Repentance, Part 2

Presented at County Line Brethren Church on December 13, 2009.
Year C, Third Sunday of Advent
Scripture passages: Zephaniah 3:14-20 and Luke 3:7-18

No one wants to be chastised by John the baptizer this close to Christmas. No preacher wants to read this text when preparing for his third Advent sermon. No parishioner wants to be challenged by John's words as she sits in the pew enveloped in thoughts of final Christmas preparations and purchases. Again this Third Sunday of Advent, however, the lectionary delivers us to John and his challenging words from the wilderness.
There is no getting to Bethlehem and the sweet baby in the manger without first hearing the rough prophet in the wilderness call us to repentance. . . Trying to avoid or sugarcoat John's words is just not possible. Faithful and fruitful arrival at the manger will be possible only after the careful self-examination and recommitment called for by John.
(Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1, p. 69)

In the Advent season, the primary themes are preparation, anticipation and waiting. Last week we looked at repentance as a critical key to unlocking our hearts in preparation for the coming of the Christ child. By definition, repentance involves addressing past sins, wrong-doings and transgressions. We express regret and sorrow. At the same time we were reminded that we have already been forgiven; past, present and future by the precious sacrifice of our Lord. Therefore, repentance is not something we do, in order to “stay saved.” Repentance is something we do so that our intimacy with the Divine deepens. We also discovered that repentance is incomplete without a forward-looking perspective. This includes that intimate relationship with Jesus and the anticipation of his coming (whether it is the symbol of Christmas morning and the coming of the Messiah, or his return in the clouds). Without this forward-looking perspective, we are more prone to remain stuck in the past. This touches a bit on the observation and question posed by Jean last week; that we often have difficulty accepting God's forgiveness, or at least feeling it in our hearts.

Before we move on to our topic for today, I would like to spend a few minutes on this issue, in the hope that it will be helpful.

Let's assume that we wrong another person. At some later time we genuinely regret this and apologize, asking for forgiveness. We may even try to correct the wrong in some way. How do you know that this other person has forgiven you? Not, how do you guess or presume that the other person has forgiven you. Rather, How do you KNOW – without a shadow of a doubt – that the other person has completely and unequivocably forgiven you??

A couple stories from scripture come to mind. The first is derived from the story of the relationship between Paul and John Mark. John Mark, as you recall, deserted Paul and Barnabas on one of their missionary journeys. Paul was so hurt and/or angry and/or distrustful of John Mark that he refused to allow John Mark to accompany he and Barnabas on their next missionary journey. This produced a schism between Paul and Barnabas. As far as we know, for many years this schism continued. But late in Paul's life, in one of his twilight letters, he specifically requests the presence of John Mark. Can you imagine after deserting the great Apostle Paul, having him more than a decade later requesting your helpful presence? I can only imagine that when John Mark was in the presence of Paul, in his later years, that forgiveness was more than a matter of the mind. Forgiveness had settled deeply in their hearts. One lesson we can learn here is that forgiveness settles in as relationships are restored.

The other passage that comes to mind is the story of the Prodigal Son in Luke 15. After the son had spent all his money, envied the food of pigs, he came to his senses and returned to his father's home.
“But while he was still a long way from home his father saw him, and his heart went out to him; he ran and hugged his son and kissed him. Then his son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’ But the father said to his slaves, ‘Hurry! Bring the best robe, and put it on him! Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet! Bring the fattened calf and kill it! Let us eat and celebrate, because this son of mine was dead, and is alive again – he was lost and is found!’ So they began to celebrate.

Again we are able to discern that it is in the restoration of the relationship that full acceptance of forgiveness is realized. This often takes a long time, sometimes it takes years for human relationships to be fully restored. And, unfortunately, there are some situations where the relationships are not restored on this side of heaven.

So, the question then becomes how can we experience or feel forgiveness prior to, or in the absence of, a full restoration of the relationship.

Here is where our relationship to God, through His Son, may be particularly helpful. Because of what Jesus accomplished, we are fully forgiven for our sins yesterday, today and tomorrow. God fully understands and forgives – knowing who we are, warts and all. We sense that our relationship with him is tarnished, and so, we get our feet dirty. We remain 100% sinner. And yet, we are referred to as “saints” in scripture. God currently sees us through those Jesus goggles as what we shall be: made perfect in him. We are therefore 100% saints. This is that Lutheran doctrine that we spoke of a few weeks ago. We are 100% sinner and 100% saint. Because of Jesus, our relationship with God has already been restored. It seems to me that the tension we experience when we do not feel forgiven, is because we are focusing on the “sinner” part, instead of the “saint” part.

I am also reminded of the the passage in Matthew 18, which talks about forgiveness in the parable of the Unmerciful Servant. Peter asked Jesus, how many times should we forgive someone who sins against us? Jesus replied “seventy times seven.” Jesus then tells the story about a servant of the king that owed the king a lot of money. The king was about to sell the servant and his family, in order to satisfy the debt. The servant begged for mercy and the king canceled the debt. This same servant then began to collect the debts owed to him and even had one of the debtors thrown into prison because of his failure to pay up. When the king found out about this, he was furious and called the servant in for a meeting. As a result, the king turned the servant over to the jailers until his debt was paid.

We often find it hard to forgive those who have hurt us and cannot imagine how or why God would forgive us for all the bad things we have done. This parable would indicate that one of the reasons we cannot accept God's forgiveness is because we have been unable to forgive others for the wrong they did to us.

Are there perhaps things that we can do, which would help us along this pathway toward experiencing forgiveness?

I did a mini survey this week. Ok, I asked three people. Do you ever have problems feeling forgiven? How are you able to feel or experience God's forgiveness?

One person acknowledged that he has had times that he did not feel forgiven by God, even though he knew he was. This man did not know how to get to the point of feeling forgiven. One person said that he thought it was a matter of trust. While acknowledging that he also struggles with feeling forgiven, he thinks that we simply need to learn to trust that what the Bible says is true. If the Bible says we are forgiven, we should trust that. So, in one sense, it does boil down to trust. Can we trust that God has forgiven us? Can we trust that God forgives us, even when others have not forgiven us?

Another person stated, matter of factly, that he felt forgiven after going to confession. I cannot underestimate how much of an impact this person's statement had upon me.

I have long thought that as Protestants, in regards to some of the practices of Catholicism, we have thrown out some babies with the bath water. In my mind, the practice of regular confession is high on the list.

In our scripture passage for last week, you may recall that those who were baptized by Jesus also “confessed” their sins. It turns out this is a very healthy practice and supported by scripture notwithstanding all the other stereotypical practices that accompany it.

All through the movie, Gran Torino (another great movie which I am not recommending for younger or weaker audiences) the young priest is trying to get the Clint Eastwood character to come to confession. The priest is attempting to fulfill an obligation to Clint Eastwood's late wife. Only near the end of the movie does Clint Eastwood's character go to confession, which is also interesting. But to say any more would give away a key piece of information about the ending. So, I'll just leave it at that.

I think we have really missed the boat on confession as Protestants. But confession is not the only practice which has been discarded – to our detriment.

In our passage today, John warns the crowd to “bear fruits worthy of repentance.” Indeed, if they did not bear fruit worthy of repentance, they would be cut down. We then read about those same people who have made their confession and been baptized by John the baptizer, coming to John and asking them, “What shall we do now?”

Now here is where there are two package responses that are typically heard among the Protestant circles I am familiar with.

The first packaged response from Protestants is that their job now is to avoid doing any bad stuff, as I talked about last week. Especially avoid the big three: sex, sex, and sex. According to this formula, the secret to the Christian living is to avoid egregious public sins.

The second package response from Protestants is “go to church, read your Bible, tithe, pray and evangelize others.” And if you're lucky enough to live in the 21st Century, only listen to Christian music. If you do those things, everything will be groovy. That's the key to living the Christian life.

The thing is, that's not at all what John instructed them to do. Jesus told the crown in general: "Whoever has two coats must share with anyone who has none; and whoever has food must do likewise."

It seems important to note that this comment appears to be made to everyone. Because it is a general instruction, it will have a more ready application to us today. It is both piercing in its assumption and liberating in its execution. The assumption is that we, darn near 100% of us, tend to be hoarders. I am embarrassed to say that Beth and I have enough decent old clothes in our house to clothe at least one man and one woman. We also have a lot of food in our house, but we have more clothes than we do food. Why do we do this? Well, one reason is that we hope we will lose weight so that we can fit into those old clothes. But even if we did lose that weight, there would still be too many clothes. As George Carlin said many years ago, we need more space to put all our “stuff” in. Jesus said about the same thing when he told of a farmer that wanted to build more buildings to put all his grain in. So, the piercing assumption is that we acquire and hoard more stuff than we need, for whatever reason, while others suffer without. If we want to travel down this pathway of repentance, in preparation for the Christ child, part of repentance means eliminating our selfishness and fear of running out of “stuff.” It also means being more mindful of those who have great need and responding to that need.

We also note that John provided more specific instructions to the tax collectors and the soldiers. The tax collectors who were baptized asked, “Teacher, what shall we do? Jesus said, "Collect no more than the amount prescribed for you.”

The soldiers who confessed and were baptized asked him the same question, “What shall we do?” Jesus said, "Do not extort money from anyone by threats or false accusation, and be satisfied with your wages."

It would be helpful to note that for these two specific groups of people, they were well-known to have been unethical in these ways. And so, John admonished them to make corrections, particularly connected to these unethical practices.

Let's be clear here. This is a continuation of the theme of preparing for the coming of the Christ, whether figuratively in the manger, or in the anticipation of his return in the clouds. And the primary way to prepare for his coming is in the act and process of repentance. John the baptizer was about preparing the way for Jesus by means of repentance.

In conclusion, we have learned the following about this pathway of repentance as preparation for the Christ.
1. Repentance involves addressing past sins, wrong-doings and transgressions. We confess our sins, expressing regret and sorrow regarding our mistakes.
2. At the same time we were reminded that we have already been forgiven; past, present and future by the precious sacrifice of our Lord. Therefore, repentance is not something we do, in order to “stay saved.”
3. We also discovered that repentance is incomplete without a forward-looking perspective. This includes that intimate relationship with Jesus and the anticipation of his coming (whether it is the symbol of Christmas morning and the coming of the Messiah, or his return in the clouds). Without this forward-looking perspective, we are more prone to remain stuck in the past.
4. Repentance involves the difficult task of forgiveness. We go through the process of repentance, in part, to obtain forgiveness. Ironically, we are better enabled to go through the process of repentance by forgiving others.
5. And today, we learn that repentance involves a change in who we are: less selfish, less hoarding, less fearful, more mindful of, and responsive, to those in need.

May your journey of repentance lead you to closer intimacy with the Divine and your fellow travelers.