“Transitions: From Sin to Repentance” Luke 13: 1-9; Isaiah 55: 1-9; SAPC, Denton; March 20, 2022; Lent 3
Before Lent, I read Tom Currie's article “Preaching Repentance: Claiming the Gift of Humanity" from the Lenten volume of Journal for Preachers. The article gave me much food for thought on the subjects of sin and repentance. I have tried to notate the actual quotes I used from his article, but the whole sermon grew out of my reading Currie's article. I am particularly grateful for his bringing the voices of Barth and Calvin to the conversation.
Likewise, the Men's Breakfast group has been studying Amy-Jill Levine's book Short Stories by Jesus. In her conversation about the parable of what we call the Prodigal son, she discusses God's overwhelming grace and its role in repentance. I also found the same story mentioned in the sermon in Hear then the Parable, by Brandon Bernard Scott (my favorite book on the parables).
I enjoyed writing and preaching this sermon. I received almost no feedback from anyone who heard the sermon, so it may have meant more to me than anyone else!
the final story/example (it has a line through it on the blog) was in the draft, but I did not use it. It felt like time to end when I did without the story. when I was reviewing the sermon for this blog, it felt like I should have left it in the sermon.
Isaiah 55: 1-9
Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
2
Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread,
and your labor for that which does not satisfy?
Listen carefully to me, and eat what is good,
and delight yourselves in rich food.
3
Incline your ear, and come to me;
listen, so that you may live.
I will make with you an everlasting covenant,
my steadfast, sure love for David.
4
See, I made him a witness to the peoples,
a leader and commander for the peoples.
5
See, you shall call nations that you do not know,
and nations that do not know you shall run to you,
because of the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel,
for he has glorified you.
6
Seek the Lord while he may be found,
call upon him while he is near;
7
let the wicked forsake their way,
and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
9
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Introduction: We continue our Lenten preaching series on transitions.
Each week, we will reflect on the transitions found in the biblical texts from the lectionary readings for Lent.
As we reflect on those transitions, it is an invitation for you to both consider the transition in the biblical story and expand you reflections to consider how your re approaching other transitions in your own lives.
this week, we look at the transition from sin to repentance.
Move 1: Sin and repentance
a. In simple terms, we can describe sin as separation from God.
1. Our sin moves us away from God.
2. We remember Adam and Eve, who when they sinned, find themselves moving away from God as they notice their nakedness and recognize that gap between themselves and God.
3. Sometimes, that separation has a physical component to it. Literal separation - again, Adam and Eve find themselves sent out from the Garden of Eden.
b. Likewise, repentance in simple terms is return to God.
1. We hear the prophet Isaiah call for the “wicked to forsake their ways” and the unrighteous to forsake “their thoughts” and “return to the Lord.”
2. As mentioned with the young disciples, the Hebrew word for repent literally means to turn the other direction. A physical, concrete shift.
c. If we are not careful, we create an understanding of sin and repentance that feel like they are outside of our relationship God.
1. Sin taking us away from God.
2. Repentance becoming some challenging thing we need to do, which can become all about us.
d. Reformed theologian Karl Barth, however, puts both sin and repentance firmly in the context of our relationship wiht God.
1. In fact, Barth suggests that only “only Christians can sin, (that ought to be a good Sunday afternoon conversation back at the house!) for it is the very faithfulness of the God of Jesus Christ that reveals how often and how far and how deep we fail to follow…” (Tom Currie, Journal for Preachers, “Preaching Repentance: Claiming the Gift of Humanity,” Volume XLV, Number 2, Lent, 2022, 14-20)
2. As for repentance, it is only understood in the context of Jesus Christ, who took on all our sin to redeem us.
3. Jesus Christ, who has gone before us and beckons us to follow him down the path of repentance.
thus, we find ourselves looking at our Lenten block that has the arrow calling us to change direction and repent even as we breath our prayer, “Merciful God, call me back.”
Move 2: Reflect a bit more on the God of repentance
a. Theologian Ralph Wood notes in a sermon he preached: “We would not repent unless we were already under pressure of God’s salvation…. God grasps us even when we can no longer grasp him [God]” (Ralph Wood as quoted by Tom Currie, 19).
1. In other words, repentance is not our action alone, but a part of what God is doing in our lives.
2. a submitting of our will to the will of God.
b. Tom Currie, theologian and friend of this congregation, points out one of the great struggles of repentance is always “a struggle to believe in God’s forgiveness of us, of me.”
1. He suggests that repentance is how “we bear witness, broken as it may seem and be, to the reality of God’s mercy and the remarkable gift of our forgiven humanity.” (currie, 16)
2. the act of repentance announces to the world that “our brokennesss is not what defines us.
3. rather, it is Christ’s love that refuses to be without those whom he has claimed and forgiven that defines us..
4. to repent is to claim that love,
5. repentance is the simple act of faith in Jesus Christ as Lord, an admission that we are not alone but live out of his daily grace and mercy, gifts that are ours only as they connect us in him to others.”
6. repentance is the robust claim that Jesus is Lord even over my sinfulness.” (Currie, 19)
c. The image of physically turning from our sin and heading back to God is a powerful one I have often used.
1. for me, it gives a concrete image to repentance.
2. But, as you imagine yourself, or someone else, repenting, literally turning, the image should expand so that we see God in the image calling us back, indeed, coming for us.
3. that is the image Amy Jill Levine offers in her discussion of the parable we know as the Prodigal Son. you know that familiar story of the younger son who takes his inheritance and leaves home, squanders it, and then returns to live as a servant only to be welcomed home by a party by his father (Short Stories by Jesus, Amy Jill Levine, 58).
She shares with the reader a rabbinic story a king whose son son had gone away; the son’s friends told him to return; the son says he cannot; the king says return as far as you are able, and I will come to you the rest of the way.
Move 3: Repentance is not a one-moment event.
a. John Calvin, the great Reformer, thinks of repentance as a lifelong claiming of God’s mercy, a venture of faith that boldly seeks to live with and into the forgiveness that is ours already and will not let us go (Currie, 16)
1. Calvin’s image for repentance is the Israelites 40 years in the wilderness.
2. or, remember the story of Joseph. It begins with the sinfulness of the brothers whose jealousy toward their younger brother causes them to fake his death and sell him off to others.
It finishes with repentance, forgiveness, and the saving of Israel.
But, it does not happen overnight. It takes years to develop and for the situation to arrive when repentance and forgiveness can be found.
3. Even the Apostle Paul, whose dramatic story of change on the road to Damascus when he seemingly in a moment changes from Saul, the persecutor of Christians to Paul, the evangelizer of Christians;
even Paul later will write to the Galatians about his ongoing process for first three years and then fourteen years work of repentance to be right with God and the other leaders of the Christian movement (Galatians 1:18 -2:2; Currie, 17)
4. the transition from sin to repentance is an ongoing part of our calling as followers of Christ.
5. We have a continual need to turn and return to the God who is coming for us.
b. Story of John Profumo, British politician who served as Secretary of Sate for War in the early 1960s.
He was part of a scandal with a prostitute, which became quite an ordeal because he lied about it to the British Parliament and because the prostitute was also involved with a Russian envoy.
by today’s standards, what he did not might not seem so bad, but at the time his scandal took on a name of its own and at least two movies were made about it, one entitled Scandal.
After his resignation, Profumo began to work as a volunteer cleaning toilets at Toynbee Hall, a charity based in the East End of London, and continued to work there for the rest of his life. he was independently wealthy and did not have to do anything.
Eventually, Profumo was asked to volunteer as the charity's chief fundraiser. He "had to be persuaded to lay down his mop and lend a hand running the place", eventually becoming Toynbee Hall's chief fundraiser, and used his political skills and contacts to raise large sums of money.
he spoke little about how he spent his life; did not make pronouncements about how he had changed.
he just followed the path of repentance for the rest of his life.
Conclusion: As we baptize Annie today, we commit to teaching her the faith and showing her what it means to follow Jesus Christ.
part of that story is about repentance, about returning to “the God who abundantly pardons” and is coming for us.
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