We Confess Our Disobedience

Beginning on Ash Wednesday, Bishop Wright invites all to a five-week Lenten teaching series, We Confess, with weekly video meditations and study guides that frame Lent as a loving turn toward healing, renewal, and hope through honest confession. You can learn more about the series at episcopalatlanta.org/lent26.

In this week's episode, Melissa and Bishop Wright have a conversation about the first reflection: We Confess Our Disobedience to God. Starting with Genesis 2–3 as a living paradigm, they unpack why humans reach for control even when life is abundant, and how that refusal to submit to God’s words and ways leads to guilt, isolation, and disobedience. The aim isn’t to scold; it’s to show a path home. Listen in for the full conversation.

Transcript

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Starting With Our Bent To Disobey

Bishop Wright 0:00

We can have all that we need, and somehow there's an appetite in us to do something uh that is out of the will of God because we somehow know better for ourselves. We somehow have decided to go our own way. Sometimes we choose just the exactly the opposite. Uh either we choose it willingly uh or we sort of back into some of those choices. That's where I want to start. I want to start where Genesis starts that we have this pension for uh for disobedience.

Welcome And Lenten Series Setup

Melissa 0:40

Welcome to For People with Bishop Rob Wright. I'm Melissa Rau, and this is a conversation inspired by For Faith, a weekly devotion sent out every Friday. You can find a link to this week's For Faith and a link to subscribe in the episode's description. Now, during the season of Lent, Bishop Wright invites all to a five-week Lenten series called We Confess with weekly video meditations and study guides that frame Lent as a loving turn toward healing, renewal, and hope through honest confession. You can learn more about the series at episcopalatlanta.org. Okay, Bishop. Good morning.

Bishop Wright 1:19

Good morning.

What Confession Really Is

Melissa 1:20

All right. So uh your first devotion, you called We Confess Our Disobedience. It's inspired by Genesis chapters two and three. But before we go there, I'm just curious if you can frame what confession is and why it's so important and a great tool for us.

Bishop Wright 1:40

Well, confession is really just uh an admission that um what is true, which is um life being what it is, we being who we are, we fall out of alignment uh with God's will and God's way and God's word. And um confession is really uh it's a path back home. It's a path back home to ourselves and to God and to the best expression of neighborliness. Confession, I I I love the idea, I love the practice. It's life-giving. It's not uh it's not some sort of woe is me, I have no worth, or uh it's not a celebration of shame or guilt, or it's not even a manipulation of those things. It's a practice um that gives freedom. Um and it starts with reflection, uh, it starts with a deep honesty. Uh Psalm 51 uh says that uh this is about uh answering the call to deep truth. Uh it's about interrogating our lives and giving that voice. Um, confession uh can be um to a clergy person with a clergy person. It can be um to a therapist, it can be to some trusted um spiritual friend. Uh, but it's it's it's about just taking responsibility, accountability of some of the patterns that we've fallen into. Uh it's a gift of the Holy Spirit to be able to confess,

Adam And Eve As Living Paradigm

Bishop Wright 3:15

to recognize that we're not condemned by admitting uh what is true, um, that we fall short. Uh and it's the first step in our way back home.

Melissa 3:28

Okay. So, how about you frame this week's of course it's based off of Adam and Eve, the first uh the second third chapters. And so you said we confess our disobedience. Want to say more?

Bishop Wright 3:39

Yeah, I mean, you know, some people want to dismiss the story of Adam and Eve, and they want to get into all the intricacies of it. I I think that Adam and Eve, the Adam and Eve story, is a is a gift of great genius for us. Um, I don't think it's supposed to be taken literally. Uh, I think it's supposed to be um a gift of uh a paradigm that we can examine in a story. And so uh uh Adam and Eve are the beneficiaries of God's near presence and all of God's provision. And I mean, it's just it's lush if you can think about Garden of Eden. It's just a wonderful gift to our imagination. We think about all that, and then we think about um, you know, this devil uh who shows up as a snake, uh, and the snake gets them, uh, gets Eve first, and then uh Adam joins willingly. Um, you know, they're told not to eat the uh the apple, uh, which was probably not an apple, um, but not to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, uh, and they do. And so I think that the point there is that um trying to identify and name this thing that that we have uh called disobedience. Um we can have everything, uh, we can have all that we need, and and somehow there's an appetite in us uh to do something uh that is out of the will of God because we somehow know better for ourselves. We somehow have decided to go our own way uh and choose and make some

Submission, Ego, And Consequences

Bishop Wright 5:10

choices and and do some decisions. And uh so that's why I think this story is of great worth. It's an invitation to meditation on that and to acknowledge that uh we all have our relationship with disobedience, and disobedience uh to what? Uh disobedience to uh what God prefers, uh what ultimately will bring us health and life, strength and joy. Uh sometimes we choose just the exactly the opposite. Uh, either we choose it willingly uh or we sort of back into some of those choices. Uh and so that's where I want to start. I want to start where Genesis starts, with uh that we have this pension for uh for disobedience.

Melissa 5:52

Okay, so you have a big bold claim here that says all disobedience to God at its core is a refusal to submit to God's words and ways.

Bishop Wright 6:01

Yeah, that's right.

Melissa 6:02

I I mean that that's a big deal, I think, right there.

Bishop Wright 6:06

Because we don't like that word submission. Yeah, we don't we don't like that word submission. I mean, zoom out and think about it this way. I mean, uh, you know, don't we know enough about human ego and human blindness, uh, and human callousness, uh, and human ignorance to know that that we don't know best. Um and uh and for those of us who are people of faith, part of what it means to be a faithful person is to acknowledge that God knows best. Um, it's to be able to uh temper our uh our urgent needs, or at least we think there are urgent needs, uh, and our way forward with uh with God's way forward and what God says is best over the long haul. So it's a refusal to submit to that. It's uh it's deciding that we are wiser uh than we actually are, uh, and uh and then to then uh embark on behavior or non-behavior, and uh, and then we end up what's funny really about it is that then we end up in predicaments, uh, and then we say, oh God save us or God rescue us. And thank God that God is graceful and patient and merciful because we keep running right into the ditches uh that God would have us to avoid. In fact, God empowers us, equips us uh to avoid. And this is what's at the story, uh at the base of the story is that a refusal to submit to God's way and will and words uh has consequences. And uh in Adam and Eve's the Adam and Eve story, we see that the consequences uh they go from thriving and um in beauty and grandeur uh to something very different. Uh now they uh shame is introduced, guilt is introduced, alienation, isolation is introduced into the story. Some people call it the fall, um, and it's a fall from grace. And so um, yeah, I think I want to just hold that up. And what I'm hoping with this meditation is that in the quietness of our own mind, in our own meditation, in our walks, uh, in our prayer life, uh, we can admit that and maybe even reflect back over our own sort of spiritual photo album and acknowledge the times when we went our own way and uh and it just opened up a world of chaos

Blame Vs Accountability

Bishop Wright 8:30

for us.

Melissa 8:52

I'm I'm being a little hyper uh focused on the idea of blame. And you know, I'm curious about your thoughts on when we confess, how quick Adam was to blame Eve.

Bishop Wright 9:10

Yeah.

Melissa 9:10

Eve blamed the serpent. Exactly. Where where is blame or taking responsibility or accountability for our own actions or choices? How does that get interrupted in the act of confession?

Bishop Wright 9:25

Well, yeah, I mean, again, um Adam blames Eve, Eve blames the snake, right? Uh, and maybe the snake blames God, right? To say, hey, well, if you wouldn't have put the tree uh in such easy access, uh, we would have never had this whole situation. Um, but but I think that just is a is a great little riff on uh or fodder for meditation on the ways in which we try to delegate what we are actually accountable for. And and when we do that, we short circuit um accountability, uh we short circuit this notion that we have agency. Uh and I think we we short circuit um what real reconciliation ultimately ends up being. Um it's when I take accountability, it's when I acknowledge that I've uh I've sinned against God, I've sinned against my neighbor, I've sinned against my own self. It's when I acknowledge that, that I took up those actions, uh, that now I have responsibility and I can co-create, or at least I can be the beneficiary of uh God's plan for reconciliation, which has to do with I take responsibility for my actions, my words, et cetera. I don't try to deflect and defer. Uh I own it, and now I'm ready to seek alignment. And I want God's grace to even offer some restoration

Confessing To God Or To People

Bishop Wright 10:50

in all that process. What I hope happens uh in confession, a fruit of confession, is uh some new wisdom. Uh I've tried that. I don't want to go back there again. Uh it has no life for me, it has no health for me, therefore. So confession is, you know, all of that bundled together. I I see now the air of my ways. I don't want to go back there. It's too costly for me, for my relationships, for my connection with God, and therefore I have learned. If we've fallen and made some mistakes and we've learned, then that's wonderful. Um, if we establish patterns where we deflect uh our own accountability, then that's in some ways uh a great definition of uh immaturity and and and we have not learned, and we're doomed, I think, uh to continue to repeat the pattern until such time that we're ready to acknowledge our role.

Melissa 11:48

Okay, so earlier you mentioned about confessing to like a therapist or a priest or a trusted friend. Uh is that necessary? Like, can we just confess to God? Or what is the the benefit of confessing to another person human?

Bishop Wright 12:04

Well, I think the Bible holds out a couple possibilities. One, it is uh to simply say and acknowledge uh in my quiet of my prayer life that I am now sincerely sorry. I I think we can do that with God. I think that's that's a possibility that's held out for us in scripture. And I think also there are um occasions when we really do need to look someone else in the face and say, I'm sorry, uh, and uh and I ask you for your forgiveness. And I think there are occasions in our life where we need another human being to remind us that God is a loving and forgiving God, and to remind us that now we are absolved of our sin and that now we can move forward. Uh so I think it's uh yes and to all of those, all of those sorts of things. Sometimes we have a hard time believing that we're forgiven. And sometimes, even though we say the words uh and have our time with God, or maybe even in worship service uh where we sincerely confess, uh, sometimes uh we don't take God up on God's gracious offer to leave it there. Sometimes we want to drag it forward. And so uh when we find that that is our habit, uh someone else reassuring us uh of our forgiveness, I think is a great gift.

Melissa 13:29

Okay, so Bishop, last but not least, how might we go about a confession of disobedience?

A Concrete Script For Confession

Melissa 13:35

Like, do we have to get granular or like do we have to name exactly how because I feel like this is a big bucket.

Bishop Wright 13:43

Well, it's a big bucket. Let's look at it. Let's let's try a concrete example. Um, I I think that um in relationships with one with one another, um, I I think it's it's helpful sometimes to say, for instance, Melissa, in our last exchange, uh, I I hurt your feelings. I was angry. I said some things uh that I shouldn't have said. I totally own it. Uh upon reflection, I was wrong. I know, I know that I hurt you, and I know in hurting you I've hurt God. And uh and I ask for your forgiveness. I I think that that would make most marriages stronger. I think that would make most human relationships stronger, better, more healthy. Um, you know, in human relationships, uh, I I don't think that just sort of tacitly understanding that uh we may have aired uh is enough. I I think there is something amazingly healing about, I mean, look, therapists will tell you there's power in that. If if there was no power in that, there wouldn't be anything like therapists. Uh there's something about humanity that needs to say those words to another person, and there's something about humanity that needs to hear those words from another so that we can move on. Um, but again, uh, I want to just hold out this idea of confession uh as the first step in liberation, uh as the first step in health.

Confession Reframed As Release

Bishop Wright 15:20

And I think that's where we need to talk about it. Uh, it can be talked about as shame and guilt and all those sorts of things, but it really needs to be reframed entirely uh as a way uh towards freedom. It's release. Yeah, I think that's the better word.

Melissa 15:35

Indeed. Bishop, thank you for your insight and listeners. We thank you for tuning in to For People. You can follow us on Instagram and Facebook at Bishop Rob Wright or by visiting www.forpeople.digital. Please subscribe, leave a review, and we'll be back with you next week.