The Twelve Days of Discipline: Day 9--Confession

Let's ease into this one with a brief story. My friend Dave is driving down a tollroad in the midwest where he lives. A guy driving a small truck comes up fast on his left and cuts him off, then salutes Dave with a single rude gesture. I'll let you guess which one. Traffic being what it is, when Dave arrives at the next toll booth, the truck driver with the hyperactive digit is right behind him. So Dave pays the guy's toll. A little further along the same truck comes roaring up alongside Dave. This time the driver lifts two upturned hands and smiles that smile that says "I'm sorry" and "Thank you" all at once.

That truck driver practiced the discipline of confession. There's a lot to it. First, he messed up (messing up is generally a prerequisite for confession). Second, he was shown a better way to be in the world (by Dave's gentle example) and third, he accepted that the way he was shown (Dave's way) was better than the way he had chosen.

His response was to acknowledge all of this. We might say that this response was the actual confession, but that's not really the case. The discipline includes everything that comes before the admission: from messing up to the acknowledgement.

When we are shown a better way to be in the world the knee jerk reaction, which is usually and sadly my own, is to reject it. This is where we walk away from the discipline of confession. We don't really need a Dave to show us a better way, although having another person care enough about you to give you a (gentle) dope slap is better than relying on your own intuition. I suspect that if we got better at receiving hard truth without getting defensive, we'd have no problems acknowledging our messes to each other. And I further suspect we'd realize how very similar those messes are.

Jim Jannotti is a writer and musician. He leads contemporary worship at First United Methodist Church in Pottstown, PA and has 13 years experience in both worship and youth ministry. He lives with his wife and two daughters in Pottstown.