18th Sunday after Pentecost
Grace be to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
On the last Sunday of this month, we will celebrate Reformation Sunday. We will remember Dr. Martin Luther and his re-discovery that the gospel is all about grace that God freely gives us in baptism, a grace we claim in faith and respond to by living according to God’s desires.
The event that kicked the reformation into high gear was the posting of Luther’s 95 theses on the doors of the castle church in Wittenberg on October 31, 1517. Luther was a priest and theology professor and had written the 95 statements to invite a theological debate over some teachings and practices he wanted the church to reform, teachings and practices he thought the church of his time had gotten wrong.
The very first one of his theses was this one: "When our Lord and master Jesus Christ said 'Repent,' he intended the entire life of believers to be repentance." In that Luther echoes Jesus Christ himself, whose very first sermon was, “Repent and believe in the good news.”
Repent. Turn around. Change your mind. Adjust your habits. Move in a new direction. Hold to different values. Realize that you were misguided and amend your ways. Repent.
That is God’s call all through the Bible. Today, we hear that call in Jesus’ parable that praises the son who changes his mind does is father’s will. And we hear that call from the Prophet Ezekiel who proclaims in the name of God, “Repent and turn from all your transgressions; get yourself a new heart and a new spirit. Turn, then, and live!”
How do we hear and respond to this call for repentance within a culture that does not encourage the admission of mistakes? We live in a world where everyone wants to seem perfect, where blunders are hidden or blamed on others, where failures of morality don’t lead to much outrage anymore, where those who apologize are viewed as losers.
Repentance does not sound good in our ears. Our society dislikes admitting mistakes; and movies show images of medieval monks doing penance by hurting themselves; and there is this idea that repentance leads to obsessive naval-gazing and self-hatred; all that makes repentingound like that last thing in the world we would ever want to engage in.
Yet Jesus placed repentance at the beginning of his gospel. Luther placed it first among his 95 theses. It seems really important, essential even, to the life of faith. How so?
The short answer we get from scripture, including today’s readings, is that repentance leads to life. Repentance leads to the kingdom of God. Repentance leads to a life in sync with God and God’s people. Repentance gets us unstuck and moves us towards a more faithful, more fulfilled, more joyful way of life.
This week, it was especially the first reading that caught my attention. Let’s take a closer look at the reading from the book of Ezekiel.
Ezekiel was a prophet to the people of Israel right around the time that the Kingdom of Judah was conquered by the Babylonians. The capitol Jerusalem with its temple was destroyed, and thousands of leading citizens of the nation were deported into exile in Babylon.
The Prophet Ezekiel was among these deported citizens. Living in exile far from the homeland, he was speaking God’s word to the people in their very trying circumstances.
He begins today’s section by quoting a saying that must have been quite popular at the time, for it also is quoted elsewhere in the Bible. This is the saying: “The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge.”
Do you know the feeling when you have consumed something very sour, like lemon juice or sour patch kids, and your teeth get really sensitive? That’s what this saying refers to. The parents have eaten sour food and the kids’ teeth get sensitive. In other words, the kids are suffering for what the parents did.
God says that Israel should no longer repeat this saying. Which means that they are saying it among themselves. Devastated by their defeat, the loss of their country, and their captivity in exile, they do what people of all generations are fond of doing: They blame their parents.
It’s our parents’ fault. They messed up. They got us into this terrible situation. We had nothing to do with it. We are the victims here.
This attitude of victimhood leads to fatalism: There is nothing we can do about it! We are stuck in this situation.
Additionally, they assume God’s hand in all of it. God is punishing them for the sins of their parents. So there really is no way out.
God wants the people to snap out of it, out of this defeated fatalism that immobilizes them. Repent, God calls. Change our assumptions about God, about your situation, and about yourself.
Stop repeating that saying about getting stuck suffering for the parents’ sins. No more, God says. God can figure out who is responsible for which sins, thank you very much. And God will confront everyone with their own sins only, not with those of their ancestors.
Also, God continues, you are in a bad spot, no question about it. But you still have choices. Even in the spot you are in, exile in a foreign land, you have choices. You can be wicked, or you can be righteous. You can live according to God’s laws or refuse those laws.
Which means the people also have the capacity to sin. By quoting that saying, they pretend all their misery stems from what their parents did wrong. As if they themselves are perfect. Well, they aren’t. God invites them to cast away their transgressions and claim the new heart and the new spirit God holds out to them. God invites them into repentance. God invites them to turn and live!
Repentance will get the people unstuck, will get them out of their victim-thinking, will overcome their defeatism. Repentance will return agency to them, will give them power to shape their and their community’s life for the better, will inspire them to do their best in their current situation. Repentance will make them realize God’s presence in their lives, will energize them to live and act faithfully, will give them new hope for a future they can help shape. Repentance leads to joy and action and hope. Repentance leads to life.
There are many areas where we today are tempted to get trapped by defeatism and victimhood thinking: our dysfunctional political landscape, our current economic realities, the global climate crisis, and more. We feel overwhelmed and want to say, “It’s not my fault. There is nothing I can do. I’ll just have to suffer the consequences of what my forbears did.”
How does God’s word from today’s scripture speak to that?
Let’s look at one example that has stymied this nation for a long time: slavery and racism. Yes, it is true that we today are suffering the consequences of sins committed by generations before us. They imported and abused enslaved people. They came up with Jim Crow laws. They segregated society and severely disadvantaged black people. It’s not our fault that we have all this racial tension now, we are tempted to say; there’s nothing we can do.
Repent and snap out of it, God says. True, you and I didn’t enslave anyone; true, we are dealing with the aftereffect of what previous generations did. But it’s not as if we are sin-free. We, too, need to repent. And repentance will make us realize that we have choices; we have agency; how we act today matters and can move our nation either towards more racial injustice or towards equality for all.
Repentance will bring us closer to the God who states in Ezekiel today, “Know that all lives are mine.” Repentance will get us the new heart and the new spirit that God offers. Repentance will energize us to work towards a society where all people are seen and treated as equally beloved children of God.
Another area where defeatism threatens our souls is the state of the church in this day and age. For over a decade, churches have been declining everywhere. COVID sped up that decline. We have fewer people in worship, fewer teenagers in youth group, fewer kids in Sunday school, fewer volunteers to keep our ministries going.
It is so very tempting to resign. “Our parents left us with this huge mortgage on the church. It’s not our fault we are struggling. Young people just don’t care about God anymore. There’s nothing we can do.”
Repent and snap out of it, God says. True, it’s challenging right now to be the church. True, COVID isn’t anyone’s fault. But we have choices. We have agency.
We are called to repent, to wonder before God where our own sins stymy the ministry God has in mind for this place at this time. Where do I and my preconceived notion of what church looks like get in the way? Where does my lack of trust in God’s guidance and providence dampen my hope? Where does my desire to have the church I want hinder from emerging the church that God wants and that my neighbors need?
Let’s repent. Let’s come to God and receive the new heart and the new spirit God offers. Let’s claim the choices and agencies we have right now and be energized for kingdom work.
We have a story to tell about a Savior who loves us so much he died and rose for us, and who is alive now to accompany and comfort and encourage us.
We have a hope to share about fulfillment in this life and rest in eternal life.
We have a community to offer where people are loved and nurtured in healing relationships with God and each other.
We have a song to sing about a kingdom where every child of God will be blessed with love and healing and peace.
Martin Luther, Ezekiel, and Jesus all call us to repentance today – not to punish us or make us miserable, but to lead us to life. Guided by the grace of God, let us head the call: Turn, then, and live! Amen.