Back when I was 17, we had moved back to this Valley and I got a job with the farmer across the road from our home on the piedmont in New Hope, Va. There were 3 generations living on that farm and it was a very active beef, hog, and alfalfa and corn operation. But the most well known attribute of this farm was the hog business with its farrowing operation and such. I can explain why it was well known in the community with just one word, honey! No, not the sweet tasting delight made from bees, but the animal waste that was sprayed onto the farmers fields to fertilize the upcoming crop. It stunk, a lot!!!
If I were standing on the front porch of our house there on the piedmont, I could chuck a rock across the road and land it deep into one of those productive farming fields. When the animal waste pits needed to be cleaned out, the farmer would fill his honeywagon and ride to his fields and spray this fertile liquid on the dry ground weeks before planting. Back in those times, we didn’t have central air conditioning but even if the windows were shut, the ranch house would fill with that gagging aroma from the hog honey. The air outside was infused with stench! It took weeks before the smell would dissipate and be diminished by rain, wind and the sun. And all the locals tended to avoid driving that part of the road during those fertile times.
Out in the front of our house, even all of Mom’s roses bushes perked up a bit just as the aroma lingered around to and fro in the air! Now you can imagine how hard it would be to clean that smell off of your clothes and hands as well. And if you had been working the hogs, people could smell you from afar! The stench was so prideful, that it would just sit back and laugh at Dawn and Ivory soap! And there was only one known solution that would cut it down, good ole lye soap!
I hopefully have provided a tangible illustration of that aroma. On the farm, it is part of the process of taking that little piggy to the market and if you love sausage and bacon, you and I are surely glad he did!! As I read the Epistle to the Church in Corinth this week, I was reminded of that terrible smell, cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit. (2 Cor 7:1) That too is a most powerful filth!
I think then for a bit about our filthiness and its type of smell. It more than likely smells like death. The absence of allowing God’s living light to expose our sin is a spiritual death. As St. James records: “Confess your trespasses to one another, and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The effective, fervent prayer of a righteous man avails much.” (James 5:16)
The Scriptures clearly illustrate the authority Christ gave His disciples and their successors with the laying on of hands (2 Timothy 1:6) and the grace to forgive sins (John 20:23, Mt. 16:19). From the very beginning, Christians understood that the grace of ordination gifted the shepherd of the flock with the discernment and compassion to offer guidance and remit confessed sins on behalf of Christ.
Back in the days of old, we see King Jeroboam’s plea in the Holy Scripture in 1 Kings 13:6: “Then the king responded to the man of God, "Intercede with the LORD your God and pray that my hand may be restored." So the man of God interceded with the LORD, and the king's hand was restored to him as it was before.” And also the example in Job 42:8: “So now, take seven bulls and seven rams, go to My servant Job, and sacrifice a burnt offering for yourselves. Then My servant Job will pray for you, for I will accept his prayer and not deal with you according to your folly. For you have not spoken accurately about Me, as My servant Job has."
We do not confess to the priest himself; we confess to God in the presence of the priest. You can however confess to God privately, however, there is no clear biblical basis for that practice. In His mercy, God provides the sacrament of confession to give us deliverance from sin and from denial. It is easy for us to pray in isolation yet never come clean about our sins or make an attempt to change. It is far more effective to confess aloud to God before a priest and benefit from his guidance and help and accountability. Saint Bede the Venerable adds: “Although it may seem that this power of loosing and binding was given by the Lord only to Peter, we must nevertheless know without any doubt that it was also given to the other apostles, as Christ Himself testified when, after the triumph of His Passion and resurrection, He appeared to them and breathed upon them and said to them all: ‘Receive ye the Holy Spirit: if ye forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven to them; if ye retain the sins of any, they are retained [Jn. 20:22, 23].’ Indeed, even now the same office is committed to the whole Church in her bishops and priests.” [Hom. I.20, op. cit., 202.]
The gift of confession is echoed throughout the Bible perhaps starting in Genesis 41:9-19: “Then spake the chief butler unto Pharaoh, saying, I do remember my faults this day: …* and notably anchoring itself in Mathew 3:5-6 with the baptizer John: “Then Jerusalem, and all Judæa, and all the country round about the Jordan were going out to him, And were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins.”
Brothers and sisters, as Orthodox Christians we must read the preparatory prayers for Holy Communion each week which will help open our eyes to the Light of Christ, and come to confession to remove your stinky filth, “perfecting holiness in the fear of God.” (2 Cor 7:1) “For there is not a just man upon earth, that doeth good, and sinneth not.” (Ecc7:20)
It is time to remove the stains and filth of sin and take your little stinky piggy to market, or better yet, bring your little filthy piggies to church!!
0 Lord, Heavenly King, Comforter, Spirit of Truth, show compassion and have mercy on me Thy sinful servant, and loose me from mine unworthiness, and forgive all wherein I have sinned against Thee today as a man, and not only as a man, but even worse than a beast, my sins voluntary and involuntary, known and unknown, whether from youth, and from evil suggestion, or whether from brazenness and despondency. If I have sworn by Thy name, or blasphemed it in my thought; or grieved anyone, or have become angry about anything; or have lied, or slept needlessly, or if a beggar hath come to me and I disdained him; or if I have grieved my brother, or have quarreled, or have condemned anyone; or if I have been boastful, or prideful, or angry; if, as I stood at prayer, my mind hath been distracted by the wiles of this world, or by thoughts of depravity; or if I have over eaten, or have drunk excessively, or laughed frivolously; if I have thought evil, seen the beauty of an! other and been wounded thereby in my heart; if I have said improper things, or derided my brother's sin when mine own sins are countless; if I have been neglectful of prayer, or have done some other wrong that I do not remember, for all of this and more than this have I done: have mercy, 0 Master my Creator, me Thy downcast and unworthy servant, and loose me, and remit, and forgive me, for Thou art good and the Lover of mankind, so that, lustful, sinful, and wretched as I am, I may lie down and sleep and rest in peace. And I shall worship, and hymn, and glorify Thy most honorable name, together with the Father and His Only-begotten Son, now and ever, and unto the ages. (Prayer III, to the Holy Spirit, Jordanville Prayer Book)
