Texts: Exodus 17:1-7; Romans 5:1-11; John 4:5-42
Do you remember the good old days when parents brought up their children according to traditional values? I do. I had one of those upbringings myself. And one part of that was about the importance of owning up when I did something wrong. You probably had that lesson drummed into you, too. If you've done something wrong, the thing to do is to own up, tell the truth, say sorry, and move on. That's the message that my parents gave me, and it was reinforced at school.
Or was it? Were we praised for our honesty when we confessed our wrongdoing – held up as a good example to others? No, we were not. We were punished for the wrongdoing. And what did that teach us? That honesty doesn't pay. Say nothing – and if that doesn't work, try lying your way out of it. That was the lesson that we soon learned from those who believed that the proper response to a confession was punishment for the crime confessed.
The turning-point for me came in Mr Chapman's class, form 4 in the Crantock Street Primary School. Mr Chapman was a huge man – at least, he looked huge to a small 10-year-old. And Duggie Dishman was certainly one of those. One day Mr Chapman came back into the classroom and was about to sit down behind hid desk when he noticed something unpleasant on the seat – something brown, smelly and produced by a dog. Having a naturally suspicious mind, Mr Chapman did not jump to the obvious conclusion that a dog had somehow managed to get into the classroom, climbed up on the chair, and let nature take its course. Mr Chapman strongly suspected that one of us was responsible for putting the stuff there.
He demanded to know who was responsible for this outrage. And to the astonishment of us all Duggie Dishman put up his hand and confessed. Judging from his expression, for a split second Mr Chapman was as surprised as the rest of us that anyone would own up and tell the truth, but he recovered quickly. My guess is that Duggie Dishman took a week or two longer to recover. But the lesson was very clear. If you follow the teaching of your parents and teachers, don't expect to be praised for your honesty: rather, expect to be very uncomfortable for the next few days.
Something rather similar turned up in our news media this week. Look at the response to the report on mishaps in our hospitals. The medical professionals owned up collectively to a number of serious mistakes made in our hospitals, some of which resulted in death, some in serious injury. Why did they do that? So that they can learn from these instances, and make our hospitals even safer than they are now. And they are very safe. As horrible as the cases were, they represented 2 in every 10,000 hospital admissions. I like those odds; I'll gladly take them if I need surgery at some stage. And I applaud the decision to make this information available.
But what thanks did they get? Headlines in our media about "killer hospitals". Demands for further inquiry, disciplinary action, and naming and shaming. Would it be too surprising if the Duggie Dishman principle came into play here? Isn't the lesson for our health professionals, don't own up to anything, don't acknowledge your mistakes; if you do you will be slammed in the media, and quite possibly sued in the courts? We say we want the truth – we say we want to learn from our mistakes – but all too often, what we really want is to punish those who have done wrong, or to sue them for every penny we can get out of them – or their employer, or their insurer or anyone else. We might call it justice. What we can't call it is godly. What we can't call it is merciful. What we can't call it is truth-promoting. What we can't call it is forgiveness.
And so to the reading from the Book of Exodus this morning (not Genesis, as it says in the notes!). Here we have a very vivid demonstration of the difference between the human and the divine approach to wrongdoing. As human beings we can sympathise with Moses' feelings here. It's not easy leading these people. They are born grumblers – with, it must be said, something to grumble about. They, too, are all too human. When they were slaves in Egypt, they had a terrible life. Then God, working through Moses, rescued them, led them out of Egypt and called upon them to follow his and he would give them a land of their own.
But they had to get there first, and that involved the difficult matter of getting through the wilderness. And so the grumbling started. And very soon they were convincing themselves that they were better off in Egypt. Far from being rescued they had been dragged away against their better judgment by this madcap Moses, and brought out to die in the desert. What are we going to eat? What are we going to drink? At the very least, they have lost their trust in God. When they were escaping, when they saw the waters part for them, and then close back and drown their Egyptian enemies, it had been easy to believe in God. It always is when things are going well for us. But now the difficulties have come, and their faith is gone.
Now they turn on Moses. This wasn't God's idea, this was his. He has conned them. They were quarrelling among themselves and asking, "Is the Lord among us or not?" And notice that the author describes this as 'testing the Lord'. That expression ought to ring loud bells for us, because not so long ago we had the Temptation of Christ; and one of the Scriptures Jesus quoted to Satan was, "You shall not put the Lord your God to the test."
So the case against the Israelites at this point is pretty strong. What they should do is own up, confess their wrongdoing, be honest, and apologise. That's probably what Moses – the Mr Chapman figure in all this – wants them to do; and when there's no sign of that happening, he turns in despair to God. What am I to do with these people? They are almost ready to stone me?
And the God in whom they have lost faith, the God against whom they have offended, does what? Demands confession, demands an apology? No – he doesn't. He meets their need, as he has been doing all along the way. He demonstrates yet again that he is their, God, that he is among them, and that Moses is his instrument. In other words, he reminds them that they are his people, that he loves and accepts them, despite their failures and their sins.
St Paul famously puts the same thought this way in his Letter to the Romans: You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
God forgiveness, embodied in Jesus Christ, came to us while were still offending against God. We didn't have to clean up our act, confess our sins, or anything else first – God's forgives precedes our confession.
St John illustrates this same principle in his lovely story of the encounter between Jesus and the woman at the well. Culturally, humanly, this woman is a nobody, the lowest of the low. She is a woman, not a man; she is a Samaritan, not a Jew. Worst of all, she is a Samaritan woman of low reputation. She has, shall we say, an interesting marital and domestic history. She doesn't even begin to admit any of that stuff until after Jesus has demonstrated his complete acceptance of her. And, anyway, Jesus already knew all that stuff. It makes no difference to him: he accepts her as and who she is.
All of this doesn't, of course, mean that we should not confess our sins. What it does mean is that confession is for us, not for God. To confess our sins is to off-load those things that make us feel separated from God: it is not a way of seeking to win back God's love, which we have lost through sinning.
And all this means that we can confess our sins – we can be honest and tell the truth – in the certain assurance that we are not going to be beaten up as Duggie Dishman was, or vilified in the press as out hospital staff have been, or sued or whatever. We are going to be assured that God is and always has been among us. That we have already been forgiven, cleansed, and reconciled to God through the cross of Christ. That God already knows of our sins before we confess them, and that nothing we can do will ever make any difference to his love for us.
That's not justice. That's forgiveness. That's mercy. That's God's way, whatever we put on his seat, and however many mistakes we make.
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