ROUGHLY EDITED COPY LUTHERAN CONFESSIONS LC2 35 Captioning Provided By: Caption First, Inc. P.O. Box 1924 Lombard, IL 60148 800 825 5234 www.captionfirst.com *** This text is being provided in a rough draft format. Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART) is provided in order to facilitate communication accessibility and may not be a totally verbatim record of the proceedings. *** >> DAVID: Thank you. That was helpful. As we speak about confession, should we see a difference in the value of private, semi private or public confession? Is this something we should be teaching and practicing in our congregations? How would you have us do that? I know I, for one, would appreciate your advice. >> DR. KOLB: Depends on why you want to know, David. If you're asking about the validity of the forgiveness of sins, then it's the same word of God that really does put an end to sin and does give us new life in Christ whether you do it in the course of the normal liturgy to the whole congregation or whether you do it as pastor to your people or whether that word of assurance of the forgiveness of sins is shared among them in what Luther called the mutual conversation and consolation of Christians with one another. I do think it is important for us to recognize that in the public worship service, I can be sitting there and saying, "I'm glad he's forgiving everybody else's sins, but I know I'm too much of a sinner to really be worthy of forgiveness." And, when you're dealing one on one with one of your members and can say to that member, "Charlie, Joan, I have heard your confession. And I want you to know that that sin also was nailed to the cross and drowned in the blood of Christ. And you this very moment are a forgiven child of God. You are the one to whom the Lord says, 'Nothing can separate you from my love in Christ Jesus.'" Now, the church is so set up that God calls pastors to be the official representative of the congregation and to act in the name of the congregation. And so I think, first of all, pastors themselves ought to be open and make time available to give absolution, to hear confession. And it may be a good idea to do that at a special time each week so that people know they can build that into the rhythm of their week. It's also however, a valuable tool when you are doing pastoral counseling. Not all pastoral counseling calls for confession and absolution. Not all confession and absolution will necessarily involve further counseling, although we'll see that there Luther does suggest that there at least be some more words of consolation than just the liturgical form when we practice private confession and absolution. But what the pastors being able as the pastor of the congregation to bring forgiveness of sins in the liturgy and in private conversations with people is extremely important, particularly for those who are deeply troubled, deeply in conflict. And, if you've experienced that at all, you you have memories of the joy that comes over faces that have confessed sins and talked about their struggle. And then to hear the word of God and to receive the baptismal cross put on the forehead once again or to have the hand of absolution placed on your head is a wonderful thing. But sometimes I think what Lutherans don't always notice and understand is that in the large catechism Luther also reminds us that it is not the office of the pastor that makes the forgiveness the sins valid. It is the word of God, and the word of God has been placed in the mouths of all Christians. And so in his brief exhortation to confession in the large catechism, Luther says, "Besides public daily necessary confession, there's also a kind of secret confession that takes place privately before a single Christian, brother or sister. This comes into play when some particular issue weighs on us or attacks us eating at us until we can have no peace nor find ourselves sufficiently strong in faith. Then we may seek at any time and as often as we wish to lay our troubles before another Christian seeking advice, comfort, and strength. This type of confession is not included in the commandment which with which Christ sets up confession and absolution through the pastor for the church but is left to people to use whenever they need it. And so by divine ordinance, Christ himself has placed absolution in the mouths of his Christian community and commands us to absolve one another from our sins. So, if there's a heart that feels at sin and desires comfort, it has a sure refuge where it finds and hears God's word because through a human being God loses and absolves from sin." I know that some people find that passage a little bit uncomfortable because they think it somehow threatens the pastoral office. But the use of the word of God in the community of faith cannot threaten the pastoral office. And we know from his preaching in Wittenberg that Luther often addressed the whole congregation and admonished them to be remembering that the forgiveness of sins is something they should be sharing with one another, particularly in their own families, but in general as they met with other Christians. Says in one of his sermons, I believe it's Matthew 18 and, if you're walking down the road, you just see a medieval peasant village. If you're walking down the road and you come upon someone who is despondent or despairing in his sins, you should remind him of the Gospel and you should give him the forgiveness of sins that Christ won on the cross. I think in the turbulent tumultuous turmoil of our daily lives in North America today there are many instances where both pastors and people need to be very bold in inviting confession of sins or just simply invading people's lives with the assurance of the forgiveness of sins, with the pronouncement of the forgiveness of sins. Because that word of life does bring salvation to people and simply refreshens our whole life, freshens us up for our service to one another. Luther does have some interesting suggestions as to how to do this here. Here he's talking really about absolution with a pastor, I think. What is confession? He says in the small catechism, two parts. We confess our sins. We receive the forgiveness of our sins. What are we to confess? Before God we acknowledge all sins, even those of which we are not aware, as it says in the Lord's Prayer. Before the confessor to whom we come with our sins we should confess those that we remember and particularly those that trouble us. How do we know which sins those are? Now Luther does a very interesting thing. He says reflect on your walk of life, on your calling, on where God has placed you in your homes, in your occupations, in your community, in your congregations. Reflect on those situations of life or those walks of life in the light of the Ten Commandments. What does God command? What does God forbid? And then he gives examples of the kinds of sins you might recognize in your own life. And then you ask for forgiveness. You confess your sins. I am guilty of all my sins. You confess specific sins. Or Luther says, if you can't remember specific sins, just if you're not burdened by greater sins, then don't worry, don't invent sins, don't think you have to mention sins. Just recognize that you are you are a sinner. And then ask for forgiveness of sins. I myself am not a particularly emotional being, and I will have to admit that there are times when I don't feel terribly guilty. But I think it's an important Christian discipline that I recognize my sin. Even if the guilt feelings aren't dripping out my eyes and ears and nose, that I recognize my sin each day and take my general failure to fear, love, and trust in God above all things as well as what little sins or bigger sins that I can remember and simply place them in Christ's. And, if there's something I'm not sure of don't know whether it's really a sin or not, I like to call it a sin. Because, when I label something as a sin, as I confess my sins before God, that sin no longer belongs to me. It belongs to Jesus, and Jesus knows where to put it. He puts it in his tomb. And if it's in his tomb, it's out of God's sight and it ought to be out of my sight. So I can live as a free human being once again, freed for loving my neighbor. So Luther doesn't quite say it that way. But he says, "Then return and ask for forgiveness of sins." And the confessor says, "God be gracious and strengthen your faith. Do you believe that my forgiveness is your forgiveness, that the word of the Lord actually comes through human mouths as it comes out the scriptures to one another?" And we say, "Yes." And then he says, "Let it be done for you according to your faith. By the command of our Lord Jesus Christ, I forgive you all your sins. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, go in peace and the shalom avy." (phonetic) And then there's an important note that follows up on that pronouncement of the forgiveness of sin. "A confessor, by using additional passages of scripture, will comfort and encourage the faith of heavily burdened consciences." And it may extend beyond that kind of comfort to instruction for daily life. Here is how I would advise you to be fighting against this sin. But confession and absolution is more than just the liturgical rite and I would use a liturgical rite. You don't have to as a pastor. But I think that the liturgical form as we find in the hymnal is helpful and a good structure for us. But then you always tailor it to this particular individual who is confessing his or her sins because you want the living word of the Lord to come from the scriptures into their lives so that they go out with that peace that the Gospel gives and with some sense of how the Lord wants to live wants us to live out that Gospel in our lives. One another note at the end of confession and absolution. The North American Lutheran theologian, Gearhardt Furdy, (phonetic) distinguishes proclamation from explanation. He says that we get the word of God across by explaining it as well as by and he has a special sense of the word proclaiming it. He could say pronouncing it. What he means by explanation is what linguists call secondary discourse. When you and I engage in the explanation of the word of God, we sit here and we look over at Calvary and we say, "God sent his son. God sent his son to die for the world. God loves all people," and so on and so forth. Did you notice everything's in the third person? We're standing here and thinking we're just objective observers. And God conveys his Gospel through that. But sometimes the hearer can say, "All people doesn't include me. I'm too bad a sinner. I don't feel right, or I don't think my faith is strong enough." Or some reason or another. "I don't think he really died. I don't think he really rose from the dead." So Furdy (phonetic) says the immediate form of the word of God is in the absolution. It's in what he calls proclamation, that is, I/you kind of language. So, if you were here in my presence, I would come and I would say to you, "David, isn't it wonderful that over there on Calvary you and I can see what Christ did for everybody?" And then I would come to you and I would put my hand on your head and I would say, "David, I forgive you all your sins in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." And then I would ask you which was a more effective way of getting the Gospel across to you? And so far in my classes students have every time said the I/you language, when we speak the word of God directly to the person. That's the charm. That's the great benefit of absolution and especially of private absolution. And that's what I urge you to consider as a part of your normal pastoral practice.