As we continue to think about Jesus as a light to the nations and what it means for us to continue to reflect that light in the world, we circle back around to a topic that we touched on briefly a couple of weeks ago. On the Sunday that we celebrated the Baptism of Jesus, we talked primarily about forgiveness. Today, we add Jonah to that earlier conversation to help us better understand repentance which goes hand in hand with forgiveness.
* * *
Some of you may recall that two weeks ago we talked about forgiveness. We took a look at the Baptism of Jesus and what it means for us to be baptized. I concluded that message by speaking of repentance as a corollary to forgiveness. Today we look more intentionally at repentance, both how it works and how it doesn’t.
Repentance is a somewhat complex word with lots of moving parts. It means to feel regret for past thoughts or actions, but the meaning doesn’t end there. To truly repent means to be so moved by the misdeeds of the past, that we commit to change our present and future. It gives us a sense of turning around to face the other direction. As we commonly think of repentance in the Church, it means to turn from a life of a sin to a life focused on God.
Of course, the Biblical writers didn’t speak modern English. The Greek word we translate as repentance is μετάνοια (metanoia). This word combines the concepts of change and time. The Greeks would have understood this as a change that took place over time or a different attitude or action that took place after some other event.
I think that this Greek concept is helpful for us in the modern world, even as it may perhaps be difficult for us. In the world of on demand entertainment and the availability of so many things nearly immediately through services like Amazon, we sometimes expect everything in our lives to work with the same immediacy. Repentance in our minds can become a “once and done” thing, leaving us feeling like failures if we don’t see the immediate effects in our lives. But the Biblical writers would not have had this same understanding. For them, repentance would have been something that took place over time after some event or encounter led them to change their minds. Repentance is an ongoing process of transformation, not a one time event.
But what is the event or encounter that leads to repentance? What leads us to “change after” in the sense that the Greeks would have understood?
We perhaps get some sense of what this looks like in the story of Jonah. I think many of us are familiar with the general outline of this story. Jonah is called by God to go speak God’s judgement on the people of Nineveh, but Jonah doesn’t want to go. He tries to run away, boarding a ship crossing the sea. But God brings a storm that threatens to sink the ship. So Jonah allows himself to be thrown overboard, where he is swallowed by a great fish. The fish carries him for three days, spitting him back out onto the shore.
Our reading today picks up just after this. God comes to Jonah again, asking Jonah to go to Nineveh. This time, Jonah goes to the city. He announces God’s judgement as he crosses the vast city. As the people hear, they are convinced of their sins and they begin to change their ways. They fast and recommit themselves to God. Seeing their response, God chooses not to destroy the city (at least at this time).
Now, technically, the appointed reading for the day ends there, but I find that the next two verses are important for us to fully understand all that has happened in this story. As we read in verse 1 of the next chapter, Jonah is angry at God about the whole experience. As we think about some of the people we know in the world, perhaps we have experienced this ourselves - people who get angry at the grace God has extended to people they feel don’t deserve it. Sadly, I feel like those people in our own world stop at verse 1 here and fail to keep reading. They get caught up on feeling like God’s grace is undeserved and fail to read the rest of Jonah’s story.
But if we keep reading, we find that the truth isn’t quite that simple. Jonah isn’t really angry that God relented. Jonah is angry because he knew that God would forgive when God first approached him. That is the reason he tried to run away and not go to Nineveh. “I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy” (Jonah 4:2, CEB). Jonah is mad that he was made to go to Nineveh in the first place even though he knew God would just forgive the people of the city.
This additional aspect of the story is important for us as we consider what it means to repent. Often, we tend to think that repentance comes before forgiveness. We repent so that God will forgive us. We repent in order to avoid destruction. We get a sense of this from the response of the people of Nineveh.
But Jonah makes it clear that God wants to forgive. God is compassionate and merciful. God is patient. God does not want to destroy us. This puts things in a slightly different light.
Rather than suggesting that our repentance somehow earns God’s forgiveness or changes God’s mind, perhaps it is God’s forgiveness that leads us to repent.
If we look back to the story of John the Baptist that we read a couple of weeks ago, this begins to make more sense. John was preaching a change of heart and about God coming into the world. John was calling for people to change their ways. Jesus coming into the world is proof of God’s forgiveness and all that John has been preaching.
The confession and pardon that is a part of the United Methodist communion liturgy reminds us of this.
“Hear the good news: Christ died for us while we were yet sinners. This proves God’s love for us.”
Jonah knows that God is forgiving and full of love. John knows that God wants to be in relationship with us. Jesus comes into the world to prove God’s love for us even before we change. God does not love us because we repent; we repent because we realize that God loves us.
I think this can be hard for us to understand. We are taught over and over in our culture that we must make the effort to change our ways in order to be worthy -- worthy of love, worthy of forgiveness, worthy of life. But we all know that change is hard. We often need time and encouragement to change. Or, as the Greeks understood it, we change over time.
Instead of God loving us because we change our ways, we change because we are loved.
Instead of God forgiving us because we have changed, we change because we have been forgiven.
Instead of God allowing us to live because we have changed, we change because we have the space to live and to grow.
One of the places I have found this notion in our modern stories, and one that I know people have struggled with for years, is the repentance of Darth Vader at the end of Return of the Jedi. Anyone who has watched the Star Wars movies knows that Vader was not a good guy. He slaughtered other Jedi, including children. He killed countless people on the path of vengeance. He was almost entirely consumed by anger and violence.
In the movie, Return of the Jedi, Luke Skywalker chooses to seek Vader out. He has learned that Vader was once Anakin Skywalker, his father. Luke wants to find him not to destroy him through violence, but to offer him a path toward redemption. Certainly Luke recognizes the evil things that Vader has done, but Luke goes to him with a willingness to forgive. In the end, it is Luke’s compassion and mercy that ultimately puts Anakin in the position to repent of the wrongs he has committed as Vader.
While others both within the fictional Star Wars universe and in our very own reality find the repentance of Vader difficult to understand or accept, leaving us feeling perhaps more than a bit like Jonah, it gives us a window into how this may look in our own lives. None of us is beyond redemption. None of us is beyond God’s love. And sometimes, all it takes is genuine compassion and mercy from someone else to set us on the path of repentance.
In our own lives, there are times that we struggle so hard to repent so that we might earn forgiveness, be it God’s forgiveness or the forgiveness of another. We tend to feel so guilty for the slightest misstep or failure on our part as we seek to change. Perhaps we forget what Jonah obviously knew -- the fact that God is graceful and wants to forgive. God wants us to repent, but not as a condition for God’s forgiveness. We need to repent so that we can forgive ourselves; God is already standing there offering forgiveness. This doesn’t mean we should ignore the work of repentance, but we should repent because we are grateful for God’s mercy that is already offered to us rather than to make that repentance a criteria for God’s love (or the love of anyone for that matter).
As a way to help us think about this, I want to return to the Canticles found in the Gospel of Luke that we looked at briefly around Christmas. We have already explored the Canticle of Mary and the Canticle of Simeon in more detail. Today I want us to consider the Canticle of Zechariah.
In the first chapter of the Gospel of Luke, an angel appears to Zechariah, just as one would later appear to Mary. This angel tells Zechariah that his wife will have a son who will be the one to precede the long promised Messiah. And just as Mary does later, Zechariah questions the angel in disbelief. As a sign, Zechariah is struck mute, unable to speak until the day that all has come to pass that has been promised.
On the day his son John is circumcised, Zechariah breaks into song, speaking for the first time in months. It is a song of blessing for God, recognizing that God’s promises are kept. Even as we lose sight, even as we question, even as we doubt, God remains faithful. Into a world overrun with sin, the Messiah comes fulfilling God’s promises of forgiveness.
God’s forgiveness comes first. And it is a forgiveness that changes the world after we have recognized it and received it.
So as a forgiven people, let us sing a song of blessing, and repent.