I Wanna Be Free
Twenty-three. That’s the number of unexpected Confessions heard at a recent Confirmation retreat held at a nearby parish.
The funny thing is – the Sacrament wasn’t officially scheduled on the itinerary for the day. However, we all know how the Spirit of God works, blowing when and where He pleases. And that afternoon in a nondescript parish hall filled with 40-plus 15-year-olds, the invitation was offered: “If you feel weighed down and burdened, be not afraid to bring it all to Christ.”
And many who heard that call came.
Much of what was confessed that day was typical teen-related angst; the things we all experience in the process of maturing while making our way in an often-confusing culture. And yet, there were also quite a few incredible encounters where the mercy of God met the brokenness of young lives. Tears were shed. Walled-up hearts broken open to the healing love of Christ.
Even having been a teacher for more than a decade before becoming a priest, I often fail to understand how burdened our young people are. The shame and guilt they bear. The pressure and the heartache they feel chained to. One young person – not at this retreat – once shared, “Every day I feel as though I am drowning under the weight of the choices I make to be something I’m not.”
Drowning under the weight of being something I am not.
If we get this … if we have ever felt this … then this Gospel (Matt 21:28-32) makes perfect sense.
Quite often, we preachers and listeners of the Word focus on the short parable Jesus offers about the two sons who were asked to do the work the father commanded them to do. The one who said he would, did not. The one who initially refused changed his mind and eventually worked the vineyard.
It’s not a bad spiritual exercise to ponder the ways in which we have gone back on our word with God and others, as well as the times in which humility and grace have allowed us to swallow our own pride and step-up to act in ways we hadn’t intended to. Doing so provides a healthy examination of conscience, and we see ourselves in the light that Paul’s letter to the Philippians challenges us to embrace: “… be of the same mind, with the same love, united in heart, thinking one thing.”
But here’s where a holy boldness must come in: pondering these things isn’t enough. Nothing really changes if we spend our lives just “pondering” these things. Staying stuck in our own heads.
We have to act – and according to Jesus, we must act like tax collectors and prostitutes. (Now there’s a line for the church marquee!)
Here’s why: they moved beyond the pondering and from the inner-dialogue that goes nowhere fast.
Let’s be clear, everyone in the region of the Jordan heard John the Baptist’s call to righteousness of which Jesus speaks – and it was a call that was clear, direct, and meant to break-open closed hearts and closed minds. It was a cry of a prophet for a return to holiness. It was the anguished plea of a man in love with God, asking the entire flock to come back to the sheepfold and the Shepherd.
It was a cry for wholeness that can only happen through one’s willingness to be humble and vulnerable before the Divine Healer.
That day, only the money cheaters and the hookers took John’s offer and came seeking forgiveness. It was the ones who everyone else thought were beyond saving who came to find true forgiveness and lasting peace in Christ.
They – society’s hated ones; the ones whom never thought they could be loved – it was they who found everything they were seeking because they were willing to surrender their sins and brokenness to the One who makes us whole again.
And watching from the riverbank were the ones who were both disgusted by the mercy being shown to Galilee’s greatest sinners and also audacious enough to believe they themselves didn’t need a Savior. That they were fine; the “good ones.” The ones who always said ‘yes’ to God’s ways.
Little did they know.
Much too often, I’m afraid, we end up believing and living in such a way that we become our own saviors; that our actions are okay; that the “real sinners” are someone other than ourselves. It is always someone else’s fault that I am (fill-in-the-blank) or that society is (fill-in-the-blank) …
It’s easy to blame another when we don’t want to look at our own sinfulness or brokenness, shame or hurt.
I’ve been there. Sometimes, I still live there, if I were honest.
But I am not called to stay there.
The radical call of Christianity asks each of us to get in line with the prostitutes and the tax cheats. Why? Because they let grace in to their most-sinful and hated and darkened parts of their lives.
They were tired of running from themselves; tired of living chained to selfishness and Satan; exhausted from not being loved, mostly by themselves.
So they brought all of this to the river of God’s Mercy, for healing and wholeness to be humbly received. To begin the process of rising anew in Christ. The woman at the well and the woman caught in adultery; Simon-Peter and Matthew and Mary Magdalen – sinners, all, who admitted that they were, and humbly and boldly stepped forth to say “no more.”
They finally were able to say: “I’m done living in darkness. I am done running and pretending to be something I’m not. I am done being tired of carrying around my sin and my shame.”
It takes grace and guts to come to Confession. It takes courage to admit I am a sinner. It may be the most humbling thing in the world to stand before Christ in the Sacrament of Reconciliation and say to Him: “I am really broken and I need you. I’m tired, Lord. I can’t save myself anymore.”
Prostitutes and tax-collectors who had hit rock-bottom found the grace and guts to let mercy unshackle the chains. So did 22 Confirmation retreatants last week.
No more shame. No more hurt.
Who do you and I want to be moving forward? The ones who return after having originally said ‘no’ or the ones who say we will, but never do? A prostitute seeking redemption or a self-righteous Pharisee seeking his own will? Which line will you and I be found standing in?