The standard Presbyterian worship service has a "prayer of confession" right after the opening song of praise. (So do many other denominations.) The notion is that when we encounter God, we cannot help but fall on our faces, realizing how woefully undeserving we are to be in God's presence. And yet, a common complaint that pastors get about worship concerns a dislike for this prayer. "It's such a downer," one says. "I'm not that bad," says another. "Who wants to hear about sin," goes yet another complaint.It has always struck me as a bit odd how we Christians will speak about being "saved," and then act like we don't need saving in the first place. We will proclaim that Jesus died for us, but then chafe at the notion that we are sinful.
In today's reading from Jeremiah, God speaks a word of hope through the prophet to the people of Israel who are about to be defeated and taken into exile. "I will make an everlasting covenant with them, never to draw back from doing good to them; and I will put the fear of me in their hearts, so that they may not turn from me. I will rejoice in doing good to them, and I will plant them in this land in faithfulness, with all my heart and all my soul."
If we are looking for joy in worship, there is a lot here. God's deepest desire is to bless and do good for God's people. But doing so requires those people, us, to be changed. Our hearts have to be reoriented. That's just another way of saying something has to be done about our sinfulness.
As the tax collector says in Jesus' parable (Luke 18:9-14), "God, be merciful to me, a sinner!" And Martin Luther advises that when we find ourselves before God's judgment seat, we should plead our faults and not our merits. I wonder why that is so hard for many of us?
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