Prayer of Confession — Fractals for Worship

It is rare to hear a prayer of confession in a New Zealand Baptist church. Moving from the safety of some well chosen and tried words such as those of the New Zealand Anglican Prayer Book needs to be done very carefully. Ruth C Duck raises some interesting issues, to which we’ve added some of our own, that need to be considered by someone leading others in a prayer of confession. ( Finding Words for Worship, Louisville:Westminster John Knox Press, 1995, pages 70f)

Questions of the general and the specific – unison prayers need to be quite general if they are to be spoken honestly by the pray-ers, because people experience sin in different ways.
The challenge of liberation theologies not just to pray confessions but to commit to change – calling for justice and healing for the victims of sin.
The role of corporate confession on behalf not just of individuals but also whole churches and societies. ‘How does one write a unison prayer of confession, when oppressor and oppressed intertwine not only in one congregation, but often in one person, who may both suffer injustice and do injustice to others?’ (pp 71-72).
The use of phrases beginning with ‘if’ and ‘when’ honours the variety of the congregation members’ experience as not all statements will be true of all.
A time of silent reflection after some generalised ‘starter’ statements lets people explore their experience within guided parameters.

‘Writing prayers of confession for a given time or place calls for freshness of expression with loving sensitivity to the actual persons who will pray the prayer. When writing unison prayers of confession, picture the persons who will pray the prayer. Can they honestly speak it? Those who write prayers of confession also should take special care not to fall into the preaching mode.’ (page 76). Forcing people to say things in prayer that they might not agree with is coercion rather than enabling dialogue on controversial issues.

Why confess? What’s the point of it? What does it achieve? Why has a formal confession been included in the Cityside order of service?

It’s not primarily a shopping list of deeds, although confession of specifics has its place. It’s rather a recognition of basic patterns or attitudes that block our spiritual growth.
We’re trying to change views of what sin is, how it manifests in a life, how we feel about it, etc. Some people don’t work within a sin/redemption framework as their main salvation concept. Others have rejected the way guilt feelings have been part of their experience of the Church’s manipulation of their emotions and responses. Some people’s ‘sin’ lies in a legacy of hurting themselves and making their own lives small rather than hurting any others. Promotion of self-care and affirmation is more important in this context that an exploration of ‘pride’ and ‘selfishness’ which are often considered to be the source of ‘sin’ in church confessions. (see p 71)

It is important for prayers of confession to include the announcement of God’s forgiveness and acceptance – not leaving people in acknowledgement of wrong but leading out from it into hope and resolution. Our most usual pattern is a declaration based on 1 John 1: 9. I might say something like, ‘We thank you Lord that you have said that when we confess our sins you can be relied on absolutely to forgive us, and to remove their residue from our lives.’

Prayers of Confession at Cityside tend toward the specific rather than the universal, exploring a particular dimension of sin or damage rather than ‘sin’ generally. Over a period of time, a multitude of different perspectives and reflections on sin are developed, including perspectives that redefine sin in different ways. Some people take the idea of ‘confession’ positively, to mean that which is acknowledged or professed – an entering into a kind of truth and articulating something that is held to be of value. Others remind us that sin is also corporate and national.

Individual reflection is stimulated in different ways. Often, people find a kinesthetic dimension helpful, a physical action that acts out a sense of being freed from something, releasing something, being cleansed, leaving behind. Some examples of this are listed below.

We sometimes use the traditional sung ‘Kyrie Eleison’ (God have mercy…) as part of our confession. It can be used in a variety of ways i.e. between segments or at the end of the full prayer.

Some Scripture references that might be useful in a prayer of confession are:
Call to confession: Proverbs 28:13; Numbers 5:5-6; Isaiah 55:6-7; Jeremiah 3:12-13; Acts 17:30-31. Psalm 32:1-6.
Words of Forgiveness and Assurance of Forgiveness:
1 John 1:9; Isaiah 43:25, 44:22; Psalm 103:8-12; 2 Corinthians 5: 19,21; 2 Thessalonians 2:16, 17
The Mercy of God Deuteronomy 32:10-12.

Examples of Prayers of Confession from the Cityside Morning Service and other gatherings.

1. Guided Meditation

Version 1:
This prayer of Confession will be ‘visual’ rather than ‘verbal’. Even though I’ll be talking all through it! The ‘visual’ part is ‘mental’, that is, ‘interior’.
It is a very old form of confession, going back, if I understand it correctly, at least a good 1200 years. It goes by the rather unwieldy name of the ‘Review of Consciousness’ and was, I think, begun by the Franciscans, who still use it today.
So if we begin with the whole ‘bowing head/shutting eyes’ thing we’ll move into it.

We’ll start with becoming aware of yourself. Yourself as your ‘self’. Not as yourself in relation to others. Start by coming back into yourself.
Then, notice what is happening with your breathing. If it is in your throat, or chest, relocate it down into your stomach. Get comfortable with breathing from your stomach. And stay with that for a few minutes.

Then, when you’re ready, remember back to some moment in the last week about which you are not happy — not happy with yourself in your response to something. The response may have been an action or even an interior decision.
Begin by recalling the situation. Then the details of the scene. The light, the space, the objects. Notice what was around you.

Now move slowly forward into the moment of decision. When you get there, pause. Just hold that decision.
Do not be in a hurry to excuse yourself or condemn yourself. Even condemning yourself can be an evasion. Stay there in that moment.
Allow yourself to experience everything you can about that decision, however small it is, however unpleasant it is, and everything about that moment. You can contain it.

You may notice that your breathing begins to constrict or tighten at this point. Let it relax back down towards your stomach.
Keep with the breathing from the stomach, and then return to the experience of your decision.

Now, allow yourself the space and the time to make another decision. A different decision. Your new decision might be one of simply not taking the course you previously did. It might be a decision of ‘restraint’. Or, you might choose a more positive course of action. There might be other possibilities from which to choose that were latent in the situation. This is one of the reasons for spending the time reacquainting yourself with the scene at the outset. There might be clues in different parts of the scene that allow you a totally different response to it. Sit for a few minutes exploring them. Even just acknowledging that they exist.

Then move back into the making of the decision. And this time, go with your new choice. And let that unfold. And follow-through. Again, don’t be in any hurry to evaluate or assess the choice. Just allow it to occur. Allow yourself to notice it.
When you’re ready, let go of the scene. Leave it where it is. And come back to your breathing. Relocate it, if you need to, in your stomach. And become aware of yourself as your self again. And then, if you want or need, in relation to others. And then, when you’re ready, open your eyes.

This exercise is something the Franciscans apparently do at the end of every 24 hours. It’s a major achievement in my experience, to remember even once in a week. But the idea is to close out of each day with this exercise as a way of decompressing. And over time, the capacity to do this exercise begins to move from a thing that occurs ‘after the fact’ with various actions and becomes, instead, a small pocket of possibility within each situation and action.

Version 2:
A couple of weeks ago we did a Prayer of Confession based on an old Franciscan contemplation. I thought we’d revisit it as we are still in Lent and this time work a different Catholic strand, this time from the Jesuits, in with the Franciscan pattern. Kind of ‘theme and variations’.
But to start with I’ll invite you to stand up. And, standing up, to ask yourself where you carry your sense of yourself? For most people that will be somewhere from here [indicates neck], ‘up’. We tend to live in our heads. What we will do with this contemplation is approach it occupying the full length of our bodies. Kind of an ‘incarnational strategy’.
Try relocating your sense of yourself lower down, in your chest. And then lower down again. And keep moving your sense of yourself down, through your legs, and into your feet. And then into the ground beneath it. This should help get us a sense of being in the extent of ourselves.

And then notice what is happening with your breathing. If it hasn’t already, move your breathing from your throat or chest down into your stomach. And spend a few minutes getting comfortable with that.
Then, if you are able, line your shoulders up with your ears. This will allow more air into you.
Relax.
Then, slowly, sit back down again. And sitting, close your eyes, and focus your self into your feet and if you need to, adjust your breathing to involve your stomach.

Now think back to a moment that you are not happy with. A moment of dissonance, or inauthenticity. Some moment when you are unhappy with the way you responded to a situation. It need not be in the last week. It might go back years.

The moment might be an action, it might be an interior decision, it might even be just a preoccupation. When you’ve got it, this awkward moment, begin by taking in the surroundings. The scene and the space in which the moment occurred. Notice everything you can about the scene. And use all your senses to engage it. Your body memory. What do you notice from the place of your body? Sight, sound, movement, feel… the weight of things…

Draw your attention towards the moment of decision, of crisis in the situation, and begin to move slowly into it. That moment when you knew, however briefly, exactly what you were doing and that it was in fact you who was doing it. When you arrive at that moment, put the tape on ‘pause’. Hold that crucial moment. Again, just stay with it. Fully aware of yourself as yourself and you as the agent. This may be difficult. It might be easy to flinch or avoid, or turn your attention elsewhere. Stay facing toward that decision.
And then, become aware of the figure of Jesus in the room or the situation. Not as doing anything. Not as saying anything. Not condemning you. Or indulging you. Just, simply, there… And there as one who can see the situation and see the situation to the depths that you are now seeing it. Stay with the recognition of his recognition.

Then, allow yourself the space for this figure of Jesus to respond. He may act, he may speak, he may do neither and just remain as he was. But let the space open for something to emerge.

And now, in the light of your owning the decision, in the light of the figure of the Jesus who is there with you, give yourself the permission to recreate the situation. And to choose a different way through the situation. Allow that choice to begin to unfold itself.

Then let go of the situation. We can leave it there to take care of itself.

Gently, step back from the scene. Back into the present. Back into now. Back into your sense of yourself as your self. And focus for a moment on your breathing again. Breathing from your stomach. With your sense of yourself going again through your feet and into the floor.
And then, when you’re ready, open your eyes.

I watched a video in the last week by a New York social activist. The video was called On Not Becoming What You Hate. The guy was talking about the peril of fighting any given evil. That peril is in unconsciously taking on of the evil that you are fighting. The problem of slaying the dragon only to become the dragon yourself. The most dangerous thing he finds in his activism is having people on the team who have not yet, as he put it, ‘lived through their own darkness’. This Franciscan/Jesuit exercise may be a very gentle means of being kindly to ourselves, in beginning to open up a way to work into and through our own internal ‘darkness’.

(Both versions by Andrew Rockell)

2. Prayer of Confession.

I’m not very disciplined. After 30 years as a believer I’m still a lazy pray-er.
I can go a whole day and suddenly realise late at night that I haven’t talked to God at all, haven’t thought of Jesus once.

If I was a Buddhist or Hare Krishna I could practice my mantra;
If I was a Muslim I could pray towards Mecca five times a day;
If I was a Catholic I would have my rosary, or I could pray the Stations of the Cross whenever I liked.
But what if I’m a Baptist? Total immersion once a day…?!

Compared to most rabbis and gurus, Jesus seems remarkably lax as a disciplinarian.
The Pharisees accused him: “Why don’t your disciples fast?” “Why don’t they wash their hands?”
His disciples even had to ask him to teach them to pray! They seemed to spend most of their time just hanging out, following him around, listening and watching, and helping out where they could, or when he asked.

His only real commands were: “Love God, others, and self” and “Follow me”.

“If you want to be my disciple” he said:

“deny yourself” (get out of the ‘me’ trap)
“take up the cross” (share his burden, his priorities)
“follow me” (stick close).

We can only be his disciples in as much as we get involved with him.

“Lord, we’re sorry for forgetting you such a lot of the time.
We’re sorry that everything else seems to get higher priority.
Sorry that most of our communication is ‘me’ and ‘need’.
Thank you that you’re happy to listen to ‘me’ and ‘need’, anyway.
Thank you that you never forget us; that you always stick close.”

(Mark Laurent)

3. Hands

This is my hand
made in the image
of the hand that made all things
A hand much like any other
and yet in all the universe
it is unique — a wonder of celestial engineering

This hand is made for giving
and receiving
It can offer both tenderness and pain
I can extend it in friendship or anger

Hands have been the central players
in every act of love
and in every work of evil
throughout all the world
forever.

Hands arouse the ardour
of procreative union
and ease every newborn infant
into the world of light

Hands have carved stories on the walls of rock shelters
and hewn every wooden beam
of every house which people have ever called home

Hands have made the clothes we wear
the furniture we sit on
the decorations in the room about us
the vessels from which we drink and eat

Hands planted and picked, sowed and harvested
prepared and served the food we eat today
Hands have also slapped, punched and stolen today
Hands have pulled triggers and thrown bombs today
Hands have written hate mail
And signed declarations of war today

Hands have also handled money today
Lots and lots and lots of money
For good reasons
And bad purposes

Hands have given food and medicine to the poor
They have also thrown coke cans out of car windows
Cut down millions of trees for quick profit
And pumped heroin into collapsing veins.

God’s hands reach out to us
To give us food
To heal our bodies
To embrace us in love
To guide us out of our darkness

But what is it in people
that makes us want to
plait a crown of thorns for Him
And bind Him with ropes
And beat Him with sticks
And drive nails through his hands
And tear apart every good thing He has given us?

Our hands can create
Our hands can destroy

What will we do with these hands?

(Mark Laurent)

4. Shalom Prayer

From ‘A Shalom Prayer’ by the Maranatha Community (source unknown), used as Prayer of Confession.
Works best if read slowly and with pauses for reflection.

I come as myself
Just as I am
This moment
My feelings, my fears
My joys, my sadness
You see me as I really am
You know me.

Every experience in my life is laid before you
Every image I have seen
Each touch, each sensation
Every word I have ever heard or spoken
Each thought which is imprinted on my soul.
You know me better than my closest friend
You know me better than I know myself.

And because of who I am
And in spite of who I am – you love me.
Nothing, nobody, can remove me from your love
Nothing, nobody can separate me from your presence.

You knew me at the moment of my creation
You knew me in my mother’s womb
My nature is known to you.
You watched over me from my earliest childhood
You are present at all times and in all places
The unseen playmate, schoolmate, workmate
The unseen guest at every meal.
You watch over me silently
Even in the middle of the night.
You share in every journey
You travel with me
You are my companion on the way.

Without you I lose my way
My journey has no purpose
I become exhausted on the road
But you are my beginning and ending
You are the way itself, the way of life.
So Lord I lay before you my life
Yesterday, today, tomorrow;
I praise and thank you for your presence in my life.
I lift up in gratitude all the goodness and all the joy.
I also offer you all my hurts, my bruises, my rejections
I offer you all those things of which I am ashamed
What I have said, and done, and thought
All that has brought hurt to you and to others.
Lord, pour your cleansing streams of living water all over me
Make the parched deserts of my being spring to life
Refresh me, renew me
Lord, breathe on me now
And I will receive your life
Lord, reach out and touch me and I will receive your healing
Empty me utterly of all the rubbish within me
This moment, Lord, take away all distractions
All temptations,
Remove from me my anxiety
Take away every hidden fear
Help me to know
That your love casts out all fear.

Bring me now into the deep silence of your presence
I give you my body and ask that it may become your dwelling place
This moment may every part of my being be at peace;
Let my heartbeat
Be in harmony with your heartbeat;
Let every part of my body be filled with your Spirit
Take each blood vessel
Every part of my nervous system
Take each muscle, each organ, each cell
Fill me now
With your stillness
With the reality of your living presence.

Help me now to pray – to pray without words
Help me to pray with my breathing
To breathe in your love and your peace;
To breathe out my pain and sadness;
To breathe in your cleansing and forgiveness;
To breathe out my guilt and impurity.
In my breathing may my body and soul be at one with you,
In harmony with you,
At ease with you.
May I be still and know that you are God.
May I be still and know that you are the Lord who brings healing.

Help me to hear your still, small voice, Lord Jesus
May I hear your words “Peace, be still”
May all my storms subside as I accept your presence.

Lord Jesus, be the Lord of my life
I bow my heart before you.

(Adapted by Mark Laurent)

5. Who Is Jesus?

He’s the only one who knows
What a shit I really am;

He’s the friend I can get angry at
Who doesn’t take it personally;

He’s the encourager who keeps reminding me
How much good I’m capable of;

He’s the rescuer I call out to
When I get really desperate;

He’s the shoulder I cry on in the night
When grief overwhelms me;

He’s the bastard I abuse through gritted teeth
When I whack my thumb with the hammer;

He’s the God I spontaneously say thanks to
When something unexpectedly wonderful happens;

He’s quite often the person I blame
When things aren’t going my way;

He’s the one who gives the sun
A reason to rise each morning.

(Mark Laurent)

6. Prayer of Confession

Lord, in a world dishing out more than ample amounts of harshness, your kindness is a special reality to us. You treat us not according to what we deserve, but according to what we need. You give us gifts and capabilities to enjoy the world you created; you give us abilities to love and receive love, to be able to forgive and forget. And most of all, you give us your Son, Jesus Christ, who loved us and who died so that we could have our relationship with you put right. You are a kind God, our forgiving Father, and we love you…

(pause)

Who of us here, Father, would not quickly admit we have disappointed you and ourselves and other people on many occasions this past week?

The thoughts and attitudes we have often nurtured are things for which we are truly sorry.

We repent of them.

Some of us could quickly admit to deeds done or not done of which we are frankly ashamed.

Some of us have come here today, Lord, bearing resentments and jealousies that would be terribly embarrassing if others knew about them.

We confess these, Father. We need liberation from our sins. Thank you for hearing our personal confessions…

(pause)

(Read 1 John 1.9)

Say Lord’s Prayer together.

(From an article “The Cleansing Power of Public Prayer” by Gordon McDonald, source unknown. Modified.)

7. False Images of God

I really enjoyed listening to Gwen speaking here last week. It reminded me of when I heard Tony Campolo speak when I was about 20.
Tony Campolo is a well known Christian Sociologist in the States. When I heard him he talked about the development of ancient religions and how each culture would create a god, or gods, in their own image. Often they would choose an animal to represent this god that would also represent the values that were important to them. In a way they ended up worshipping themselves.

He related it to today’s culture where we still often make God in our own image. Somehow in the West the God of the Old Testament has turned into a prosperity seeking individualist. We easily project our values on to God and then expect God to make us healthy, wealthy and wise.

Or even if we have personally moved away from that kind of prosperity image of God the challenge is to identify whether we have been re-shaped by our new image of God or whether we have just re-shaped God into our new image.

If you want to you can pray this prayer with me:

God, we have some false images of you in our heads.
Some of them are damaging images that we have been taught.
Some of them are images that serve our own needs.
We confess these to you and ask for more light in our lives.
We ask you to show your true self to us in ways that we can handle.
We ask you to shape us into your image rather than letting us shape you into ours.

AMEN

(Kimberley Madden-Snoad)

8. Orthodoxy/Orthopraxis

ORTHODOX: This is a word that you might be familiar with. Orthodox is about having correct theology or right beliefs. The “Ortho” part means right. My Oxford Dictionary defines orthodox as “Holding correct or accepted views especially on religion, not heretical or original.”

The Church in the West has been very concerned with orthodoxy. Many church splits have been over theology. We tend to define whether people are “in” or “out” of the Christian faith by their beliefs e.g. whether they believe in the virgin birth, in the infallibility of scripture, that smoking is unchristian. I guess different churches have different beliefs that they hold as important.

When I was at Bible College in 1998 I did a paper on Third World Theology and I learnt a new word that really excited me.

ORTHOPRAXIS: This word refers to right practice or correct living. And for me it has connotations of ethics rather than rules. It’s not about keeping a list of “Christian” rules but it’s about living out of a deep set of ethics that come from following Jesus. It’s about making intentional choices about how we treat people, how we work and play, how we spend our money, how we treat the environment.

I often think about Jesus’ parable of judgement, in Matt 25, when he talks about separating the sheep and the goats. I find it interesting that he doesn’t talk about separating people on theological grounds. He doesn’t say “All the people who believed X go to the right and all the people who didn’t go to the left.” Instead he referred to their behaviour — did they feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, visit the sick ?

It makes me think that maybe in the West we’ve got our emphasis all wrong. Maybe we are more concerned about right theology than God is. I’m not saying that it doesn’t matter what we believe because I think it does matter. But maybe how we live matters more to God. Maybe God values Orthopraxis over Orthodoxy.

If you want to you can pray this prayer of confession with me :

God,
we confess to you that our practice doesn’t always come from intentional
decisions to follow Jesus.
We ask for your forgiveness.
We receive your forgiveness.
We pray for more orthopraxis — right living — in our lives.

AMEN

(Kimberley Madden-Snoad)

9. Carrying the Baton

At the Christmas Eve service here at Cityside a few months ago we were invited to light a candle as we said a prayer. I chose to pray for the people of Bethlehem as I lit my candle. On the news that night I had seen scenes of violence in this holy city much like it was 2000 years ago. In Jesus’ day Bethlehem was an occupied land where the people were poor and struggling. Today it seems that little has changed.

As I thought about this I started to feel angry with Jesus. I asked, “What difference have you made, Jesus? You came to bring the Kingdom but things aren’t any better in this city where you were born. Why don’t you do something?”

It’s not the first time I’ve felt like this. At other times I’ve looked at injustice in the world and in the Church and I’ve thought “What are you doing about this Jesus? Why don’t you change this?”

But then I remember that when Jesus left the planet after Easter he passed the baton to us – the Church. Now he asks us to make a difference – to bring the Kingdom of God to our worlds. It’s up to us – with God’s help – to demonstrate peace and love and justice to those around us.

If you want to you can say this prayer of confession with me:

Jesus, at Easter we remember why you came: to preach the Good News to the poor, to heal the brokenhearted, to announce that captives shall be released, the blind will see, the downtrodden shall be released from their oppressors and that God is ready to give blessings to all who come to him.

We also remember that at Easter you passed the baton to us and we confess that we have failed to carry it well.

We ask your forgiveness.
We receive your forgiveness.
Let your Kingdom come, let your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven.
Help us to live out your Good News in our worlds.

Amen

(Kimberley Madden-Snoad)

10. Mental Health Prayer of Confession

In the prayer of confession today I’m going to talk about mental health. And just by coincidence this week has been mental health awareness week.

I’m going to start by giving you an opportunity to reflect on your own mental health … (fill in questionnaire – see below)

I teach mathematics and health. This year I’ve been teaching all the 4th formers (14 year olds) at my school about mental health. I’m excited about that because it’s information and skills that could improve their lives.

The first really important concept that I teach them is boundaries. Imagine the boundary of your property. To a point it protects you – keeps bad stuff out and keeps good stuff in. But also it defines what is in and what is out — it clarifies your rights and responsibilities. For example, if there is some rubbish inside your boundary you are responsible for picking it up. But if it is outside your property it is not your responsibility…which doesn’t mean that you can’t pick it up if you choose to.

This is important for me because I’ve had a really bad case of over-responsibility which I have been working on over the last couple of years. And now when something grabs my attention and I think “I should do something about that” I more often can tell myself “No, that is not my responsibility. God doesn’t expect me to fix the world.”

And in that is the second really important thing I teach — self-talk. That is the messages that go around our brain all the time e.g. I’m a good friend, they think I’m stupid, I’m good at tennis. David Riddell had this saying “Stink feelings come from stink thinking”. So if you want to change how you feel you need to change the messages in your head.

Anyway, one day I was driving along and I suddenly thought “Being mentally healthy could make me really selfish.” Because now I’m much more likely to say in my head “That’s not my responsibility”, “I’m not going to feel bad about that”. I thought of the Christians I’ve heard say “Assertiveness is not for Christians” or Mental Health is not spiritual so it’s not relevant to us.

But a while later I had another thought that was really a revelation to me … I think it was from God. I thought: Better mental health makes me free to do the right thing for the right reason. I’ve always been struck by I Corinthians 13 when it says that if I sell everything I have and give it to the poor and get burned alive for preaching the gospel, but I don’t love … it doesn’t count. So it seems that to God that motive is everything. And, for me, as I journey towards better mental health I can sort out my real motives and let God change me.

Here is my prayer of confession:

God

We confess to you that this week we have done some things we shouldn’t have …
We confess that we didn’t do some things that we should have …
We confess that some of the good things we did, we did for the wrong reasons … (maybe to make a good impression, or to avoid feeling guilty)
We receive your forgiveness now …

We pray that you will heal us from our insecurities and fear so that we will be free to do the right things for the right reasons … AMEN

Questionnaire

THE MENTAL HEALTH FOUNDATION OF NEW ZEALAND CHECKLIST

The Mental Health Foundation uses the following list to describe some things people can say about the way they feel and behave when they are mentally healthy.
Put a tick next to the ones that describe you, and an * next to the ones that you would like to be more like.

TOWARDS YOURSELF

(I feel comfortable with myself)

? I know my abilities and strengths and use them.
? I accept the things I cannot do. I can ask for help.
? I am not overwhelmed by my own emotions: fear, anger, jealousy, guilt, worry.
? I can laugh at myself.
? I have self-respect.
? I am able to handle most situations that come my way.
? I get satisfaction from daily work and simple everyday pleasures.
? I like time to myself from time to time.

TOWARDS OTHERS

(I feel comfortable with other people)

? I am able to give and receive love.
? I am close friends with one or more people. These friendships are satisfying and lasting.
? I expect to like and trust others and expect that they will trust me.
? I don’t push people around, nor do I allow others to push me around.
? I respect the many differences I find in others.
? I feel valued as a group member.
? I feel a sense of responsibility towards others.
? I can work co-operatively with others.

TOWARDS THE WORLD IN GENERAL

(I am able to meet the demands of life)

? I do something about problems as they arise.
? I can change things around me when necessary. When this is not possible I can adjust to the way things are.
? I recover from bad experiences reasonably quickly.
? I can plan for the future and not be afraid of it.
? I welcome new experiences and new ideas.
? I set realistic goals.
? I am able to think for myself, make my own decisions and stand by those decisions.
? I put my best effort into what I do and get satisfaction out of doing it.

(Kimberley Madden-Snoad)

11. Adam and Eve.

A few years ago, at another church, I heard a man called Tim Frank speak about Adam and Eve. Now, I’m not sure whether this biblical story is factual or symbolic but I found his interpretation of the story profound and challenging. I’m going to try and describe it to you.

Genesis 2: 16,17
But the Lord God gave the man this warning : “You may eat any fruit in the garden except the fruit from the Tree of Conscience – for its fruit will open your eyes to make you aware of right and wrong, good and bad. If you eat this fruit, you will be doomed to die.”

Other translations call this tree the “Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil”. Why would God not want us to have that knowledge? It can’t be a bad thing because God has it. I would think that knowing the difference between good and bad is central to being human. I remember, during this sermon, feeling stunned at the thought that in a perfect world God would prefer me not to have a conscience. So what is this story about?

Here is how I heard it explained. God knew that if humanity ate this fruit they would become ethical beings in a moral world. Their focus would now be on right and wrong. They would wonder “How well am I doing?” and this would lead them to either pride or despair. Now their gaze would be off God and on themselves. They would have a relationship with God but in an atmosphere of acute self-consciousness.

Some of us probably know that feeling. Possibly some of us prefer this way of living. Maybe it seems easier to live by rules than to live in relationship with God. I know I’ve been a rules person. The rules make me feel secure – I know what’s good and what’s bad. Also I can measure myself against these rules and judge how I’m doing. I can even come out feeling superior by using these rules to judge others. In the old days I was on a roller coaster of feeling really bad and then secretly good about myself.

So what’s the answer to this mess that Adam and Eve got us into?

The apostle Paul explains in his letter to the Church in Rome:

But now you need no longer worry about the Jewish laws and customs because you “died” while in their captivity, and now you can really serve God; not in the old way, mechanically obeying a set of rules, but in a new way with all of your hearts and minds. (Romans 7:6)

Jesus restores our relationship with God so that now relationship takes precedence over rules. The Holy Spirit lives within us giving us access to God. Our focus can come off our own performance and onto the One who loves us unconditionally.

If you want to you can say this prayer of confession with me:

God,
Some of us need to confess to you that we like the rules. They work for us. They are easier than getting to know you well.
We ask your forgiveness.
We receive your forgiveness.
Teach us to live by this new way. To know you and to listen to your gentle whispers.

AMEN

(Kimberley Madden-Snoad)

12. Beyond the Norm of Reciprocity

In 1998 I did a year of study at the Bible College of New Zealand and one of my papers was on the book of Luke. There was one idea from that course that has stayed with me. Our lecturer, David Crawley, used to say that Jesus challenges us to “live beyond the norm of reciprocity.”

Reciprocity describes a mutual giving and taking. It’s a tit-for-tat approach. It can work in a positive or a negative way. The negative way is when we repay “evil for evil.” Someone hurts us so we hurt them.

Jesus challenged this approach. In Luke 6 he says: Listen, all of you. Love your enemies. Do good to those who hate you. Pray for the happiness of those who curse you; implore God’s blessings on those who hurt you (v27, 28).

But reciprocity can work in a positive way too. For example : someone gives you a birthday present so when it’s their birthday you give them one (of about equal value). Some people invite you over for dinner so then later you invite them for dinner. A relative sends you a Christmas card so you quickly send one in return. This is reciprocity.

Jesus asked his followers to live beyond this approach. In Luke 14 he challenges the religious people with this: When you put on a dinner, don’t invite friends, relatives and rich neighbours! For they will return the invitation. Instead invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. Then at the resurrection of the godly, God will reward you for inviting those who can’t repay you (v 12-14).

When I was thinking about this, I remembered a time when I was about 20 and my friend Louise was in England doing her OE [Editor: New Zealand abbreviation for Overseas Experience i.e. travelling the world as a young adult]. I decided one day to write her a letter even though she still owed me one. I figured that when you’re overseas you like getting letters from home. As I was writing I had a kind of “revelation” that this was what grace was like. God keeps writing to us even when it’s our turn to write. God lives beyond reciprocity and asks us to do the same.

If you want to you can say this prayer of confession with me:

God,
We confess to you that we often live in this reciprocal way.
We ask your forgiveness.
We receive your forgiveness.
We ask you to change us that we may live beyond this norm –
That we may live by grace instead.
Help us to do good to those around us even when there is nothing in it for us.
Help us to show love and mercy to all people.
Thank you that this is what you did for us.

AMEN

(Kimberley Madden-Snoad)

13. Anger

I don’t remember being particularly angry as a child or as a teenager. My anger started when I joined the work force, at 22, and found out that the discrimination that I had written about in my university essays was alive and well in the world around me. People treated me badly and got away with it. It wasn’t fair. I tried to stand up for what I believed was right but I was continually dismissed. It made me very angry.

I had a few years of feeling very angry. I began to notice this same discrimination in the Church and that intensified my anger. Looking back I think this anger was bad for my physical and mental health, and unfair on my family and friends. It was about 5 years ago that I began to make some changes in my thinking. Also I changed jobs and I changed churches. I had some insights into anger that helped me and I’m going to share one with you.

This is an idea that came from Gary Zukov who used to be a regular on the Oprah Show. He claims that beneath all anger is fear: fear of losing control, fear of being powerless, fear of being disappointed, fear of being hurt. For some of us it’s easier to feel anger than to feel fear and pain.

I thought this was a profound idea and it helped me in two ways. Firstly it helped me to cope with other angry people. When I asked myself, “What are they afraid of?” it helped me to be less intimidated and less reactionary. I was in a better position to show compassion instead of having to defend myself.

Secondly it helped me to examine my own anger. What was I afraid of? I think I have a strong need to feel in control of what is happening to me. I realised that I used my anger to help me feel powerful enough to stick up for myself and to change things that I thought needed changing. Sometimes this was very important and kept me safe physically and emotionally. But for the long term it wasn’t a good strategy. I’ve learnt to live in a healthier way.

Here’s a Bible verse from the Message translation about anger:

“Go ahead and be angry. You do well to be angry – but don’t use your anger as fuel for revenge. And don’t stay angry. Don’t go to bed angry. Don’t give the Devil that kind of foothold in your life.” (Ephesians 4:26, The Message)

I like this verse. It seems to be giving us permission to be angry but warns against letting anger hang around unresolved.

I’ve written a prayer about anger and if you want to you can say it with me :

God,
we all get angry sometimes – some of us more often than others.
We are glad for those times when our anger helped us to protect ourselves
and for when it motivated us to make positive changes in our worlds.
But we are sorry for the times our anger hurt ourselves and others.
We ask your forgiveness for these times.
We receive your forgiveness.
We ask you to reveal to us what lies beneath our anger and to bring healing to us.
Thank you for your mercy and love.
Amen.

(Kimberley Madden-Snoad)

14. I-THOU

Martin Buber’s concept of I-Thou (You), says that the ‘being’ of something is more than the sum of its describable parts, and can only be related to, rather than experienced and used. The I-Thou relationship is self-self, the mystery of connection, rather than observation, measurement and use.

The confession below brings this understanding to the relationships of I-God, I-others and I-the world, where ‘the world’ means both the natural world and the world of human creation.

God, prompt our awareness of the times:
? when we take a partial image of you as the real thing, because of our desire for certainty, safety, or answers, or because we want to manipulate a description of you for our own purposes;
? when we treat you as a jukebox from which we expect a performance because we have pressed the right buttons, in the right order;
? when we are more interested in talking about you rather than talking to you and when we are so tied up in our descriptions and expectations of you that we fail to see when you actually turn up in the ordinary moments of our lives.

God, forgive and challenge us:
? when we pigeonhole or stereotype groups or individuals, putting people into the grid of our expectations rather than relating to the complexity of their reality, and when we are seduced into thinking that surfaces are true indicators of depth;
? when we relate to a plastic version of those we know and reduce them to a set of characteristics or when we create an idealised or demonised version of another;
? when we filter what someone is really saying or doing through dread or desire and only hear and experience what our emotions dictate;
? when we treat people as commodities and value them accordingly;
? when we reduce people to our story about them and make them small, as small as their problems, their beliefs, or the last thing they said and did.

God, make us aware of:
? when we commodify our universe, looking for utility and financial value from the natural world or the world of art;
? when our learning is designed to describe and categorise and discourse ‘about’ rather than demonstrating willingness to be ‘spoken to’ by the place or thing or event about which we learn.
? when we move so quickly through our world that we can no longer pause to be silent in front of and in the midst of it, when we lose the capacity for awe or contemplation.

God, forgive us for our readiness to live in an it-world of things, not selves, and teach us how to relate true-being to true-being with you, with others and the world in which we live. Amen.

(Brenda Stone)

15. Prayer of Concession

This part of the service is normally the Prayer of Confession, and as is usual policy here at Cityside, someone rings you up and reminds you that you’re on to do it – and this happened this week. I returned home to my flat to find that one of my flatmates had written me a little note to tell me that I was on the Prayer of Concession. I really liked this, so I’ve written a Prayer of Concession instead.

Dear God

we concede that we are often not the people that you want us to be,
that as we join here today, to come to church, we are different people to who we were last night, last week;
we yield and acknowledge that we are people who need your assistance,
for we are as you have described:
fallen,
sinners,
and worthy,
and redeemable
AMEN,

(Warrick Gilbert)

16.
This part of the service is the time for the Prayer of Confession, and I’ll confess that I’ve always been scared when someone does this. I’m scared that they’d run it like the Prayers for Others – that they might invite us to call our sins out aloud…
so in the interests of science I thought I’d try this and see what happened.
so does anyone have any sins they’d like to confess?….(Just fooling…)

Dear God

we confess that we have spent important amounts of your time worrying about
our hair our cars or bicycles our libido

our….. our…..

and we confess that we’ve been angry with our friends, our family, our workmates, our flatmates,
the traffic, and the weather,

for we are as you have described:

fallen,
sinners,
and worthy,
and redeemable,
AMEN.

(Warrick Gilbert)

17. Another Prayer of Concession

Dear God

we concede that you are right,
that your way is right,
that you have right-of-way,
that you are correct,

we yield to your mercy,
to your forgiveness,

we allow your forgiveness to wash us,
and cleanse us,

we concede our lives to you,
AMEN.

(Warrick Gilbert)

18.
Jesus, friend of sinners,
have mercy on me.
I have not placed my hand in yours.
I have not kept company with you.

When I wander away from you I suffer.
I wear myself out
trying to control everything.
But things have a life of their own
and people do what they will.
I secretly hoped
I could bend your will to mind
because I was too afraid
to let you be my Lord.

Help me to rest in you,
work with you,
and to place my hand in yours,
like a child who trusts
as easily as s/he breathes.
You are my friend,
and you are faithful always.

(Written by Dianne Karay Tripp, Indiana, for Cityside Baptist Church, February 2002)

19. My Shade by the Roadside

You, my God, are my strong rock in whom I trust,
my shade by the roadside,
and all my confidence I rest in you.

Deep in my mother’s womb, you knew me;
before my limbs were formed, you yearned for me.
Each of my movements you remember with compassion,
and when I was still unseen, you did imagine me.

Your strength brought me forth into the light;
it was you who delivered me.
Yours were the hands that held me safe;
you cherished me upon my mother’s breast.

When I stammer, you form the words in my mouth,
and when I am silent, you have understood my thoughts.
If I shout and rage, you hear my plea and my uncertainty.

When I am afraid, you stay close to me,
and when I am full of terror, you do not hide your face.
If I struggle against you, you will contain me,
and when I resist you, you will match my strength.

But if I am complacent, you confront me;
when I cling to falsehood, you undermine my pride;
for you are jealous for my integrity,
and your longing is for nothing less than truth.

(Pause)

Lord, I have betrayed you
by following my own way.

I have denied you
by fearing to follow yours.

And I have mocked you
by not taking your death seriously.

Lord, I am lost.
Let your forgiveness find me.

Hold me in your strong arms
and give me your new life.

Live in me and with me day by day,
that together we may make a world
that is new.

(Source Unknown)

20. To Live In Passion

God of hurricane and holocaust,
Heartbeat of volcano and vitality,
Origin of orgasm and cataclysm,
give us passion in our lives.

We who demur and delay,
who ponder and put off,
who hold back in the hope
that someone will do something;

Shake us from our dreaming
and our half-hearted faith.
Wake us from our stupor
and our half-witted excuses.

We live and partly live,
safe behind doors
and peering out of windows;
afraid of what is and what yet might be.

Call us and maul us;
drag us naked and screaming
into the glare of your gaze,
till we draw breath again.

We want to live and to love,
to know what it is to give all:
all of our heart and all of our soul
and all of our strength and all of our mind.

Catch us on the barb of your love
so that our guts heave
and our blood runs
and we are pierced through and through.

May our lives shine and dazzle;
may they catch the glint of the sun
as we leap after your lure
and plunge beneath the pool of your desire.

Let us live with all that we have
and love with everything in us;
throw ourselves from the brink
with only passion to guide us.

Our souls are yours and our hearts as well,
our mind and our strength yearn for you.
All that we have and all that we
are and all that we ever will be,
we give it all for you in love.
Amen.

(Mike Riddell, March 1996. Parallel Universe.)

21.
O Lord, our hearts are heavy with the sufferings
of the ages, with the crusades and the holocausts
of a thousand thousand years.
The blood of the victims is still warm,
The cries of anguish still fill the night.