In the past few months I have been asked by several people why there is so much emphasis in our worship on confession and repentance. Why is it, when we know that God loves us and is ready to forgive us, that we spend so much time sitting in dust and ashes so to speak, making us all sound so miserable, as well as inducing guilt complexes and feelings of low self-esteem in those who are most vulnerable? The first Sunday of Lent, with six weeks of Miserere to look forward to, seems a good opportunity to address some of these concerns.
I usually begin by reminding people that recent liturgical changes have in fact done much to relieve the Calvinist imbalance that accompanied the Reformation. Following the liturgical reforms of the past twenty-five years or so, our Sunday morning worship has become for many of us a much more positive experience. We take confession and absolution early, so that we are ready to hear and receive God’s word, before celebrating his presence in the Eucharist which is itself an act of thanksgiving, rather than a further occasion for yet more of the introspection and self-examination that was associated with the less frequent offer of Holy Communion. We retain something of that atmosphere during Lent with the use of the penitential Kyries and Cranmer’s much loved prayer of humble access, but for most of the year, once we have said our confession, the mood is established by the Gloria, rescued from the very end of the service to set the tone for a liturgy which is emphatically a celebration of God’s saving acts rather than a continual reminder of our sinfulness and unworthiness. If our inner joy was not so often belied by our long faces, the critics would have even less to complain of.
At Evensong we do indeed begin with a minatory introduction reminding us of our manifold sins and wickedness, leading into an act of confession and absolution, but it is at least fairly short – it can be a good deal shorter than is here our custom – and the archaic language with all its splendid Elizabethan cadences is reassuringly familiar. Besides, most of us would accept that we need some such preliminary, as we acknowledge and enter the presence of God who by his very nature is hostile to sin. Would it not be intolerable to enter his house brazenly flaunting or silently tolerating in ourselves a way of life which we know is unacceptable to him? Jesus himself was pretty hard on the man in the story who deliberately insulted his host at the wedding feast – or at the very least took his gracious welcome and hospitality for granted – by not bothering to dress suitably for the occasion. When we enter a well-kept house or flat, it is not unreasonable that we should be expected to stop on the threshold to wipe the dirt from our feet.
But having done that, we can come in and enjoy the party. If we have taken care to use the door-mat properly, we don’t need to keep looking apologetically at our feet. BCP evensong allows us to reflect on God’s word and meditate quietly in his presence without further paroxysms of guilt unless the nature of the readings is so full of doom and judgment that the preacher feels obliged to hold those realities before us, and thankfully that is not often the case. Both Mary in the Magnificat and Simeon in the Nunc Dimittis are full of awe and wonder at the apprehension that God has come so close to them. They are neither guilty nor afraid, but humble, joyful, elated, grateful and at peace in the presence of God, and we are invited, with all the rich artistry of words and music, to empathise with them, to share in their perceptions and go away comforted and refreshed, better able to face the stresses and tensions of the week that lies ahead. May I just say here how deeply grateful I am for the part which our musicians play in creating the conditions for so much grace and beauty to overflow from our worship into our daily working lives.
Much of this is reflected in this evening’s psalm and readings. ‘Rejoice with me’ says the shepherd in Jesus’ story, ‘for I have found the sheep that was lost.’ There is no suggestion here that the sheep is to be blamed for getting lost, still less the inanimate coin. On the contrary it is the shepherd who feels obliged to go out into the wilderness, searching high and low, because he has lost the sheep, just as the woman feels obliged to turn the house upside down because she has lost one of her precious coins. In the story of the Prodigal Son, which follows these two shorter parables, there is an apology, a confession if you like – Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son – but it is almost swept aside in the father’s joy at his son’s return. It is the dutiful but unappealing elder brother who has, it would seem, the greater difficulty in overcoming his sense of injustice to join the party. And surely it is not too much to hope that even his heart will have been melted by his father’s infectious appeal to celebrate the return of ‘this your brother … who was lost and has been found.’ (Luke 15.32)
If we go back to the psalm, we see in verses 1-6 the majesty of God’s judgment, which is indeed an awesome spectacle and a terrifying prospect. Nor can He be appeased by sacrifices of bulls or goats, any more than we can buy him off with our little blue envelopes or our standing orders. They are important of course, as we have all had occasion to underscore in recent months, but not in themselves, rather as tokens of our thanksgiving, and as one of the ways by which we discharge in part the obligation to service which again is part of our response to God’s love. ‘Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving’ the psalmist continues, ‘and pay your vows to the Most High’ (v14). Of course we are awe-struck as we apprehend God who is holy. Of course we must say sorry when we have done wrong, and by God’s grace we must resolve to do better. Of course we should be faithful in worship. But it is with thanksgiving and faithful service, freely given as the expression of our love, that God wants us to respond, when he has forgiven us, and put us back on our feet.
Our reading from Deuteronomy emphasised the need for the people of Israel to keep God’s