Prodigal Confession

This is written by Steve Collins and has been reproduced from “Alternative Worship” by Jonny Baker and Doug Gay with Jenny Brown

We confess the sins of the younger son

We confess that we take all you have to give while denying that you were ever our father.

We confess that we hoped you were dead.

We confess that we declared ourselves masters of our own destiny, free from the superstitious rules of humanity’s childhood; and now find that we only have ourselves to blame for things that go wrong.

We confess that we prefer the identities we can buy, wear, and discard to the vulnerable robes of sonship and daughterhood.

We confess that we paint our faces and neglect our souls.

We confess that we are willing victims of those who tell us who to be because it is in their financial interest to do so.

We confess we are in rags in the pigsty, trying to remember who we once thought we were.

We confess our emptiness; our inability to live on what the system gives us, or the machine that the system wants us to be.

We confess that we are to others the system that does not feed; we are to others the system that dehumanises.

We confess that what we find unbearable when it is asked of us, is what we ask of others.

We confess the sins of the older son

We confess that we do our duty while hiding our resentment, saying thank you with our lips while saying ‘is that it’ in our thoughts.

We confess that we insist on our rights rather than waiting for your gifts.

We confess that we judge the younger son harshly and pride ourselves on our superiority; forgetting that pride is the deadliest sin.

We confess that we think it rather weak of you to welcome and forgive so readily; we wish you would live up to our moral standards.

We confess that we do in our hearts what the younger son did in a foreign country; our hearts have become a foreign country to you.

We ask to be forgiven and to be helped to live new lives, both those who went away and those who stayed but went away in their hearts. We want to return home to your embracing welcome, and celebrate with you the feast for a son who was dead and is alive again.

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