What We Have Done And Left Undone

On February 11, 2008, in Lent, by Weston

“Most holy and merciful Father:
We confess to you and to one another,
and to the whole communion of saints
in heaven and on earth,
that we have sinned by our own fault
in thought, word, and deed;
by what we have done, and by what we have left undone.”

- From the “Litany of Penitence” on Ash Wednesday,
The Book of Common Prayer

Rallies across America and alter calls across Evangelica focus on our private struggles with sin. These sins we wrestle with are sins we have committed, wrongs done to others, to ourselves, to our sense of righteousness, to God. People go forward, “repent,” and walk out the door on with the same business. Part of the problem, identified in this prayer, is that we fail to confess our sins to one another. James 5:16, “Therefore confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another, so that you may be healed.” What clearer call is there to sincere repentance that is shared in our community of faith?
But there is a greater wrong with our understanding of sin as shown in this litany. We believe that sin is something we do, something we commit. These sins of commission are only half of the problem. James 4:17 teaches us about the equally deadly sin of omission. Here James writes, “Anyone, then, who knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, commits sin.”
Let us pause today in repentance, personally and corporately. Confessing to our merciful God all that “we have sinned by our own fault in thought, word, and deed.” Let us be about God’s business of righteousness, omitting no act of grace that comes our way. Let us in humility seek God’s grace for our selves and our churches as we imperfectly follow the footsteps of Christ to the cross.