Confession, Bad Dogs, and Liturgy

I think I've mentioned this cartoon here before. It features a congregation of dogs, dalmatians to be specific. The preacher dalmatian is letting the worshipers have it. "And he said unto them, 'Bad dogs! No, No!' " Not unlike the treatment the people of Judah get from Jeremiah in today's Old Testament reading. The prophet and God hope that the threat of punishment, of hellfire, may prompt the people of Judah to change their ways, though that seems unlikely.

My own Presbyterian tradition has long featured the turn away from sin as part of its worship. Corporate prayers of confession figure prominently in thy typical worship bulletin. This is different from Catholic confession to a priest. It is more of a claiming our brokenness along with God's grace that forgives and heals our brokenness. I sometimes liken confession in worship to the statement recovering alcoholics make at AA meetings. "Hi, my name is Joe, and I'm an alcoholic." Claiming that identity is not viewed as a "downer" (as I often hear people speak of confession in worship). Rather it is the opening through which people step into new life.

However, a colleague (Thanks, Jeff.) pointed out to me how much attention gets paid to confession in the typical Presbyterian liturgy. Not only is there a confession prayer that we all read together, but there is often a time for silent confession, plus a sung Kyrie or other response, and so on. And as my colleague pointed out, this is often the only place where we ask worshipers to spend time in silent prayer. What message are we sending by such a practice? Why do we not ask worshipers to spend time in silent prayers of thanksgiving or intercession, to name only a couple of other possibilities?

I do think that we modern Christ-followers need to claim our brokenness. We need to resist that temptation to think Jesus needs to save some folks but not me. I'm not really bad enough to need saving, just a little helpful direction perhaps. But at the moment, I'm wondering whether our liturgy asks much more than simple acknowledgement of our identity in an AA like, "Hi, my name is James, and I'm a sinner." Does it focus too much on this, minimizing other components of the Christian life?

I'm wondering what worship might look like if we acknowledged we are sinners in the manner of an AA meeting, but we didn't make it such the highlight of the congregation's participation in the service. What do you think?

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