From
Living Theology in the Metropolitan Chicago Synod
Evangelical Lutheran Church In America
Volume 3, Number 1
Lent 1998
”Vision” and “Mission”
Common Ground: We Are Sinners
Bob Cross
Did you ever sit around a table with parishoners to
write a mission statement for the parish? As I recall we were instructed to
state who we are and then state what we are about.
When it
was my turn around the table I suggested we state who we are in three words: “We
are sinners.” Nobody else liked that idea. I think we ended up with
“we are a family,” or “we are a community” or “a Church” or “we are believers.”
What we
are about is easy to agree on: all the things we are doing. Then we printed our
mission statement on the front of the bulletin.
I always
look at mission statements on the front of parish bulletins to see who they
think they are. I’ve never yet found a parish that claimed to be sinners. Maybe
that’s why we disagree in so many ways. Maybe that’s why we find it hard to
find a common ground to begin the dialog to increase our love for God and for
one another.
Our
Eucharist begins with the Penitential Rite immediately following the Greeting.
The wise church puts the ritual words in our mouths: “We are sinners. Lord have
mercy.” Only then do we start the Liturgy of the Word.
Jesus
teaches us the parable of the Pharisee and the publican. Who goes home
justified? The Pharisee who tells God all the good things he is doing or the
publican who knows who he is: a sinner?
I don’t
think we are ready to hear the word of God (Old or New Testament) until we can
identify ourselves as sinners. If we are not sinners, we don’t need a
Messiah, we don’t need a Savior, we don’t need Jesus. We certainly can’t pray
the Psalms if we don’t realize our sinful state. I know I couldn’t accept the
Psalms until I was blessed with the knowledge and awareness of my sinful state
and my sins as a person and as a part of a sinful society and culture hungry
for healing. It made it easier to seek out the healing of the Sacrament of
Reconciliation also.
For
years I only went to confession on my annual retreat. The daily penitential
rite in the English Mass which came in the sixties was good enough to wipe out
my daily venial sins. For years I examined my conscience by asking what
commandments or rules I had broken. Or how I had failed to love. Then I read a
small book suggesting finding sin with this question: “Where does it hurt?”
Maybe the hurting relationship is my fault. How am I getting along with God,
with myself, with the important people in my life? I was always hurting
somewhere and maybe it was my fault. I felt the need for healing of my
hurting relationships. I went to the Sacrament of Reconciliation confessing
where it hurt and that I was sorry that it was my fault. And it always
worked—the hurt was healed. I now frequently seek that healing power in the
Sacrament of Reconciliation.
God is the Doctor who wants to heal us. God asks,
“Where does it hurt?” God does not expect us to diagnose our spiritual illness.
We don’t have to name our sins. We only have to tell the Divine Doctor where it
hurts. We have to ask what relationship is hurting. The one with another
person? Are we still angry at God for what God allowed to happen to us years
ago? Are we still angry with ourselves for what we did years ago? Have we
forgiven God or ourselves?
During
my lifetime the Sacrament has been called:
·
a
confession, and we focused on the species of our sins and their
number;
·
the
Sacrament of Penance, and we focused on how we had to make up for our
sins;
·
the
Sacrament of Reconciliation—this is what we call it today—and we focus
now on the social affects of the Sacrament.
·
Someday,
if we call it the Sacrament of Healing,
then
people will line up again to be healed.
Cardinal
Bernardin wanted to begin a dialog among people with different ideas and
feelings. If we could accept a common ground of our sins as hurts that need
healing we might be able to begin the dialog. If Scripture and Tradition are
the sources for common ground, let us read what they tell us about ourselves—we
are sinners. We are hurting. If Scripture and Tradition tell us anything, it is
of our sinfulness.
What ground
rules should we use for the dialog? The ground rules we taught our married
brothers and sisters on Marriage Encounters really helped them to grow in their
love for one another. First of all we tried to identify and share our
feelings, not our ideas. We tried to write down our feelings in a notebook
and then read each other’s notebooks and see what happened. The most important
ground rule is “feelings are not right or wrong.” You may not say, “You
shouldn’t feel that way.” Lovers accept one another’s feelings; they don’t
judge them. And love grows; sometimes even over the weekend.
Everyone
knows you can’t love another until you love yourself. Loving yourself or
ego-building is a lifelong task. Also you can’t know another until you know
yourself. So, you can’t know Jesus our Savior until you know yourself as a
sinner who needs the healing power of God.
Also
remember one of the rules for mission statements is to reevaluate and rewrite
them every few years. We change through the years. We grow. Maybe we will want
to restate who we are now. Perhaps now we are ready to start our mission
statement with: “We are sinners.”
Bob Cross
Pastor Emeritus
Ascension Roman Catholic , Oak Park
Assistant
St. Luke Roman Catholic, River Forest