Sunday, January 22nd, 2023: "Thank God for Repentance"

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First United Presbyterian Church

“Thank God for Repentance”

Rev. Amy Morgan

January 22, 2023

Isaiah 9:1-4  

But there will be no gloom for those who were in anguish. In the former time he brought into contempt the land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, but in the latter time he will make glorious the way of the sea, the land beyond the Jordan, Galilee of the nations.

The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light;

those who lived in a land of deep darkness— on them light has shined.

You have multiplied the nation,

   you have increased its joy;

they rejoice before you

   as with joy at the harvest,

   as people exult when dividing plunder.

For the yoke of their burden,

   and the bar across their shoulders,

   the rod of their oppressor,

   you have broken as on the day of Midian.

Matthew 4:12-23  

Now when Jesus heard that John had been arrested, he withdrew to Galilee. He left Nazareth and made his home in Capernaum by the lake, in the territory of Zebulun and Naphtali, so that what had been spoken through the prophet Isaiah might be fulfilled:

‘Land of Zebulun, land of Naphtali, on the road by the sea, across the Jordan, Galilee of the Gentiles—the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and for those who sat in the region and shadow of death light has dawned.’

From that time Jesus began to proclaim, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’

As he walked by the Sea of Galilee, he saw two brothers, Simon, who is called Peter, and Andrew his brother, casting a net into the lake—for they were fishermen. And he said to them, ‘Follow me, and I will make you fish for people.’ Immediately they left their nets and followed him. As he went from there, he saw two other brothers, James son of Zebedee and his brother John, in the boat with their father Zebedee, mending their nets, and he called them. Immediately they left the boat and their father, and followed him.

Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” This is the cry of John the Baptist, first found in Matthew’s gospel chastising the religious elite in the garb of a desert prophet. Now, John has a reputation for being a bit of a firebrand, and in the story we read today we find him in prison for taking his call for repentance to the halls of power. 

When we associate repentance with figures like John the Baptist, with his whole “brood of vipers” speech and condemnation of powerful predators, we tend to think it has something to do with guilt or shame or everything we’ve ever done wrong and ought to feel sorry about. It’s a word we tend to recoil from. We try not to talk about it too much in the church even. Except maybe in the season of Lent, and then only in the most general of terms. 

But notice that in today’s reading, after John has been arrested, Jesus takes up his cry for repentance. This is very intentionally constructed in Matthew’s gospel. The phrase John uses in chapter 3 is identical to the phrase used here in chapter 4. Matthew wants us to connect John and Jesus and see the call to repentance as a continuous movement. 

But that continuous movement is not a movement pronouncing shame and inducing guilt. In fact, it is a movement of grace and love and redemption. It is a movement that began even before Jesus and his cousin, John. It is a movement that has been a part of the story of God and humanity from the very beginning. 

But shame and guilt are not at the heart of this movement. In fact, they are toxic to repentance. Feelings of shame and guilt leave us stuck and broken. And repentance is about growth and change and healing. 

The Greek word translated here, and in the rest of the New Testament, as repentance, is metanoia. And it literally means changing your mind. Meta – change. Knosis – mind or knowing. It means to see things differently, change your perspective. 

If we’ve learned anything in the past several years of shaming and blaming, it is that those are not effective means of changing people’s mind about anything. When we’re shamed or feel guilty, we go into defensive mode and dig in our heels on our perspective. And so the first thing some of us might need to repent of, or change our minds about, is our basic understanding of repentance. Instead of viewing repentance through the lens of condemnation, we need to come to see repentance as an invitation, as a grace, as an expansion and transformation. 

God is, and always has been, in the business of changing minds. Now, understand also that the Greek concept of the mind was similar to the Hebrew concept of the heart. It was the center of everything, the residence of the soul, the highest and noblest aspect of humanity, the true self. To change or transform your mind was to undergo a total conversion, a metamorphosis of our inner being. 

And that is what John, and then Jesus, were calling people to do. Not so that they could achieve their highest good or live their fullest life. But so they could participate in the reign of God that was at hand. 

Now, if we look at Jesus’s circumstances in this story from Matthew’s gospel, it doesn’t appear that the reign of God has really had much effect. Jesus’s cousin and co-conspirator, John, is in prison. Jesus has no friends, no followers, no other family members supporting his fledgling ministry. He has to go home and move back into his parents’ basement. Thank God there were no video games in the first century, or things may have gone very differently. 

But then we read that this retreat, this withdrawal, this inaction on Jesus’s part, actually fulfills the words of the prophet Isaiah. One might think that in order to be a “great light” to people sitting and walking in darkness, one might actually have to do something. But no, Jesus manages to fulfill that prophesy by mooching off his parents. And I mean this, because, by 33 years old, he really should be married and have a job. Instead, he hangs out with his odd-ball cousin, wanders around the desert by himself for six weeks, and then shows up back in Galilee with nothing to show for all his adventures. 

I’m not sure this is what most of us picture when we imagine the reign of God: a grown man loafing around him hometown with no friends or useful occupation. I don’t imagine most of us envision this life as a fulfillment of some grand and ancient prophesy. And yet, here we are. Jesus retreating to Galilee fulfills Isaiah’s prophesy, and Jesus begins to proclaim that the kingdom of heaven has come near. 

But in order for us to see this reality and participate in it, we have to repent, to change our minds about some things. Maybe we need to repent of our ideas of power and status. Maybe we need to repent of our notions of relationship and family structure. Maybe we need to repent of our understanding of what constitutes meaningful work. Maybe we need to repent of what we think makes a person’s life valuable. We may have to change our minds about a lot of things if we want to see an unemployed, friendless freeloader as the Savior of the world and Son of God. 

This kind of repentance sounds impossible, maybe. But, as a divine freeloader once said, “Nothing is impossible with God.” And we see that later on in today’s story from Matthew. Jesus walks along the beach, changing minds in an instant, with the simple invitation, “Come, follow me.” And IMMEDIATELY, because everything happens immediately in Matthew’s gospel, the two sets of brothers change their minds about pretty much everything they’ve known. They change their minds, they repent, about what they were meant to do with their lives, what was truly important in their lives and how they viewed their relationships. And their change of mind, their repentance, allowed them to participate in the reign of God, to be a part of Jesus’s ministry and mission of healing and hope, proclaiming the gospel and healing sickness and disease. 

You see, the call to repentance is not a call to shame and guilt; it is not a condemnation. The call to repentance is an invitation: come, follow me. Come, participate in the reign of God that is right in front of you. Come, see the light that shines in the darkness. Come, be a part of this community, this movement, this mission.

The invitation to repentance continues to be extended to us today. The invitation to change our minds and participate in the reign of God is the invitation given to us in our baptism. And this invitation – accepting it and extending it to others – could not be more critical than it is today. 

Author and journalist David McRaney published a book last year called How Minds Change: The Surprising Science of Belief, Opinion, and Persuasion, in which he shares stories of people who have, and have not, changed their minds, repented of beliefs or opinions they held strongly. He also talks about effective and ineffective techniques for changing minds. McRaney admits that in order to write this book, he had to change his mind, to repent. He felt despondent about the idea of changing minds, thought it couldn’t be done with any effectiveness or consistency. But then he started hearing some of the stories he shares in the book. He started interviewing groups of people and researchers who had developed effective techniques. He also had to repent of the idea that changing someone else’s mind was always a good thing. He realized that we all need to examine why we want to change someone else's mind, and whether or not we might be the ones who need to change. 

But what McRaney discovered is that changing minds always involves an invitation. In the case of a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, it was the invitation to hear the grief of those who had lost loved ones in the terrorist attack, an invitation to compassion. In the case of a member of the Westboro Baptist Church, it was the invitation to explain herself and have someone really hear her. In the case of a man in California opposed to same-sex marriage, it was an invitation to share his grief about the death of his wife 11 years ago. All of these people changed their minds, repented of their viewpoints, in response to an invitation. An invitation extended with sincerity and grace and without judgement. An invitation to “Come, be a part of a new community, one grounded in love and forgiveness, one offering healing and hope.” 

Because what McRaney found out when he talked to people who believed conspiracy theories or were part of hate groups or were opposed to any kind of change, what he learned is that changing minds is not about changing beliefs. It is about changing communities, changing identity, changing who you belong with. Most people believe whatever the group around them believes, and most people only change their minds after they change their social setting. 

For Peter and Andrew, James and John, they left one community – their families, their trade group – and became a community of Jesus-followers, a community of co-conspirators in the reign of God. We see their actual beliefs change over time, throughout the course of Jesus’s ministry and in the ministry they take up after his resurrection and ascension. Repentance isn’t a one-and-done activity. It is ongoing, a constant in the life of faith.  

But change, repentance, is possible. And it is a good thing. 

As part of our ordination and installation service this morning for church officers, we will reaffirm the vows made in our baptism, remembering our invitation to repentance, the invitation to change our minds, to turn from evil and toward Jesus Christ and to come and follow him. For our elders and deacons, this invitation has led them to accept the call to leadership and service in this church, and we are so blessed to celebrate that and grateful for that. But this is also an opportunity for each of us to once again hear Jesus’s call to repentance, to consider what we might need to change about the way we think or view the world around us, so that we can more clearly see and more fully participate in the reign of God that is all around us, so that we, too, can be a part of Jesus’s mission and ministry of healing and hope, so that we, too, can be a light to people walking in darkness. 

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.