everything I said in favor of the traditional version when I spoke of prayer as intimacy, but as theologians of the Cross, we should call the thing what it actually is. Therefore, it is meet, right and salutary that we should, upon occasion, say out loud, for all, most especially ourselves, to hear, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” Trespasses, as I said earlier in Lent, are when you sneak into the neighbor’s yard to retrieve the Frisbee that went over the fence. Trespasses are when you raid the President of the University’s garden for daffodils to give your girlfriend (or so I am told...). But there is not getting around, getting over, or ducking sin. It is what it is. A sin is when we act against God’s will.

If we are going to pray, we need to be honest. We need to speak the truth. We need to do this not for God’s sake, but for our own. Talking to God in prayer, while he is our heavenly Father, is not like talking to mom or dad. I guarantee you that you will not inadvertently spill the beans about something God did not already know, like a dent on the left rear quarter panel which they may have just assumed happened in a parking lot if only you had kept your fat mouth shut. If you don’t open your mouth, the one who is hurt is you.

Our confessing sins in prayer is God’s gift to us! Not confessing- not naming sin as sin, calling “good” that which is evil, is a certain path to self destruction. Think of this way. When we confess our sins, it is like cleaning out an infected wound. If we do not confess, the wound remains uncleansed. Suppuration can begin. Amputation may have to follow, and if that is missed, death can be the result.

Or there is another example from medicine. Oncology now believes that cancer is actually ever present within the body as a system. But our immune systems work to keep it in check and prevent it taking root and spreading. To refuse to confess is to disable the soul’s immune system. It allows the cancer to take hold and to grow. Can it be cured? Yes, with God there is no spiritual cancer that is terminal unless we ourselves want it to be. But the surgery may be rough. How much better to keep the immune system healthy and active and to confess our sins to God, and to hear God’s healing word of forgiveness.

All this is good, it is right, it is necessary. But in the Sermon on the Mount Jesus makes it abundantly clear that it is just a first step. He says, “For if you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you; but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”

At first glance, this seems so unfair, so unlutheran, so works righteous. It’s God playing older sibling in the “let’s see who hits softest” contest. But is it really? Or is this our Savior pointing out the limits of God.

If we hold onto our anger, our righteous indignation, our hurt, then there is simply no room in our embrace for God’s love. God will neither seduce nor force himself upon us. We can spurn his love. But that is not his desire. No, it is not his desire at all.

God’s desire is for us- to draw us more deeply into the unfathomable deeps of his love. God’s desire is for us- to draw us into the heart of the Trinity to share in the love that is the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Because God’s desire is to love, it is God’s will to forgive.

What our Heavenly Father asks of us in the intimacy of prayer, what he asks of us in our conversation with him, what he asks of us as we prioritize and recognize His will in our lives and in the world, is that we speak the truth. He asks that we confess our sins, that we lay down the burden we have self-imposed. He asks for us to be theologians of the Cross, and to call a thing what it actually is. God wants our arms free to embrace him with same love that he has poured out for us in the one who taught us how to pray, and whose adherence to the Father’s Will and to the Truth brought him to the Cross.

AMen

SDG