Sermons

A Call to Repentance

Preached by Mother Robyn Arnold on Last Sunday after the Epiphany (Sunday, February 22, 2009)

It seems very strange to hear admonitions against practicing our piety publicly at the same time we are here to receive ashes. This is after all a very public display of our faith... and dependent upon the spirit in which we receive and wear them, we could very well be guilty of the same sin Jesus is warning us against. At the same time in a world where the signs of Christ’s presence among us are often overlooked it can be a bold and powerful witness to openly say to the world, I am a Christian and as such I am called to repentance.

In his book “the Symbolic Species” in a chapter titled “and the word became flesh”, UC Berkeley Anthropology professor Terrence Deacon makes a very intriguing statement about the “evolutionary miracle” of the human brain. He writes that the evolutionary changes in the brain that make it capable of “unprecedented mental feats occurred in response to the use of words”. Basically, a thought changed the physical structure of the brain.

So, why am I talking about brains and the power of the word? Because at its root that’s what Ash Wednesday; that’s what Lent is about… repentance, in the Greek metanoia…, literally “after or behind one’s mind”, figuratively to “change one’s mind”… in this case a thought changing the brain and thus changing the person. On the surface this sounds like a simple process. We change our minds every day… but this is not simple and it goes deeper than decision-making. True repentance requires serious self-examination, humility and a deep desire to be subject to the will of God. It is not to be entered into lightly.

True repentance requires us to confront the two lies that are the foundation of our modern human experience. One lie we learn to tell almost from the moment we learn to speak and the other we never speak but it directs our actions every day. The first lie: “it was not my fault” and the second, “I am not going to die.”

As a society we’ve gotten so good at telling both of these lies we have institutionalized them. Politicians practice “it’s not my fault” and call it spin, manufacturers call it “public relations”. “What, my peanut butter has been killing old people and children… well that’s not my fault”. “What, that wasn’t a weapons plant we bombed but a hospital… that’s collateral damage… and not our fault.”

An entire industry, plus advertising has sprung up around the lie that “we will not die”. We can dye our hair, cover our age spots with makeup, inject botulinum toxin into our faces to flatten our wrinkles, inject our lips with collagen, implant sacks of silicon in strange places, all so our mirrors will repeat the lie back to us and tell us that this body will not die. What does it matter that we look slightly inhuman and a bit synthetic? At least we don’t look “old”, in other words we don’t look “mortal”.

“Our days are like the grass; we flourish like a flower of the field; when the wind goes over it, it is gone, and its place shall know it no more.“

While we, who wear the ashes may have many ideas about the message they proclaim the most prominent “I am dust… I am mortal… I will die” is perhaps the hardest to hear. We live in a world that seeks to separate us from the dying and from the reality of our own death. To stand face to face with our mortality and to commit this life, however long it is into the care of God is both humbling and empowering. It is part of that life of paradox that we live as Christians.

To be a follower of Christ is to live in a liminal space, to not just stand at a threshold but to live in the doorway, to hold in tension two seemingly contradictory realities. As Christians we believe in an invisible God, and yet recognize signs of that God revealed in the tangible world. As Christians we accept that we are biological creatures and yet something about us is the very “Image of God”. We understand that we are steeped in our sinfulness and yet know the truth of God’s forgiveness that makes us infinitely precious. We walk daily in the shadow of death, while looking ahead to an eternal life and a resurrected body. We know that we are acceptable to God as we are and yet are called to a life of holiness. We are to practice our piety in secret and yet offer our very lives as witness to the world. Nothing about our life as a Christian is static, as we attempt to live fully in this time … in this world… with an eye toward eternity. The Kingdom is coming and yet look, the Kingdom is at hand

The call to repentance is not made so that we can meet some arbitrary requirement of a changeable God. It is instead an offer of freedom and acceptance. To live one’s life honestly, openly, lovingly is the greatest freedom of all. We know so little of that because we spend our lives hiding our true selves and lying about our motivations and our actions. Some of us get really good at it and lie so well we even deceive ourselves. The prophet Isaiah calls us into the open, “Yet day after day they seek me, and delight to know my ways, as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness” … as if they were a nation that actually practiced righteousness. “O God show me your ways, but don’t make me change mine.”

But aren’t we acceptable to God as we are? Wasn’t that the whole point of the Crucifixion? Our Lord Jesus Christ took our sin upon himself and put it away from us once and for all… “a perfect sacrifice for the whole world.” Yes, we are acceptable and welcomed by God wherever we are in our lives and in whatever state we are in our persons, but we’ve used that as an excuse to remain unchanged… lazy… apathetic.

What does it matter anyway, if we are all so sinful? No matter what we do we’re going to sin, so what’s the point? It is also true that none of us by our own efforts or merit can be anything but sinful. The Apostle Paul who called himself the “chiefest of sinners” confessed that “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” The reality is that sin is inevitable and all of us deceive ourselves and see ourselves as better or worse than we actually are. The reality is that no matter how strong our faith in God, all of us at some level fear death. The call to repentance is a call to recognize our helplessness in the face of our own sin and inevitable death and to accept God’s mercy and grace to forgive and heal us.

We can only do this by attempting to be honest with ourselves and accept that we are not good, we are not holy and while there are horrible things in our lives for which we are not to blame, there are others for which we are. The call to repentance is a call to accept the consequences of our own actions and to acknowledge our own motivations…. to accept the fact that what we do affects those around us, for good or for ill… and that intention matters. It is a call to recognize that sin, like the idols we have created, keeps us from God; to recognize our selfishness, our bigotry, our misogyny and the arrogance that leads us to see those around us, even those in the pew next to us as somehow less. How can you say you love God, whom you have not seen and hate your brother or sister whom you have seen?

In the long history of the Church sin has often been understood in relation to sickness, and forgiveness to healing. While we no longer believe that God goes around giving people diseases as punishment for sin, I think there is great value in the analogy of sin and sickness. Sometimes our ill health can be a direct consequence of our own actions or the actions of someone else against us. Even when it’s not … our feelings of guilt and regret, of unworthiness and shame can cause actual physical pain. To be forgiven, to “feel” forgiven can be like having a wound healed. To confess one’s sin to God and know it to be put away “as far as the East is from the West” can be like having a cancerous tumor taken out. A part of us that was unnatural and unhealthy, that ate at our peace, both of mind and body is removed. But like an unattended sin, undiagnosed illness cannot be treated. We must recognize our illness and seek healing, just as we need to recognize our sin and seek forgiveness.

Bless the LORD, O my soul, *
and forget not all his benefits.
God forgives all your sins *
and heals all your infirmities;

”See now, is the acceptable time, see now is the day of salvation” … Now is the time to bring all of those unattended sins, “both known and unknown” , recognized and unrecognized, and lay them out before God, who is merciful and faithful to forgive. “Yet even now, says the Lord, return to me with all your heart, with fasting, with weeping and with mourning.” We are continually being called to repentance,… a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of action… a change of self. It is only by the Grace of God that we can hear that call and only by the Grace of God that we can answer it.

Lord I am not worthy that you should come under my roof.
But only speak the word and I shall be healed.

Biblical references:

Matthew 6:1
Psalm 102:15-16
Isaiah 58:2
Rom 7:15
1 John 4:20
Psalm 103:2-3
2 Corinthians 6:2
Joel 2:12

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