Crucial Words in the Christian Vocabulary:
Repentance
By Victor Shepherd
Isaiah 3 0:1 5 Jeremiah 24:7 Mark 1:14-15
Romans 2:4
Some words in the Christian vocabulary have
acquired a "bad press." As soon as such a word is mentioned negative
associations surround it. "Repentance" is such a word. For many people the word
is off-putting because of the images that accompany it: breast-beating, tears,
self-accusation, self-rejection. Repentance is commonly thought to be a matter
of fishing around in the hidden depths of spiritual sludge, dredging up whatever
might be there and staring at it unhelpfully. And to be sure, among some people
whose zeal outstripped their wisdom it has been thought that the worse we can
appear to ourselves (at least) the more virtuous we are supposed to be.
"Repentance" has a bad press, again, in that it is frequently linked to an
exaggerated feeling of guilt. We've all heard preaching that attempts to
precipitate a crisis of repentance (so-called) by artificially magnifying guilt.
The fires of guilt are stoked until repentance is seized to extinguish them.
Coincidentally I have noticed that mental health experts tend to be suspicious
of "religion" if not downright hostile to it. I have long thought too that their
anti-religious sentiment appears to be fed by the distressed people who seek
them professionally, the distress of these people quickened by religiously
fanned emotional torment. If repentance presupposes emotional shipwreck, who
needs it?
Repentance is often confused, in the third place, with remorse. Unquestionably
the remorseful person feels dreadful. Remorse, however, is depression-ridden
regret over what one has done or over the consequences of what one has done.
Remorse, depression-riddled regret, is never the same as repentance (as we shall
shortly see.)
It
is easy to understand that "repentance" is a word our society prefers to forget.
No one is going to be helped by anything that rubs our nose in our personal
garbage pail or artificially magnifies guilt or soaks us in depression.
Nevertheless, we Christians can never delete the word from our vocabulary. After
all, we know that Jesus Christ comes only to impart wholeness, healing,
helpfulness, and yet he summons people to repentance every day of his earthly
ministry. Not only is the summons to repent always on our Lord's lips; it is
always an urgent summons. "Don't put it off," he insists; "What are you
waiting for? Can't you see this is what the physician prescribes? Can't you see
that you need this as you need nothing else?" The summons to repentance is one
of the major building blocks of our Lord's ministry. If we pull it out, his
ministry becomes unrecognizable.
Change of Mind - Change of Life
Repentance, at bottom, isn't garbage-pail picking. It is a change of mind
with an attendant change in life. Both are needed. If there is only a change
in our thinking then we are racing our motor with the gears in neutral: lots of
impressive-sounding noise pouring forth (from under the hood) but no advance. I
remember sitting with a suffering man, an alcoholic still a long way from
contented sobriety, at 3:00 a.m. He knew he had a problem. His pain was intense
and unrelieved. He knew the progression of the ailment, the consequences for
himself and his family. He had also been told time and again what help was
available. Sitting alongside us was another habituated fellow who had been sober
for several years. As our suffering friend insisted (utterly unrealistically)
that he had his situation turned around in his mind, the sober fellow kept
asking him, "But what are going to do about it?" Racing the motor with the gears
in neutral gets us nowhere. A change of mind without a change in life-direction
falls short of repentance.
On
the other hand if there is a change in behaviour without a profound
transformation of mind and heart then we have merely conformed outwardly to peer
pressure. Inwardly we are no different. As soon as a changed environment changes
the peer pressure our behaviour will alter again - even as we remain the same
inwardly. This chameleon-likeness is obviously not the repentance Jesus urges.
He insists on both a change in how we are thinking, how we understand ourselves
before him, and a change in the course we are pursuing.
Foundationally, repentance is a turning toward God. The Hebrew mind
understands such turning to be a returning to God, an about-face. When the
Israelite people heard the prophets summon them to repentance they immediately
saw three vivid pictures that the prophets were forever holding up before the
people.
The
first is that of an unfaithful wife returning to her husband. She has violated
their marriage covenant. She has disgraced herself and humiliated her spouse.
She has rendered their marriage the butt of cruel snickering and bad jokes. If
she is not publicly ridiculed, she is privately whispered to be treacherous. Yet
her husband's love for her, however wounded, remains undiminished and his
patience unexhausted. As she turns to him she returns to longstanding love.
The
second picture the Hebrew prophets paint is that of idol-worshippers returning
to the worship of the true God. In the Hebrew language, the word for "the idols"
is "the nothings." Idols are literally nothing: vacuous, insubstantial. Yet
nothing is never merely nothing. In some sense nothing is always
something. Nothing, never merely nothing, is always something; paradoxically,
something with terrific power. Think of a vacuum. By definition a vacuum is
nothing and yet is posessed of such power that it sucks everything around it
into it.
Think of a lie. By definition a lie is nothing. A lie is a statement that
corresponds to nothing. Yet a lie has immense power. Think of slander.
Slander is a statement that ruins someone's reputation, ruins her future, ruins
her earthly fortunes when in fact the statement is wholly insubstanial,
vacuous, nothing. But the damage nothing does isn't nothing; the damage that
nothing does is everything: ruinous.
Or
think of a statement that is not slanderous but is merely untrue. If I were to
say, in the course of this sermon, that a huge snowstorm was on the way most
people would stop listening to the sermon and begin plotting how they were going
to get home. Some would get up and leave right now. Others would move their car
from the parking lot to the street so as not to be ploughed in. All would lament
that we hadn't worn our winter boots to worship and would make a note to
purchase another pair tomorrow. In other words all of us would be orienting our
lives around the statement that record snowfall is imminent - when the statement
is a lie. Nothing, our Hebrew foreparents knew, is never merely nothing. Nothing
- vacuity, hollowness - it is oddly "something" with destructive power.
When
idol-worshippers turn from idols to the true and living God they return to
truth, reality, substance, solidity; in a word they return to blessing so
weighty that nothing can inhibit it or frustrate it or dissipate it.
The
third picture from the Hebrew Bible is that of rebel subjects returning to their
rightful ruler. To rebel against rightful rule, fitting rule, appropriate rule,
is always to move from order to chaos. We must be sure to understand that
groundless rebellion is revolt against legitimate authority, not against
arbitrary authoritarianism. Authoritarianism is no more than a bully's coercion,
enforced by gun or club. Authority, on the other hand, is that which ensures our
greatest good. When rebel subjects rebel not against authoritarianism but
against proper authority they plunge themselves into disorder and chaos. When
they return to their rightful ruler they return to trustworthy wisdom, to that
which ensures their blessing, their greatest good.
To
repent, then, is to return to longstanding love, to truth, to legitimate
authority.
We
can know all of this, at least be aware of it in our head, and yet remain
unaware of specific areas of our lives where (re)turning is needed. Since we are
unaware of what is needed now no amount of looking in upon ourselves will tell
us what is needed. We need someone else to tell us, someone whom we trust,
someone from whom we can hear the truth about ourselves without exploding or
denying or "retaliating."
For
years I assumed that I had privileged access to myself. In other words, I
assumed that not only did I know more about myself than anyone else knew about
me, I necessarily knew more about myself, knew more about myself in all
circumstances without exception, than anyone else could know about me. I clung
to this illusion and folly for years. Little by little, amidst much pain and no
less public embarrassment, I came to see that while there are certainly some
situations where I know more about myself than others do, there are many
situations where anyone at all has better insight into me than I have into
myself. There are situations where a five-year old has better insight into me
than I have into myself. Finally I surrendered my illusion: I do not have
privileged access to myself. None of us has.
For
this reason we need someone we trust to hold the mirror up to us, someone whose
gentle word we know is not an attack upon us; we need some such person to help
us see what we are never going to see by ourselves. Such a person says to us,
"Why do you keep putting your wife down when in fact she needs affirmation?"
"Why are you so harsh with your children at home but pretend such affection in
public?" Because the mirror has been held up by someone we trust we aren't going
to "fly off the handle" and flee into our fort with all guns blazing. Instead we
shall soberly admit what the mirror reflects: we must turn to face the truth
about ourselves and the claim of our Lord upon us, even as the face of
longstanding love shines upon us ceaselessly.
Repentance - and Mercy
What
moves us to repentance? Why would anyone gladly make a "u-turn", eagerly turn
around? One thing above everything else moves us to repent: the mercy and
kindness of God. Paul writes to the Christians in Rome, "Do you not know that
God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance?"
John
the Baptist spoke much of repentance. His motive for it was fear, sheer fear.
"The axe is laid to the root of the tree. The chaff is being burned in the fire.
Repentance is the only route to survival." It is the big threat.
Yet
we falsify Jesus if we pretend that he never threatened. He did. And besides,
did not Jesus say he endorsed cousin John's ministry without reservation? Yet
Jesus differs from John the Baptist in one important regard: for Jesus the
decisive motive for repentance is the overwhelming, all-encompassing,
incomprehensible mercy of God. We joyfully repent as God's mercy floods us.
Jesus speaks three unforgettable parables in Luke 15 of the lost coin, lost
sheep and lost son. Each parable concludes with a repentance throbbing with joy.
I
think that our foreparents (or at least some of them) may have erred in thinking
that the big threat engineered repentance. The big threat, however, does not
change the human heart. To be sure it does coerce tolerable conduct, even as
people hate the one who threatens them. How many adults are there who were
emotionally bludgeoned into being models of middle-class convention and hated
their parents for it? And how many adults, for the same reason, have grown up
feeling the same way about God?
Before we write off our foreparents we should understand that our
contemporaries (particularly our religious contemporaries) err in thinking that
repentance is genuine only if we first disparage ourselves or purge ourselves or
induce an unusual mental state. But to think we have to undergo a
technique-ridden, psycho-religious initiation is to cast aspersion on God's
mercy and soak ourselves in anxiety: "I can't seem to get into the right
spiritual space." Nowhere does Jesus prescribe self-disparagement or
psycho-religious self-preparation. He simply stands before us and assures us
that his arms, the arms of the crucified, embrace everyone without exception,
without condition and without hesitation. His mercy is simple, profound,
transparent, effectual.
Repentance, says Jesus, is coming to our senses, as the son in the far country
came to his senses when he thought of the waiting father. Repentance, says
Jesus, is to become a child again, because for a child everything is received as
gift. Repentance, says, Jesus, is so far from anything miserable that it calls
for a party, for celebration, for dancing.
Three examples of Repentance
I
want to conclude with a glance into history at three of our foreparents who did
get it right, who did know what scripture means by "repentance."
First is Martin Luther (1483-1546.) On Hallowe'en, 1517, Luther nailed his
Ninety-Five Theses to the door of the church in Wittenberg. In those days it was
the custom to post publicly any item on which you were inviting public debate.
Luther had much in mind that he thought should be debated publicly; he had
ninety-five matters (at least) in mind. And the first? "When scripture says
'Repent' it means that the life of the Christian is daily, lifelong repentance."
To say that the life of the Christian is daily, lifelong repentance is to say
that every morning when our feet hit the cold floor we orient ourselves afresh
to the truth that is before us. Every morning we re-check our course to ensure
that we are on course. Every morning we resolve that this day we are going to
live as those who are re-orienting themselves to persistent love, to truth and
substance, to rightful rule and authority. The life of the Christian is a daily,
lifelong reaffirmation of this.
The
second person I want us to think about is John Calvin (1509-1864), another
sixteenth century Reformer. In his Commentary on Deuteronomy, in the course of
discussing the Ten Commandments, Calvin argued cogently that the form in which
God's command comes to us is invitation. On the one hand the command to repent
is just that: a command. On the other hand, in light of God's all-embracing
mercy, the form of the command isn't a sergeant-major's bark but a winsome
invitation: "Why don't you repent? Isn't it better to re-orient your life than
not to? Your Father is waiting for you to RSVP the invitation."
The
third person is really a cluster of persons: the Puritans of the seventeenth
century. The Puritans insisted that all God's commands are covered promises. All
God's commands are promises in disguise. To be sure, God does command us to
repent, return. At the same time, by his Spirit God guarantees the fulfillment
of his command. If ever we doubt that we can repent, can repent adequately, all
we need do is look to our Lord who submitted to John's baptism of repentance not
because he, Jesus, needed to repent but because we need to. In other words, if
we doubt the adequacy of our own repentance we must cling afresh to Jesus Christ
in faith, for in clinging to him we are one with him who gathers our defective
repentance into his sufficient, effectual repentance and thereby ensures that
ours is adequate. All the commands of God are covered promises.
Mark
tells us that Jesus came into Galilee with a very simple message: "The Kingdom
of God, the reign of God's mercy, is on your doorstep. So why not repent, turn
into it, and cast yourselves upon the best news you will ever hear?"
Why
not?
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