Diary of a Theologian

Forget that it’s familiar and you’ll see: this is strange, not only in substance but in order. The Almighty and merciful Lord grant you (1) absolution and remission of all your sins, (2) true repentance, (3) amendment of life, and (4) the grace and consolation of his Holy Spirit.

The first claim is astounding, that the priest can, following your confession of sin, call upon God to grant you absolution of all your sins: all of them, not just the ones on your mind, not just the ones you might have said in your heart, and not just if you were particularly attentive and serious in your immediately preceding enunciation of a confession in words in a book without any particular fill-in-the-blank for those sins especially needing confessing. No, it’s an absolution “of all your sins.”

This first claim is to cover them all, and it covers them with two nouns. First, absolution, which is literally to turn away (“ab-”) by making something soluble—a “solution,” as a chemist might say, turning sins that are stuck onto you into things that can be washed away. Absolution is a removal of dirt, and here, of the dirt of your sins—all of them.

The second noun is remission. This is, unfortunately, a word we hear oft-used regarding cancer, meaning the disease is not causing trouble but may be lurking nearby and might reappear; one is said “to be in remission.” Literally, however, “re-” has to do with taking back, with removal, and “mission” has to do with being sent. Remission of sins happens when God sends them away. God sends back (to oblivion) the sins that you have done, sends them away for good. Later, you might repeat a sin generically, but the specific sins you have done are now dismissed from your life and have no effect upon you.

It is “absolution and remission of all your sins,” which sins are, in the earlier confession, elaborated with five images or terms that become increasingly particular and active: from erring and straying, to following the devices and desires of our rebellious hearts, to disobedience of God’s laws, to inactions, and finally to specific things done that ought not to have been done.

The priest pronounces absolution and remission for all of that. Why, then, does the priest not stop at this point? What is the point of the absolution saying more?

—Here it gets interesting. It seems that only after God has forgiven us is it possible for us to be truly repentant of our sins. This is the opposite of how things happen in the world. We are more likely to be excused of our wrongs and shortcomings if we show we are aware of them and sorry for them. In the world, repentance precedes forgiveness. But in God’s world, the world of the Scriptures as captured in this little prayer of absolution, it is only after our sins have been washed away and banished from God’s sight that we are able to see them as they really are. Only after God has taken our sins away are we able to see what our sins really were and then to have true repentance.

It seems that the confession of sin is particular and real only after the priest has finished the absolution. Note the grace in this reality: God forgives us even while our repentance is partial and not altogether true. God gives us grace so that we can truly see our sins and thereby truly repent of them. See Romans 5:8: while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

So the sequence of (1) absolution followed by (2) true repentance is itself also a gift of God. This is followed by another gift of God, (3) amendment of life. Here we say the same thing as before. In the world, before you are cut some slack you try not only to show you understand what you did that was wrong but also you try to demonstrate that you have changed, that you are no longer the person who did the bad thing; you show contrition by your actions. This is “amendment of life,” and in this absolution by the priest, amendment of life is God’s gift to you.

God creates in us changed hearts, so that we live changed lives. God, in fact, causes us to live amended lives. We didn’t have to earn his forgiveness; in fact, there is nothing we could do to earn his forgiveness. But God, forgiving us, gives us amendment of life. God makes us different.

And what is that difference? It is the fourth and final thing God grants penitents in this absolution, “the grace and consolation of his Holy Spirit.” In the confession, we said we “followed too much the devices and desires of our own hearts.” Jesus’ diagnosis of the human problem is that of Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and the like: that we have hard hearts. And the solution to a hard heart is to have it transformed into one that beats in rhythm with God’s Spirit. The gift of Jesus is the Holy Spirit, who takes up residence in our heart.

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This absolution is the one used in Rite One for Morning and Evening Prayer in the 1979 Prayer Book. It appeared first as an alternative absolution in the 1928 Book at Evening Prayer (only). So it is relatively new in our Prayer Book tradition. But for the reasons I’ve laid out above, I’m particularly fond of it, this absolution in Rite One of Morning and Evening Prayer.

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   The above is a shortened version of my recent posting to the “Covenant” section of the website of The Living Church. You can find the full version, as well as a link to sign up to receive Covenant every weekday, here:https://livingchurch.org/covenant/the-weirdness-of-gods-absolution-timetable/

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   Out & About: On Palm Sunday, April 13, I am to preach at St. Augustine’s Oak Cliff, Dallas, at the 10:15 a.m. service.

   The Good Books & Good Talk seminar next meets on Sunday, April 27, at 5 p.m. at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas, to discuss The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh. This short book from the great English satirist is set in mid-20th-century California and centers on a cat cemetery. What’s not to like?

One presumes: Someone had used a leaf blower (or, less likely, a rake) and gotten the leaves into a pile; from the pile they were got into the bag; the bag was tied and on its way to its final resting place. Then, a bump, a vibration, who knows what—and off the bag rolled onto the road. 

How hard it is to have anything to show for our labors in this life! We try to remove fallen leaves, and they just return to the blown-about world. They are no longer in our lawn, but they end up somewhere else, and other leaves come into ours. “Where is there an end to it?” T. S. Eliot asks, and concludes, in part, that there is no end. There is addition, one labor after another. One bails water out of a slowly leaking boat. One dusts the counter. One labors for a company, washes a car, prepares a report. We take the products of our labors and tie them up nicely in a bag . . . and the bag rolls off the back of the truck and our labors come to nought. 

The bag in the road, dropped and split and failing in its purpose: it’s a lenten picture.

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What then is the work that endures? The saints tell us: Prayer, praise, concrete deeds of love, these are things that last. They last, I think, not because they are conclusions of activity, but because they contribute to a change of our heart. And a changed heart is the point of the Gospel.

How do you change people’s hearts? To put it in a line: you change them by dying for them.

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   Out & About: I am to preach at St. Matthew’s this Sunday, March 30, at the 9 and 11:15 a.m. Eucharists.

   Wednesday, April 2, at 6 p.m., I’ll be speaking at All Souls’ Church in Oklahoma City on “The faith of the church as lived out on the Camino today.” This is open to the public, as are their Eucharists the following weekend (Sat. 5:30 p.m., Sun. 8 and 10 a.m.) at which I will be preaching.

   And on Palm Sunday, April 13, I am to preach at St. Augustine’s Oak Cliff, Dallas, at the 10:15am service.

   The Good Books & Good Talk seminar next meets on Sunday, April 27, at 5 p.m. at St. Matthew’s Cathedral in Dallas, to discuss The Loved One by Evelyn Waugh. This short book from the great English satirist is set in mid-20th-century California and centers on a cat cemetery. What’s not to like?