We have been talking about the problem of the nagging conscience. A sin has been bothering you, a sin that you can’t seem to deal with.
If you have a besetting sin, a sin that you keep committing—whether it is irritation with the kids, or attitudes of envy and lust, or discontent in your job—these recurrent problems should not make you assume that you ought not be coming to the Table. Of course you should come to the Table—here is strength to help in the task of mortification. These are the ordinary sins that ordinary Christians struggle with, and the grace available here helps you struggle with them.
The principle is the same even if the recurrent temptation and sin is far more serious—say, bank robberies, or adulterous affairs, or cruising gay bars. But with these kinds of sins, what you need to do immediately is involve some pastoral accountability. If you try to apply the available means of grace to great sins, and you try to do it on your own, the chances are great that you are only kidding yourself, lying to yourself, healing the wound lightly. So you shouldn’t excommunicate yourself—but you must bust yourself. There are other means of grace beyond what we see here.
But if the sin is not recurrent, and the only thing it is doing is weighing on your conscience—regardless of how many times you confess it—this means either that some restitution is lacking, or that the sin is actually the morbid introspection. If you stole twenty bucks from your roommate ten years ago, you need to keep coming to this Table, seeking the strength you need to put that right. Don’t excommunicate yourself—get strength to do the right thing.
But there is one other possibility. Perhaps you have the kind of conscience that worries a subject to death. You sinned against your roommate ten years ago, sought her forgiveness, she granted it, and yet you are still obsessing about it. The problem here is not the original sin, but the current sin of unbelief—God says He has forgiven something, and you are maintaining that He has not. Come to the Table then, asking to be grown up into the kind of Christian who can receive forgiveness.
But one way or another, all of us have a responsibility to come. Take and eat, take and drink. The Lord’s kindness is here.