Many faith traditions include the discipline of confession. We come before an omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient God of moral perfection with an attitude of contrition. We know that we have not yet reached the place of complete knowledge of and union with God. We acknowledge our failures. We speak the truth of our own shortcomings. We admit that we have done what we ought not to have done and we have left undone the things we ought to have done. We think, wrongly, that we are telling God something God does not already know. If God is omniscient, we are not telling God anything. In confession our attitude of humility allows us to hear God tell us our faults.

In many faith traditions we make communal confessions: For example: “We acknowledge that we are sinners and we confess our sins — those known to us that burden our hearts and those unknown to us but seen by you. We know that before you nothing remains hidden, and in you everything is revealed. Free us from the slavery of sin; liberate us from the bondage of guilt; work in us that which is pleasing in your sight; for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.” (from This Far by Faith: An African American Resource for Worship)

Communal confessions are usually followed by a period of silence where the individual can confess to God her wrongdoing. Both communal and personal confession presuppose guilt.

In ancient Egypt, the believer confessed innocence. The goddess Ma’at ruled truth and justice. Ma’at was the moral structure of the universe. An individual’s moral responsibility was to respect this structure. Individual responsibility was to live in righteous relationship before the gods, humanity and nature. In this tradition, upon death the soul was weighed on a scale with a feather. Transgressions against Ma’at made the soul too heavy for salvation, and it was thrown out to be eaten by animals. The unencumbered soul few away to eternal bliss. The righteous soul told what it had not done. “I have not committed sins against men. I have not opposed my family and kinfolk. I have not acted fraudulently in the Seat of Truth. I have not known men who were of no account. I have not defrauded the humble man of his property. I have not done what the gods abominate. I have not vilified a slave to his master. I have not inflicted pain. I have not caused anyone to go hungry. I have not made any man to weep. I have not committed murder. . . . I have not encroached on the fields (of others). I have not added to the weights of the scales. I have not driven cattle away from their pastures. I have not snared the geese in the goose-pen of the gods. I have not caught fish with bait made of the bodies of the same kind of fish. I have not stopped water when it should flow. . . . I am pure. I am pure. I am pure.” (from an essay by Deborah Howard accessed 9/29/09)

There are confessions of guilt and confessions of innocence. Let us consider confessions of effort. Confessions of effort say what we are doing toward achieving a greater goal. Confessions of effort are a kind of confession of innocence while admitting that if our efforts stop or falter, we will be guilty of stopping too soon.

President Obama gave an example of confessions of effort in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly. He recognized that nations have a responsibility to each other. When we think about responsibility, we think about accountability, the question becomes: to whom are we accountable? At the UN, President Obama recognized the mutual interests and responsibilities of nations. He said: “Now like you, my responsibility is to act in the interests of my nation and my people, and I will never apologize for defending those interests. But it is my deeply held belief that in the year 2009 — more than any point in human history — the interests of nations and peoples are shared.”

The president further called for “a new era of engagement based on mutual interests and mutual respect.”

His confessions of effort included ending torture and ordering the closure of the prison at Guantanamo Bay. He spoke of an effort to live according to a rule of law. He talked about the defeat of al Qaeda and the process of bringing American combat troops home from Iraq. He talked about working toward a goal of a world without nuclear weapons. He spoke about work toward a two-state solution for peace in the Middle East. He spoke of a push toward clean energy and navigating the global economic crisis. He said the U.S. had paid its bills to the UN, joined the Human Rights Council, signed the Convention of the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and embraced the Millennium Development Goals. He admitted: “This is just the beginning. Some of our actions have yielded progress. Some have laid the groundwork for progress in the future.”

The essence of confessions of effort is the recognition of the importance of steady, day by day work toward a goal. Our efforts ought to comport with the moral requirements of a good God. They ought to respect truth and justice. Such confession knows that we are not innocent, but we are guilty if we do not continue to strive, to work with a will toward our own righteousness through our efforts to do our part to establish justice on the earth.