In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
Everything has to be in its right place. Everything has to be in its proper order. That is one of the reasons why, in the Gospel readings, every time we see the Lord encounter people who are oppressed and overtaken by the devil in one way or another, there is always a dramatic encounter. Things are set straight right away. The forces of darkness are creators of chaos, mess, ruination and disorder. The Lord, who is the Source of light, puts everything in its right place. He makes everything be known as it ought to be known, and everyone known as she or he ought to be known. The Lord sets the prisoners free, and gives sight to the blind (see Psalm 145:7-8). The Lord is the One who made everything to be in its proper order in the first place. The forces of darkness try to upset and bring confusion to this order. It is the Lord who restores the order again. We are part of that work of restoration, ourselves.
There is an old Gospel hymn, a really sentimental one : “O to be His hand extended, reaching out into this world of sin”. It is very sentimental and very emotional, but on the other hand it does express what we are supposed to be doing. In some way, we are supposed to be the Lord’s agents, reaching out in this world, doing His work, helping Him to bring things back into their proper perspective and order. We begin with our own lives by putting our own lives in order with the Lord, by going to confession regularly, and getting things straightened out inside. We must get our house in order so that the devil will not have the opportunity to deceive us, to make us think that we are something that we are not and somehow twist our understanding of ourselves.
I think that going to confession regularly is one of the most important things that we neglect in our lives. Of course, no-one likes to go to confession. However, if we are going to keep our lives in order, then going to confession is truly a fundamental tool. When we just go on our own strength and try to live day-by-day, when we try to be satisfied with our own daily repentance, somehow, if we do not go to confession in public, we allow ourselves to get off too easily. We probably use the famous, old excuses and say to ourselves : “I am no worse than anyone else”. “I am just as good as the next person. My sins are not so bad after all”. We let ourselves off too easily. The fact is that our sins are not very good at all. They are worse than not very good at all. They are bad. Our sins separate us from the love of God. Confession is the discipline of coming in front of the rest of the church in order to admit our sins before God and the assembly, with the priest as the witness for the rest of the church. Our spiritual ancestors used to make a confession openly and publicly. We get off easily compared to them. For them, although smaller sins might be dealt with more circumspectly, it was certainly anything that was larger (which could separate the penitent from receiving the Holy Mysteries) that was confessed in this open manner. Such was their humility. Even so, it is now possible sometimes to see that sort of humility.
For us to go to confession before our priest, who is our witness on behalf of the Church, and confess to the Lord in front of everyone else that we are sinners, and to name the sins, is to remove the power of sin over us. By naming the sin, we “undress the devil”, as it were. We expose him. We reveal to him that we know his tricks with us and we confess to the Lord (we are confessing to the Lord and not to the priest) that we have fallen into the trap. Whether we fell into this trap willingly or unwillingly, knowingly or unknowingly, we nevertheless did do it. We are sorry for it and we wish to put things right.
In such a situation, sometimes the Lord even speaks to us through our priest. Amazing as it may seem, there are occasions when the Lord does inspire the hearts and minds of priests in confession. Things are uncovered that are not even verbalised by the penitent, because the Lord knows us so completely that He will even go so far as to uncover things that we are too afraid to say ourselves. But also, even if that is not necessary, the Lord, through the mouth of a priest (sometimes even the most unlikely and unworthy priest) will say something to us that will set us straight. He shows us not only how we should get over our weakness in sin, but even how to be strong in avoiding sin in the future. These things do occur.
This world in which we live is full of chaos and confusion. For the most part, in this society nowadays, people do not know what their places are. They do not know how they properly relate to other people nowadays because relationships are all confused and messed up. Our roles are mixed up. Things that were generally expected for many generations are now all “up for grabs” in this society. It is up to us, in the midst of all this confusion to find some order, and to bring the Lord’s order back. Perhaps precisely the way things have always been done for generations is not what is going to be found for us in North America. However, it is up to us Orthodox Christians (more than to anyone else) to help to find this order in relationships.