Yup, it really means you are forgiven!
Disestablishment—How do we hear confession and forgiveness? Do the words we use still work? I’m a big proponent of the worship re-writing resource In these and other words, because it forces us to ask questions about language, about the tension between familiarity and surprise. I know when I’ve tweaked the liturgical language of our confession and forgiveness, I inevitably get some interesting responses. Folk who’ve been using the words found on page 77 of the Lutheran Book of Worship since it came out in the 70s are surprised that I seem to be telling them that they are forgiven for their sins. The liturgy had become so familiar that they no longer recognized what the words even meant!
And that right there is the
challenge and opportunity of the disestablishment of the church. The familiar
has become strange and needs to be said again. We get to speak of God’s
forgiveness, we just have to do it in ways that people realize we mean it.
Demographic
Shift—Part of the increased diversity of this country involves an opening
awareness of how history was experienced by a whole variety of people. “Cowboys
and Indians” is experienced very differently by Native Americans. “Give me
liberty or give me death” doesn’t have the same ring to folk whose ancestors
didn’t gain liberty for another century. Manifest Destiny sounds different to
people who grew up in Guam.
Part of “complicating” and “problematizing” history is confession and
forgiveness. After all, forgiveness happens after confession. Acknowledging
historical sins, not to wallow in them, but to right them when possible, to
learn from them for sure, and to try not to repeat them.
I think of the ELCA’s confession of historical persecution of the
Mennonites and their forgiveness of us by washing our presiding bishop’s feet.
At least for me, it was one of those moments where I got to catch a glimpse of
the arch of the moral universe bending toward justice.
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