Confession, Psalm 32

Although we read Psalms 32 to 35 today on our Lent Journey through the Psalms, contempt especially Psalm 32. It is one of the classic penitential psalms. The words of confession reach beyond a cry to God for help. The words of confession are prayer, a prayer that offers in raw raggedness of our hearts to God trusting that God forgives. As our human spirit confesses we are drawn into God's forgiveness. As our hearts are opened to where we fall away, God enters with the soothing love of forgiving presence. There is a danger to our spirits when we do not confess. James W. Mays writes about Psalm 32 in his commentary, "When one has wronged a wife, a parent, a friend, a neighbor-someone with whom there is a conscious relationship-and refuses to acknowledge it, to put the wrong into words so that it is there in speech available to be dealt with, then the wrong retained and sheltered begins to become part of one's identity. It harms and hardens and diminishes." I imagine hard, black, crude oil blobs sticking to my sprit and weighing me down. Lent is about giving words to these places we have created wrong in order to offer them to God. Every Lent I use the offertory phrase, "If you are brining your gift to the altar and there remember that a brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift before the altar and go…" It is a plea that we enter into the prayer of confession with ourselves, in our relationships, and with God. And, every year those who hear these words in worship tell me how these words helped them or how they can't reconcile but they can confess. There are situations of abuse where reconciliation with the abuser is neither safe nor the desired outcome. Confession however opens every space in our spirit to God.