“Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you
may be healed” (James 5:16a, NIV 1984).
I was sitting in traffic
court with a friend. As she and I were waiting her turn, we listened to those
summoned before the judge. We heard their pleas of “not guilty” or “guilty with
clarification.” The excuses proffered by one person after another called to
mind the contrast of the hymn that states “Just as I am, without one plea.” To
the judge, one particular traffic violator gave reason upon reason for his wrongdoing
in traffic – his extenuating circumstances, why he had another person’s
driver’s license, why he still could not find and pay a lawyer after the court
gave him an extension of his hearing, why he wanted to serve time only on
weekends, why the police officer was mistaken and so forth. The judge listened
patiently but gave the man no margin. When his explanations were exhausted, he
was summarily escorted out the court by two sheriffs, not even being allowed to
pick up his coat on the bench before departure to jail. My friend and I quietly
remarked on the judge’s patience followed by a clear and swift decision.
When confronted with our own wrongdoing, how do we respond?
We may try to rationalize it, blame others or circumstances, or link it back to
our upbringing or even to our genetic inheritance. We may think the matter was
no big deal, that it was overplayed by someone else. We may not even be
troubled by the wrongdoing. Furthermore, we may turn the tables and declare that
injustice was in fact done to us. Not quite giving up, we may bargain for lighter/softer
consequences or lesser punishment. We may even hope that someone else will bail
us out, offer the solution or get us off the hook. In full pride, we fight
being vulnerable, being wrong, being found out and exposed, especially when
surrounded by a “cloud of witnesses,” whether in the home, workplace or a
courtroom. We are quite reluctant to say, “I was wrong.”
I reflected that if this young man had been troubled by his
situation and had shared with a trusted friend his problems, his unemployment and
his need for transport, if he had owned up to the problem, he might have
avoided the charges he now faced. Or if a friend had pulled him aside and inquired
about his life and invested in his life, perhaps the chain of wrongdoing would
have been broken. As the psalmist said, “I confess my iniquity; I am troubled
by my sin” (Psalm 38:18, NIV 1984).
I also thought how our pride keeps us from vulnerability
before the Lord, keeps us from being contrite and confessional in prayer, keeps
us from sharing our failures with trusted friends; and how our unwillingness to
accept with humility the Lord’s discipline leads to further sin and suffering.
Lastly, I thought about our responsibility to one another: when
a brother (or sister) sins, we are to correct, rebuke, encourage (2 Timothy 4:2)
- and to forgive (Luke 17:3). We are to pray for one another that we may be
healed.
“Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my
anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the
way everlasting” (Psalm 139:23-24, NIV 1984).
Clydette
Powell MD
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