Repentance — And here's why

A sermon for Sunday, June 28, 2020

Would you pray with me?

God who calls us all to repentance and the wholeness found only in you, thank you for gathering us together. Make your presence known among us. And may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.

Before I begin the sermon, I want to take a moment, for the people who just watch the sermon, to let everyone know that due to the governor’s extension of phase 2, we won’t be meeting for in-person indoor worship until July 19th at the earliest. With cases on the rise in our part of the state, we’re following the bishop’s recommendation on this. I know that many of us are impatient to get back together, but the unfortunate reality is that gathering for indoor worship is one of the riskiest things that we can do and I don’t want to take the chance until the risk level is much lower.

That said, we are doing in-person midweek worship in the fellowship hall on Wednesdays at 6pm, since that’s usually a smaller gathering. If you’d like more information about that, let me know. And if you are interested in trying outdoor worship, I’m open to seeing what we can do. We’ll keep offering online worship like this regardless until there’s a vaccine and it’s safe for all to come back to worship, so no matter what, you’ll have some opportunity to gather with us.

In the meantime, I’d love it if we could gather with others to go through the full worship services we’ve been posting and create some house churches during this time. You’ll still need to be careful and maintain physical distancing, but even gathering with a few others can help us maintain that sense of community that we’ve been missing.

That said, we as Whittier United Methodist Church are still out here being the church. Grace House is still operating, Gloria’s got two outreach fundraisers going on at her shop. Kay and Lynn have been helping her sanitize donations as they come in and Anthony even built her a plexiglass shield for the cash register. As I’m recording this on Thursday, Tony and Chris are working in the garden and Rita’s mowing the lawn.

Tesi and Alice Ann have been taking care of our roses and helping out in the garden too. Peggy and Eilene stopped by the church to pick up their Upper Rooms and Sam and Tonia have been coming to midweek worship. Carrol’s been going to Sunday School with Bryson City UMC and came to midweek worship, and we’ve even had a visitor stop by our online midweek worship—my friend Isaac from high school. Kathy Wiggins has been popping in to midweek worship and virtual coffee hour to say hello and offer some kindness and grace. Cathy Dunlap has been keeping up with our finances and we’re truly grateful for all the work she’s been doing. Pam Cope has been making sure we have all the supplies we need for reopening. Cozette called me the other day to let me know how she’s been doing—she’s one of the ones without internet that I’ve been sending sermons to. I’ve heard from many of you, like Sarah Malpass, that you’re checking in with one another and I’m glad that you’re still building whatever community you can in this time. As much as we all miss worshipping together in our sanctuary, we’re doing a pretty good job of proving the old axiom, the church is not the building.

And so, let’s turn our attention to someone who never went to worship in a church building: Jesus. We pick up with his story in the gospel of Matthew right where we left off. He’s just come through his time of temptation in the desert and now, he’s beginning his ministry. Now, we don’t live in first-century Judea, so all these place names mean nothing to us. It’s important to Matthew’s gospel, though, and so let’s take a minute to learn the places.

From Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey, by Mark Allan Powell. — From *Introducing the New Testament: A Historical, Literary, and Theological Survey*, by Mark Allan Powell.

Galilee is up here in the north of Judea. This is where Nazareth is, about halfway between the Sea of Galilee and the Mediterranean Sea, and here’s where Capernaum is, up at the top of the Sea of Galilee. Galilee is surrounded by Phoenicia to the north (where we get phonics from), Syria and Decapolis on the other side of the Jordan River, and Samaria, where the Samaritans live, to the South. This is why we have so many stories about Jesus interacting with Samaritans: Anytime he goes to Jerusalem from Galilee, he’s got to cross through Samaria.

Now, John was baptizing way down here, in the Jordan down by Jericho near Jerusalem. The wilderness that John was living in and that Jesus went up into is down here in the southern part of Judea. That’s why it says that Jesus withdrew to Galilee when John was arrested. Tensions are high down near Jerusalem, with the arrest of John the Baptist. Jesus starts his ministry away from that mess.

See, John had been challenging the religious leaders in Jerusalem and Herod, the ruler in the land. The leaders were nervous. There could be riots or even a full-scale revolt against Rome. It had happened before. And we hear people asking John if he’s the Messiah who’s to come, if he’s the one who’s going to start a new revolt, a new war, and overthrow Rome. It is both a spiritual and political act for Jesus to get baptized by John and for John to proclaim that Jesus is the one who he’s been preparing the way for. The people are looking for someone to bring change to their lives. They thought that maybe it was John, but John says it was Jesus.

Jesus diffuses that situation by leaving the area around Jerusalem, but he doesn’t lay down the cause. He begins preaching just what John did: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”

I want to return to this idea of repentance in a minute, but let’s see what he does next. Since he’s in Capernaum, he’s right by the Sea of Galilee and on the lake, he sees some fishermen: Simon Peter and his brother Andrew, and James and his brother John, the sons of Zebedee. We won’t get a full list of the twelve disciples yet, but we hear the story of these four being called. They’re fishermen but Jesus wants to make them fishers of men. What I want you to hear in that is that when you decide to follow Jesus, you don’t give up everything of who you are. In your life before Jesus, you’ve built up skills and hopes and desires and in many cases, those are good and given by God. Peter, Andrew, James, and John all know how to bring in fish. Jesus wants them to use their skills to bring in people.

And even though his home is in Capernaum, Jesus travels throughout Galilee, preaching the good news of repentance and the coming kingdom and healing people: people with all sorts of sicknesses, even demoniacs, epileptics, and paralytics, and he cures them. Great crowds follow him, some from Galilee, some from the Decapolis, which is right nearby, but some all the way from Jerusalem and other places in Judea, and some from the lands across the Jordan.

Jesus left the movement near Jerusalem, but the movement came to hear him and to be healed by him, and so, they followed him.

I think the movement and progression that we see here is key. John is down by Jericho and Jerusalem, down by Israel’s capital, testifying to the change that needs to happen in Israel and stirring up trouble doing it. People start to get hopeful. The people in power are noticing them. Maybe things will change.

But then John gets arrested and the best person to take over the movement doesn’t push things in Jerusalem but heads back out to the countryside. The people still want change, and the ones who believe that Jesus can bring it are willing to go away from the places of power in order to seek it.

And Jesus chooses not to do what John did, at least not yet. Jesus chooses to leave the stirring up for later. For now, at the beginning of his ministry, he focuses on preaching and healing.

Now, this is the Jesus that I fell in love with. This Jesus, who has heard the cry of the people around him, who went to be baptized by John because he knew that things had to change. This Jesus, who chooses not to try to take power from political authorities but instead turns to teaching and healing. This Jesus, who knows that change has to happen at every level and everywhere, otherwise change will not last. This Jesus, who has such compassion for the people he encounters and such passion for the well-being of the people he hasn’t met yet.

And so this wonderful, compassionate Jesus, starts off by telling us to repent. Now, I know repentance is a touchy subject for many of us, because we have only ever had repentance forced on us, and the repentance forced on us was filled with shame and guilt. But repentance is a part of our lives as Christians and it’s time that we reclaim it. So much of our healing and learning and growth begins with repentance, and that’s, I think, why Jesus starts his ministry with the same message as John.

Repentance, when it’s done right, is a healthy thing, even if it’s painful sometimes. Repentance means understanding that you have done something harmful, feeling true regret and sadness because of that harm, and deciding to turn away from that harm. Repentance is something we must do over an over again in our lives as we understand God, ourselves, and others better. It’s a key part of what we Methodists call sanctification, becoming more holy, becoming more like Christ. As we live and move and breathe in this world, we’re impacted by the harmful things in it, many times through no fault of our own. Repentance is our way of clearing away harm, so that we can grow ever more like the one who brings healing instead of harm: Jesus.

As we become used to a rhythm of repentance, of looking at ourselves, seeing what is harmful, and choosing to no longer do harm, we become better followers of Jesus. We become more humble, quicker to listen and learn, and more willing to offer ourselves as living sacrifices to God and to others through acts of service and kindness. We will, eventually, become more willing to do everything we can, including speaking out and taking action, when harm is done to others. I truly think our growth as disciples of Jesus Christ who long to be a part of this world’s transformation into something more like the kingdom of heaven begins in a rhythm of repentance. It’s why repentance and healing are so closely tied in Jesus’ ministry here in Galilee and beyond.

Now, there’s much within ourselves that this rhythm of repentance can heal and in particular, we see right now that our broken racial relations here in the US are in need of healing. This, of course, happens at all levels, but we know that it must happen in our hearts too. Understanding the harm that we white people do to people of color, even without knowing we do it, is our first step in repentance. If we fully understand, we will feel that regret and sadness that will drive us to turn away from the harm we do. It’s not a one-time act of repentance. It is a daily rhythm as we work to heal the harm that white supremacy has done. In order to help us with that, I’ll be starting a small group that will meet here at the church to help us understand our role in the healing that’s needed. If you’re interested in starting this rhythm of repentance with me, let me know.

Of course, there are more than just broken racial relations to repent of and to work on healing. We all have interpersonal broken relationships that could be healed by the rhythm of repentance. We have other biases, too, that we could learn to examine and repent of. The Spirit works within us when we practice repentance. The Spirit prods us into new understandings, comforts us in our sorrow, and strengthens us as we resolve to do differently. There’s a reason that the word spirit is connected to the word breath: the Spirit is constantly working within us, just as our breath is. If we work at it, if we find ourselves caught up in the healing rhythm of repentance, we’ll find this way of healing as natural to us as breath. It’s the work of a lifetime, but I believe that we can do it.

Friends, we have covered a lot of ground today, from Jericho to Capernaum. We’ve followed Jesus from temptation to repentance and we trust that Jesus offers us healing too in this time. Don’t be scared of what Jesus has to teach us; after all, he calls you too, because the goodness inside you, the skills you already have, are precious and wonderful and necessary for the kingdom. Hear his words and let them work in you this week: Repent, for a light has dawned on us and the kingdom of heaven and all its goodness has drawn near.

Amen.