The Courage of Faith

The Courage of Faith

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

December 25, 2016

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

There’s a story that’s told from the horrible years of World War II. It’s legend not history. It never really happened, or at least the details of it didn’t happen although the historical background of the story did; but it’s a great story. It goes like this: The Nazis overran one of the countries of my ancestors, Denmark in this case. And they did what they did all over the lands they had conquered. They began first to harass the Jewish people of those lands, then to round them up, then to ship them off to the death camps. The first thing they did was make them put Stars of David on their clothing so everyone could see that they were Jews. One day King Christian of Denmark rode out of his palace on a fine horse. Sewn to his coat was a Star of David. He wasn’t Jewish. As a Danish king he was certainly Lutheran. But he was the king. He was the king of all the people of Denmark, and he knew it. He valued all of his people, be they Christian, Jewish, or anything else. So he sewed a Star of David on his coat in solidarity with his Jewish subjects. Many other Danes did the same thing. Because they did, many of the Jewish citizens of Denmark were saved.

Here’s another story that I know is true. It happened in Billings, Montana, during the holiday season of 1993. There was a Jewish family in town named the Schnitzers. It was the season of Hanukah, and the Schnitzers had put menorahs in their windows. The menorah is the symbol of Hanukah, kind of like the Christmas tree is our symbol of Christmas. It’s a candelabra with eight candles on it. Young Isaac Schnitzer was sitting at a desk in his house that wasn’t in his bedroom doing his homework. His parents weren’t home, but a babysitter was with him. Suddenly he heard a loud crash. When he and the sitter went to investigate they found that someone had thrown a rock through the window of his bedroom, a window that had a menorah in it. The sitter called Isaac’s parents. They came home and called the police. A wise police chief came. He told the Schnitzers that he would do everything he could to find the culprits who had done that hateful thing. But he also said that the whole town needed to respond to this act of hate. There had been other acts of hate in Billings in those days. African Americans and Native Americans had been targeted by skinheads filled with hate. A Christian woman named Margaret MacDonald and the chief called a meeting of all of the people of Billings, and many came. She had heard the legend about King Christian and the Danes during World War II. Mrs. MacDonald said “Why don’t we all put menorahs in our windows to show that we stand with the Schnitzers and won’t tolerate acts of hatred in our town?” And they all agreed to do it. A certain Rev. Torney, pastor of the First Congregational Church of Billings, said he would talk to other religious leaders and get them on board. (See? We Congregationalists really do have a history of standing up for what’s right and not insisting that everyone has to be like us.) Soon there were menorahs in windows all over Billings. And the incidence of hate crimes went down.

Today we have a President-elect who says he wants to register all Muslims in our country. Many of us Christians have stood with our brothers and sisters against this and other kinds of discrimination for a long time. We have stood against demonizing people who are different from us. We need to do it again today. Many of us have said that if our government tries to make Muslims register we will go and register as Muslims even though we aren’t. If we do we will be taking a risk. Standing up for what is right always involves a risk. Many Danes really did help many Jews escape to unoccupied Sweden. They took a risk. The people of Billings took a risk when they put menorahs in their windows. The haters smashed some of those windows. Doing what is right always involves a risk.

And we wonder how we can have the courage to take such a risk for someone else, for someone not like us. Here’s how. We can have the courage to take that risk because today is Christmas Day. Today we celebrate how God took an enormous risk by becoming human. God took the risk of being rejected. God took the risk of being scorned. God took the risk of being tortured. God even took the risk of being killed. And all of those things happened to God in Jesus Christ. And God overcame it all. God raised Jesus from the dead. Through Jesus’ resurrection God inspired a movement that we now call Christianity that has brought more people to God than any other movement ever has. That has brought more people more peace, strength, comfort, and hope, than any other movement ever has. That has inspired more human acts of generosity, kindness, and courage than any other movement ever has. That has inspired more people to take great risks to do what is right than any other movement ever has. Yes, Christians have done horrible things too, but that’s not a topic for this day of celebration. Today we celebrate God taking the risk to come to us as one of us. If God was willing to take that risk, how can we not take much smaller risks to do what is right?

So in the year to come, if we see something wrong, let’s have the courage to stand against it. Let’s have the courage to do what’s right. Maybe people won’t like us when we do. Maybe we won’t be able to stop evil when we do. The Danes couldn’t stop the Nazis from killing some of the Jews if Denmark. We might even get hurt when we do. But we can still do what is right. We can still do our part to make God’s dream of a world of peace and justice for all people a reality. We can still say thank you, God, for your gift of Jesus by doing what Jesus would have done, by doing what’s right. He comes to us today as a helpless infant. He comes to us every day as the Spirit of  hope, peace, joy, and love. Let’s have the courage of Billings and Denmark. Let’s have the courage to do what’s right. With Jesus as our help and our hope, we can. Amen.

Do Not Be Afraid

Do Not Be Afraid

A Christmas Eve Meditation

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

December 24, 2016 

Scripture: Matthew 1:18-25 

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen. 

Imagine poor Joseph. He’s engaged to Mary but not yet married to her. They have not lived together as husband and wife, although in Joseph’s time and place there wasn’t a sharp distinction between being engaged and being married like there is with us. Mary and Joseph have not come together as husband and wife, but Mary is pregnant. What was poor Joseph to think? That Mary had been unfaithful, of course. There was no other possible explanation. So Joseph decides to do what the religious law and the cultural norms of his day told him he had to do. He had to divorce Mary. It was the righteous thing to do. Joseph, Matthew tells us, was a “righteous” man, so he planned to do the righteous thing, the thing the law required. Yes, he was a decent man, so he planned to do it quietly for Mary’s sake rather than make a big public scene out of it; but he knew he had to divorce her, to dismiss her from his life.

That was bad enough, but then things got worse for poor Joseph. He had a dream. In the dream an angel of the Lord appeared to him. This angel began to speak by saying do not be afraid, which is what biblical angels usually say; but this angel has something very specific in mind with her “do not be afraid.” She says do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife. Why would Joseph be afraid to take Mary as his wife? The reason why might not be immediately apparent to us, but take a closer look at what was going here for Joseph. Joseph, we are told, was a righteous man. He knew, and the religious leaders of his day would tell him if he didn’t, that marrying Mary would be a violation of the Jewish religious law. The law said he had to dismiss her. If he married her he’d be breaking God’s law. He’d put himself out of right relationship with God. Marrying her would be an unrighteous act; and, being a righteous man, he quite understandably was afraid to commit that act of unrighteousness.

Yet the angel tells him not to be afraid to marry her. The angel tells him that Mary’s child is of the Holy Spirit and tells him to name the child Jesus, a name which in its Hebrew or Aramaic form means “God saves”. So Joseph overcomes his fear and marries her. Joseph didn’t have to fear violating God’s law because Mary’s child was of God, the child’s conception was God’s work; so Joseph going along with what God was doing could hardly violate God’s law or get Joseph out of right relationship with God. He need not be afraid to marry Mary.

Joseph was afraid, and, like Joseph, we are often afraid too. Perhaps we’re not afraid to violate a first century understanding of God’s law the way Joseph was, but we’re afraid nonetheless. Afraid of life and all the challenges it brings. Afraid of illness, afraid of death. We’ve got plenty to be afraid of, maybe these days especially. Joseph’s angel allayed his fear, but Joseph’s angel telling him to go ahead and marry his fiancé frankly doesn’t do much to allay our fears, does it. They’re different fears, and we need a different message if we’re going to get beyond our fear.

Joseph’s angel spoke to him but doesn’t much speak to us, but fortunately there is in this passage from Matthew something else that does speak to us and that can allay all our fears. Matthew goes on to give more of an explanation of what’s really going on here than Joseph gets from the angel. He quotes the prophet Isaiah—misquotes actually, but never mind. Matthew says that the birth of Jesus will fulfill an ancient prophecy about the birth of a future ruler who will be called Immanuel. Immanuel means “God with us.” Matthew tells us that what’s going on with the coming birth of Jesus is that in him God will be with us. This isn’t an ordinary birth. This is a divine birth. It is nothing less than God coming to us as one of us in the person of this as yet unborn child. With the coming of Jesus, God is with us. Not distant from us. Not against us. God is with us. God is present, and God is on our side. That is the assurance we receive through the coming of Jesus.

And that assurance really can allay our fears. If God is with us, what do we have to fear? Bad things may still happen to us. God with us doesn’t mean only good things will happen, but God with us tells us that in whatever happens we are safe. We are ultimately, existentially safe because God is with us. We are safe because God is holding us always in God’s unfailing arms of grace. We are safe because God with us tells us that nothing in all creation can separate us from the love of God.

So tonight we celebrate that divine birth. We celebrate Immanuel, God with us, coming to us in the newborn child Jesus. And as we do we know that we need not fear. We need not fear anything in life or beyond life. He is Immanuel. He is God with us, and we know that we are safe. So whatever you are finding scary in your life, do not be afraid. God is with us. God is with you, and God always will be. That is the Good News of Christmas. That is the news we celebrate tonight, and it is the best news there ever was or ever could be. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Love Came Down at Christmas

Love Came Down at Christmas

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

December 18, 2016

Scripture: Luke 2:26-38; Matthew 1:18-25

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

Sometimes the poets say it best. Christina Rossetti said it this way:

Love came down at Christmas,

Love all lovely, love Divine.

Love was born at Christmas,

Star and Angels gave the sign.

Love came down at Christmas. Jesus was born at Christmas. Jesus is love. Jesus is God’s love come to us as a helpless newborn infant. That’s what Christmas is about. Oh, sure. Our culture makes Christmas be all about retailing. It makes it be all about getting the retailers in the black by the end of the year. It makes it be all about exchanging gifts to prove to people that we love them. It would have my wife Jane believe that because I don’t give her diamonds I don’t love her, and she doesn’t even like diamonds. It makes Christmas be all about a northern snowy winter even in places that never have snow. It makes it be about hanging ornaments on a northern evergreen tree even in places where you’re a whole lot more likely to see palm trees than firs. It makes it be about a Christian saint named Nicholas from Asia Minor becoming a jolly old fellow who lives at the north pole and has flying reindeer who somehow magically make it possible for him to deliver toys to all the children in the world in one night. It makes it be about green wreaths with red bows and silver bells. Our culture makes Christmas be about all of those things.

Now, there’s nothing wrong with any of those things, or there wouldn’t be anything wrong with them if we didn’t take the retailing and gift giving part of it to such ridiculous extremes. Most of that stuff that we turn Christmas into is OK, and it certainly can be a lot of fun. It can be a time of great joy, of time spent with family and friends, although we must never forget those for whom Christmas is not a time of joy because they miss departed loved ones or are alone. Most of that stuff is OK and can be good, but here’s the thing. None of that is what Christmas is really about. What I want to talk to you about this morning is what Christmas really is about.

Now obviously, Christmas is about the birth of the baby Jesus. Historically speaking it isn’t exactly Jesus’ birthday. Christmas means Christ mass, and it is the day in the liturgical calendar of the church when we commemorate and celebrate Jesus’ birth, not necessarily the day when we think he was actually born. We don’t know when he was actually born, but it doesn’t matter. What matters is that we remember and celebrate the truth that he really was born. And we remember and celebrate that he really was born because of who he is. He is our Lord and Savior. He is the Son of God. He is the Word of God Incarnate. He is the one in and through whom we have forgiveness of sin and the promise of eternal life. Thanks be to God!

Jesus is all of those things, but Christina Rossetti reminded us in her beautiful poem that we can think of him in a somewhat different way too. She says Love came down at Christmas and Love was born at Christmas. She’s right. Jesus Christ is all of those other wonderful things because he is first of all love. He is, as Rossetti says, love Divine. He is the love of God become human. He is the love of God in a form we can see. He is the love of God in a form we can relate to because that form is as human as we are. He is God’s love tenderly held in his mother’s arms. He is God’s love with his earthly father alertly keeping watch for any possible harm that might come his way. He is the love of God with no special honor. No military guard. No crown and no throne, not earthly ones anyway. He is God’s love as helpless and vulnerable as every human baby is at first. But for all that he is God’s love Incarnate, the fullness of God’s love come to us as one of us. Jesus was born at Christmas. Love came down at Christmas.

Love came down at Christmas, yes; but just what is that love that came to us that blessed day so long ago? It certainly isn’t apparent just what that love would be when all we have is newborn baby Jesus. He’s just a baby. Now of course every birth is something of a miracle. Those of you who have given birth, and those of us who have been present as our children have been born, know that truth well enough. But in his birth, if not quite in his conception, Jesus is just a baby on Christmas day. What the love that he incarnated actually was would become clear only in his adult years as he pursued his ministry, did his teaching, performed his miracles, suffered his crucifixion, and rose again to glorious new life.

The love that Jesus brought and that Jesus is has many aspects to it, but I’m not going to go into all of them this morning. This morning I just want to celebrate. This morning I just want to bask in the warmth that is the love of God in Jesus Christ. This morning I just want to revel in the reality of Christmas that God loves us, all of us, all people, all of creation, more than any of us can even imagine. In Jesus God is willing to give God’s all even for the likes of us. Even for us, we people who always fall short, who always sin. We know that we do, and in Jesus God says maybe you do, to me it doesn’t matter. At least it doesn’t matter so much that I will never forgive you. It doesn’t make me love you any less. I love you so much that I became one of you to bring you my love. To show you my love. To love you in person. To love you in a way you can understand. Not remotely but intimately. Not abstractly but personally.

In the baby Jesus love came down at Christmas. Love divine not merely human. Love greater than any human love. Love such as only God can give. Love that says you are safe with God no matter what. That’s what Christmas is about. That’s why we celebrate. That’s why we feel such joy at Christmas. Love came down at Christmas. Love all lovely, love divine. So as we celebrate Christmas this year let’s remember what this day is really about. Let’s remember the real reason to celebrate. Love came down at Christmas. God’s love came down at Christmas. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Someone Else?

Someone Else?

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

December 11, 2016

Scripture: Psalm 146:1-6; Matthew 11:2-16

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

So we’ve come to the third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday whose Advent theme is joy. That’s why today’s Advent candle is pink not purple. Purple was originally the color of Lent. It signifies royalty, but it also represents suffering. Advent is later adaptation of Lenten traditions set before Christmas, so it took over Lent’s purple color. That’s why I’m wearing a purple stole. Eventually the church sought to moderate the original Lenten tone of Advent, so it changed the candle for the third Sunday to pink, pink being, I suppose among other things, the color of joy.

Doing that seems quite appropriate to me. After all, in Lent we prepare first of all for Christ’s crucifixion and only after that for the joy of Easter. In Advent we prepare for the birth of Jesus, an event of great joy with, if anything, only a vague foreshadowing of his suffering to come. We don’t have to go through tragedy and loss to get to Jesus’ birth the way we do to get to his resurrection. So maybe all the Advent candles should be pink, except of course Jesus hasn’t been born yet. We’ve still got waiting to do, and purple is also the color of waiting. But today, though we still wait, we get a foretaste of the joy to come on Christmas Day.

Now, maybe it’s obvious to us why we should feel joy at Christmas. Yes, if we’re lucky we feel joy at the opportunity to spend time with friends and family. Maybe we enjoy exchanging gifts around the Christmas tree. Maybe we enjoy sharing in meals that are great feasts. There are lots of reasons to feel joy at Christmas, but of course these things are not the real reasons, not the most significant reasons, to feel joy at Christmas. The real reason for joy at Christmas is of course that on Christmas Day we remember and celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. You probably have heard that corny old saying “Jesus is the reason for the season.” Well, like many corny old sayings, this one speaks an important truth. Jesus is the reason for the season, and he is the reason we can and should feel joy as we first await, then celebrate his birth. Without Jesus there would of course be no Christmas. Without him this time of year would just be cold, dark, and dreary. With him it becomes a time of joy. Thanks be to God!

I think maybe it’s because we are preparing precisely to celebrate the joyful event of Christ’s birth that I was struck this week by one line in the reading we just heard from Matthew. In that reading we hear that John the Baptist is in prison. We know that that doesn’t turn out well for him, but for now he’s still alive. He sends disciples to Jesus to ask a specific question: Are you the one who was to come, or should be expect someone else? Jesus, in typical Jesus fashion, doesn’t answer directly, but he pretty clearly indicates that yes, I am the one who was to come. Only the one who was to come, that is, the Messiah, could do the things I’ve been doing. So yes, I am the one who was to come. Don’t go looking for someone else. I’m the one you’re looking for.

And of course that’s why we feel such joy at Jesus’ birth. He is the one God sent. He is the one who comes bringing salvation. He is the one who comes bringing a new revelation of God’s will and God’s ways. He and no one else is Emmanuel, God With Us. We Christians don’t need to look for someone else because we have Jesus, the one who was to come, the one whom God sent. Jesus didn’t give John’s disciples  direct answer to their question, but we can. Yes, Jesus is the one who was to come. No, you don’t need to expect anyone else.

I am convinced to the marrow of my bones that Jesus is the one. That we don’t need someone else. That there won’t be someone else to displace Jesus. So I really wonder: Why do so many of us Christians keep looking for someone else? Because we do, you know. Oh sure. We may call that someone else Jesus Christ, but we spend an awful lot of time actually looking for someone other than the Jesus God really gave us. If that statement puzzles you, let me explain.

I think we Christians look for someone besides Jesus in many different ways, but I’m only going to mention two of them this morning. The first is that we turn the Jesus we have, that is, the Jesus of all four Gospels, into a Jesus we want. Into a Jesus we like better than the one we got. Some Christians do that by reading only, or at least primarily, the Gospel of John. That’s the Gospel in which Jesus is clearly God Incarnate, the Word made flesh, God walking around in human form telling everyone that they must believe that that is precisely who Jesus is in order to inherit something called eternal life. Many of these Christians misunderstand what the Gospel of John means by eternal life, but that’s a subject for another day. What matters today is that these Christians, and there are a lot of them, tend to ignore the other three Gospels. Those Gospels, Matthew, Mark, and Luke, call us less to believe in Jesus than they call us to work to create the Kingdom of God here on earth. People don’t like that, so they turn to John’s Jesus and ignore the Jesus who calls them to something they don’t like.

Then there are the Christians who tend to read only, or at least primarily, Matthew, Mark, and Luke and who tend to ignore (or even intensely dislike) John. For them Jesus becomes only a man who proclaims the Kingdom of God, a man who is all about social, political, and economic relationships and who is hardly at all about spiritual health. These Christians, and I know a lot of them, misunderstand Jesus as much as those who rely only on John do. For the Jesus whose birth we now await is the fullness of God. He brings both the way of spiritual health and the way of right social relationships. He does both, and so many Christians want him to do only one of the other. They seek someone else, not the Jesus whose birth we celebrate at Christmas.

The other way in which we Christians look for someone else that I want to mention briefly this morning is one that hits pretty close to home for me. People of faith, and not just Christians, do this one all the time. We know that the ancient Hebrews did it because we hear them being warned against it in the reading we heard from Psalm 146. This way of looking for someone else has people looking for salvation not from God or Jesus Christ but from some mere human. Psalm 146 says: “Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men who cannot save.” This is the temptation to look for a human savior not a divine one. I must confess that I am sometimes guilty of this one. I think that’s why I took (and take) the result of our recent presidential election so hard. I tend to put my trust in princes, or in politicians, which amounts to the same thing; and they always disappoint. The ones I don’t like disappoint and, more importantly, even the ones I do like disappoint. They are as fallible as I am, yet over and over again I put my trust in them, only to be let down. I look for someone other than Jesus, and it just doesn’t work.

Perhaps you have other ways in which you look for someone other than the Jesus we got. Maybe you do that by pinning all of your hope on a second coming of Jesus rather than the first coming that we really have. In any event, in this Advent season, let us not expect someone other than the Jesus we actually got. We don’t need someone else, and no one else will do. Psalm 146 says blessed is the one whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord his or her God. For us Christians that means whose help and hope are Jesus Christ. So let’s get clear on just who that Jesus is. He is indeed the Word, or if you prefer the Son, of God Incarnate. He is Immanuel, God With Us. He is the one in whom God comes to us to reveal God’s ways to us and to call us to follow those ways. Those ways are the ways of faith and spiritual health. When we turn to God in and through Jesus Christ God meets us and helps to make us whole. He is the one in whom we find salvation for our spirits in this life and our souls in the next.

But he is also the one who calls to a radical transformation in our thinking about how things are supposed to be in this life. He calls us to turn the ways of the world on their heads. He calls us to honor the poor not the rich. He calls us to include the ones the world excludes. He calls us even to love our enemies, and boy would the world be a different place if enough people would do that.

In all of these ways Jesus is the one. He is the one who was to come and who came to us from God so long ago. And he comes to us from God even now, every time we turn to him in prayer. Every time we lay our troubles at the foot of his cross and pray for help. Jesus comes to God’s people every time they commit themselves to do good work in the world, when they feed the hungry and when they try to figure out why so many people are hungry in the first place and try to do something to change that tragic reality. Jesus is the one. We don’t need to expect another. We don’t need to look for another. So in this Advent season let us prepare to welcome the who comes, the one who came, the one who is enough. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Turn Around

Turn Around

Rev. Dr. Tom Sorenson, Pastor

December 4, 2016

Scripture: Matthew 4:1-12

Let us pray: May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God, our strength and our redeemer. Amen.

I imagine we’ve all seen it, or at least we’ve seen a caricature of it. A rather disheveled looking man, perhaps with long uncombed hair and a scraggly beard, standing on a street corner and holding up a sign. The sign reads: “Repent! The End is Near!” The theology behind that sign, I guess, is that in order to be saved at the end of the world we have to repent now. Whether you accept that theology or not, it certainly is undeniable that repenting has long been a big deal with Christians. Unfortunately, it has become a big deal mostly with Christians of a very conservative bent with whom I have significant theological disagreements, but it’s been a big deal with other kinds of Christians too. One source I looked up on line says that the word repent appears 74 times in the New International Version translation of the Bible that we use here. That’s a lot of times for one otherwise rather obscure word. Repentance is indeed a central Christian concept.

We were talking about repenting last Monday at the clergy lectionary group I attend in Seattle. Bobbi Dykema, whom many of you know from the times she has covered for me here, piped in. She said the lines of the Matthew passage for today about repentance reminded her of a line from a Leonard Cohen song: “When they said repent, repent, I wonder what they meant.” I don’t actually recommend that song to you because at least one line in it is quite obscene, but that line took the words right out of my mouth. Or at least it took the question right out of my head. Just what does repent mean anyway? Why has our faith made such a big deal out of it? Well, whatever repent may mean, I can tell you one thing that I used to think it meant that it doesn’t mean. I used to think it meant feel bad about something you’ve done that’s wrong or something that’s right that you haven’t done. I thought it meant feel guilty about what a horrible person you are. I thought it meant confess what a louse you are. That, folks, is definitely not what repent means. It just flat doesn’t.

That it doesn’t mean feel guilty is in some ways good news. It’s certainly no fun going around feeling guilty all the time. That’s not an abundant way to live, and it’s hard (for me at least) to imagine that our God of love wants God’s people going around feeling guilty all the time. The problem is that there’s a bit of bad news in discovering what repent really means too. See, what repent really means turns out to be a good deal harder to do than just feeling guilty about what a terrible person you are. The best definition I’ve found of what the Greek word used the New Testament that usually gets translated as repent is “have a fundamental change in thinking that leads to a fundamental change of behavior or way of living.”

When I found that definition of repent I said “Ouch!” Fundamental change in thinking? Fundamental change of behavior or way of living? Do the people who call us to repent really know what they’re calling us to do? Do they know they are calling us to fundamental transformation? Do they what fundamental means? Our word fundamental comes in part from a Latin word that means depth. Fundamental means in depth. It is the opposite of superficial. It is the opposite of easy. To repent is to transform the most basic parts of our thinking. To repent is to transform just about everything we do. It is to make radical changes in how we live. Ouch! That sounds really hard. It sounds like something I don’t much want to do. My guess is that you don’t much want to do it either.

We may not much want to do it, but the Gospel’s call to repent is still there. We heard it in our reading from Matthew this morning. It’s the first word in John the Baptist’s call to the people: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is near.” He calls the Sadducees and Pharisees who come to him to “produce fruit in keeping with repentance.” I take him to mean show in how you live that you have repented. Transform your thinking, then transform your lives. John’s message, including his call to repentance, became Jesus’ message, or at least part of Jesus’ message. We can make fun of slightly off kilter people holding signs on street corners, although having compassion for them would be more Christian of us. What we can’t do as Christians is ignore the Gospel’s call to us to repent.

So let me offer you a phrase that gets at what repentance really is, a phrase that might make it a bit easier to deal with. That phrase is “turn around.” To repent is to turn around. That’s really what the Greek word the Gospels use literally means. Turn around. That’s God’s call to us. That’s Jesus’ call to us.

Now, to turn around involves a couple of different things. It means first of all turning away from something. Then it means turning to something else. Jesus’ call to repentance is a call to us to turn around, to turn from something and turn to something else. So to understand what repentance means for us we must understand what Jesus calls us to turn from and what he calls us to turn to.

I’ll start with what we’re called to turn to. That’s actually the easier part of repentance to understand. Jesus’ call to repentance is a call to turn toward God and God’s ways. It is a call to turn to the ways of love, peace, hope, joy, compassion, forgiveness, and reconciliation. God calls each and every one of us to turn to those things, to that way of thinking and living. Now, I don’t mean to suggest that living that way is easy. Often it isn’t. I mean, it cost Jesus his life. Still, it is at least fairly easy to specify those things we are called to turn to.

Understanding what we’re called to turn from is, I think, harder, at least when it comes to specifics. In general terms we are called to turn from the ways of the world. We are called to turn from the things that are the opposite of the things we are to turn toward. That means we are to turn from the ways of hate, violence, despair, indifference, judgment, and conflicted separation. That’s easy enough to understand. Where it gets hard is when we try to discern precisely what it means in our own lives. Exactly what that I think or do am I supposed to turn from? Who am I supposed to love? Who am I supposed to forgive? For whom am I supposed to have compassion? Those are questions we all face most every day. Often finding the answers is hard. More often we find the answer and don’t like it. Well, we may not like it, but we’re still called to do it. That’s what repentance is all about.

Here’s another bit of good news. As hard as we may find it to repent, we can do it because we know that God is always with us, calling us, prodding us, but most importantly holding us and forgiving us as we struggle with the task of repentance. So the Gospel’s call to us today and every day is to turn around. To turn from the sinful ways we have learned and to the blessed ways of God. In this Advent season, as we await Christ’s birth, let’s listen to that call. Let’s turn around. Amen.