SUNDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2007

THE TWENTIETH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

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Dear Friends in Our Lord Jesus:

Forty years ago, a respected professor at the University of Illinois was elected president of the American Psychological Association. It was the crowning accomplishment in the long and distinguished career of Dr. O. Hobart Mowrer.

But before Dr. Mowrer could take office, he fell headlong into a desperate period of clinical depression. The nightmare reached its peak when the professor was hospitalized and assigned an intense regimen of medication, observation, physical activity, and psychotherapy.

His struggle for sanity stretched into a blurry period of several years, during which time the intensely religious scholar on numerous occasions reached the point of giving up. He found help from the hospital chaplain.

One day, after a time of prayer, the chaplain and a fellow clergyman spent several hours talking with Dr. Mowrer. They concluded that the depression stemmed from feelings of guilt, carried around for years as a result of unconfessed sins. Their advice to Dr. Mowrer was simple: Confess your sins, and you will get well.

And that’s what Dr. Mowrer did. He went to his home parish in Urbana, Illinois (First Presbyterian Church), and asked for time during a worship service to address the congregation. On three separate occasions he publicly confessed to sins he had committed -- sins he had suppressed in some instances for decades. He also took immediate action to make amends and restitution as each incident demanded. And then a remarkable thing happened. He got well.

Holy Scripture tells us: “If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and there is no truth in us. But if we confess our sins to God, He will keep His promise and do what is right: He will forgive us our sins and purify us from all wrongdoing” (I John 1:5-9).

Quite simply, there is no problem too big for God.

-- The Very Rev. Dr. Steve Sellers +