A Call to Confession

-Kathleen Norris, Amazing Grace- A Vocabulary of Faith, Riverhead Books, 1998, pages 165-166.

Paul’s assertion in Romans, that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23) seems easy enough to believe, when I look around, when I read the news. Other people most certainly fall short. But myself? It is tempting to take the pharisaical route, and judge myself to be morally sound, not like “them,” whoever they may be. Conversely, I might believe myself to be such a dreadful sinner as to be beyond remedy. Redemption is for “them,” lucky fools, and all that is left for me is to wallow in despair. To admit to being no more, no less than an ordinary sinner is not comforting, it does not shine with the glamour of despondency; above all, it does nothing to foster my self-esteem. It is easiest simply to reject the whole concept as negative and old-fashioned.

I am a sinner, and the Presbyterian church offers me a weekly chance to come clean, and to pray, along with others, what is termed a prayer of confession. But pastors can be so reluctant to use the word “sin” that in church we end up confessing nothing except our highly developed capacity for denial. One week, for example, the confession began, “Our communication with Jesus tends to be too infrequent to experience the transformation in our lives You want us to have,” which seems less a prayer than a memo from one professional to another. At such times I picture God as a wily writing teacher who leans across a table and says, not at all gently, “Could you possibly be troubled to say what you mean?” It would be refreshing to answer, simply, “I have sinned.”

The word “wretch,” then, does not paint a picture of who we want to be. Or who we think we are. The word has become so unpopular in recent years, in fact, that people began complaining about its appearance in the first verse of “Amazing Grace”—“Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.” Some hymnals have taken out the offending word, but the bowdlerization of the text that results is thoroughly wretched English, and also laughably bland, which, taken together, is not an inconsiderable accomplishment: “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound, that saved someone like me.” Someone? Anyone? Anyone home?

Is there a fabled “someone” who only thinks of good things in the middle of the night, who never lies awake regretting the selfish, nigh-unforgivable things that he or she has done? Maybe the unconscious of some people really does tell them that they’re okay, all the time. Maybe there are people who are so thoroughly at home in themselves that they can’t imagine being other than comfortable, let alone displaced or wretched in spirit. But I wonder. I suspect that anyone who has not experienced wretchedness–exile, wandering, loss, misery, whether inwardly or in outward circumstance–has a superficial grasp of what it means to be human.

People want grace, it seems, and will admit to being “lost” and “blind” in John Newton’s fine old hymn. But don’t ask them to admit that it might take knowing oneself as a wretch to truly know grace for the wonder that it is. Don’t expect them to offer mercy to the wretched of the world, following Christ’s commandment to feed the hungry, tend the sick, clothe the naked, and visit those in prison Let them help themselves. I did. I became Someone. Don’t expect them to be good Buddhists, either. It seems to me that if you can’t ever admit to being a wretch, you haven’t been paying attention.