At our bible class, we raised the question of the relevance of Repentance, since it was Jesus first sermon: "Repent. The Kingdom of heaven is at hand."
So let us consider repentance.
The first and simplest meaning of repent is to apologize. In a movie about Beethoven, there's a scene in which he becomes furious at his landlady about some little thing, screaming and throwing things, and practically terrorizing her. Later he told her he was sorry. It was a touching moment and you could see that the woman was almost moved to tears. Then he gave her 2 tickets to the concert at which his new symphony was to be performed for the first time, to which she replied, "Mr Beethoven, you're not half bad when you have a civil tongue in your head."
Alcoholics Anonymous is a 12-step program, and upon examination of these steps it appears that repentance is at the heart of the AA program. Steps 4 to 10 (7 of the 12!) are as follows:
4. We made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves.
5. We admitted to ourselves, to God, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs.
6. We were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character.
7. We humbly asked God to remove our shortcomings.
8. We made a list of all persons we had harmed and became willing to make amends to them all.
9. We made direct amends to such people wherever possible, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. We continued to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it.
The founders of AA put into practice -- in a way that has led it to becoming a powerful international movement -- the first sermon of Jesus as articulated in today's reading from Matthew 4: "Repent. The kingdom of heaven is at hand."
So the first method of repentance is apologize, or better yet, in the words of AA's Step 5: "Admit to ourselves, to God, and to another human being the exact nature of our wrongs."
The 3rd verse uses the word itself: "Though you think that you have sinned and aren't fit to be God's child, God will celebrate with a big feast when repentance brings you home. So, come back to his open arms, come back quickly to Jesus." [#343 in the UM hymnal: "Come Back Quickly to the Lord"]
In this hymn, repentance refers to the fact that we have drifted away from faith -- "backsliding" some say -- and now we are beseeched to "come back." Sinful behavior, then, is drifting away, dropping out, leaving something precious to pursue something seductive and alluring but dangerous and harmful.
Years ago we used to sing a song here called "Coming Home." This was the chorus: "We're coming home, we're coming home. With laughing tears of joy, we're coming home, knowing everything's not gone; the night-time has a dawn, it sings another song, coming home."
What's implied here is that we're "home" at the outset. We wander and we stray, but "home" is where we were born.
The mythologist Joseph Campbell says, "The bioenergetic system of the species Homo sapiens, is a constant, and has been a constant for some 40 thousand years -- for 40 millennia." So that basic God-given bioenergetic system is the "home" of every human being -- it is the same for each of us, and from it we drift and it is back to that basic bioenergetic system that we must return. Not only is it our "home," it is also our connection to the divine, to God.
There must be some people in this congregation who feel a deep need to "come home," who are not using their bio-energy in accordance with the Divine Dream, who are alienated from their true Selves. Perhaps they are obsessed with something that is not good for them. Whoever you are, "Come back quickly to the Lord; just come back to the Lord. Though you think that you have sinned and aren't fit to be God's child, God will celebrate with a big feast when repentance brings you home. So, come back to God's open arms, come back quickly unto the Lord."
"Grievance for what we perceive to be our wrong-doings"
If you saw the movie "Hoop Dreams," you may remember how the father of one of the 2 young basketball players, under the pressure of debt, sporadic employment, and a big family, turns to drugs and is sent to jail for 8 months. When he comes home, he and the family start going to church, and at one of the services the father gets up to testify. With the organ in the background, he sings his testimony: "I've had my good days," -- he's singing these words -- "I've seen some bad days, I've had my ups and downs, now O Lord, I've been turned around."
"I've been turned around" is his humble way of saying "I repented."
He later elaborates on his little verse that he sang in church: "While I was incarcerated," he says, "I asked God to show me a different way, give me a new life, take the test of drugs and evil thinking away from me. I asked the Lord to forgive me for what I did. The time I mistreated my wife, beat her physical. I just hope this will be a lesson for my children to see me turn my life over to the Lord."
These words of testimony from a chastened Chicago father remind me of the words in the Lord's Prayer: "Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil. Thine is the kingdom ...
There must be some people in this congregation who feel a deep need to "grieve over their wrong-doings," who are not using their bio-energy in accordance with the Divine Dream, who regret how they are living. Perhaps they are chemically dependent. Perhaps they are engaged in a dishonest venture, or a venture which injures someone else. Perhaps they have neglected or wounded loved ones.
If so, then those people should take to heart the prayer of that simple father in Chicago: "God show me a different way, give me a new life, take the test of evil thinking away from me. Lord forgive me for what I do."
We could run down a list a mile long how every one of us cooperates with our social, political, and economic system which is prejudiced against certain people, and which is destructive of wildlife and nature. To begin with, we pay taxes. which is in part an act of destruction, because almost half of it is used to pay for wars past and wars future. All this talk about balancing the budget and cutting government expenditures makes me laugh, because you never, never hear them say: "for example, the defense budget." We know they mean: "Cut social benefits." And they love to talk about "economic growth." We learned 20 years ago that "economic growth" is the same as "ecological destruction" -- destruction of our earth- home.
Other examples are: when we drive cars we spew carbon dioxide into the air and contribute to global warming; when we eat beef we contribute to deforestation; when we buy a fur coat -- well I don't suppose any of you buys a fur coat. It used to be that when a couple lived together without being married, we would say, "they live in sin." Now if people get up in the morning and go to work, that's enough to say: "They live in sin."
There are a multitude of things about which we must > change our mind.
Somebody once drew me a picture of repentance in the modern age -- 3 pictures actually. The first was a stick figure running. The second was the figure stopped and standing still. The third was the same stick figure running in the opposite direction -- representing a CHANGE OF MIND.
Jesus calls us to repentance which is a summons to do one of these 4 things
-- or something like it.
First, to apologize.
Second, to come home.
Third, to grieve for our wrong-doings.
And fourth, to change our mind.
The command "Repent!" sounds like something terribly negative, but it isn't. It assumes that we are free and that we want to be responsible for our lives. It is an affirmation. It is hopeful. It's a joyous word because it means being welcomed with open arms and having a party.
"Though you think that you have sinned and aren't fit to be God's child, God will celebrate with a big feast when repentance brings you home. So, come back to his open arms, come back quickly to Jesus."
Amen.