RCL Year A
Isaiah 11.1-10
Romans 15.4-13
Matthew 3.1-12
Psalm 72.1-7, 18-19
In the name of the Father, and
of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
How often in life in life do we say ‘I’m sorry?” How often do we think
it even if we don’t say
it? For some of us, including me, saying I’m sorry” becomes such a part of our common
everyday vocabulary of courtesy, we say it so frequently, that the words themselves almost
loose their meaning. Maybe its our upbringing, our attempt
to be good little boys or girls, maybe its just something in our personalities, I don’t know,
but it is a habit that certainly annoys some of my friends and family,
and like all habits it’s hard to break. If someone bumps into me – my immediate response is to say, “I’m sorry,” someone steps on my
foot – again “I’m sorry.” A friend complains about the weather, “I’m sorry,” - as if I had anything to do with the
weather or any control over it. But
other times our “I’m sorry”s are not just words, they are more heartfelt, more
sincere. We say, “I’m sorry” when we’re late, “I’m sorry” when we’ve forgotten
a commitment, or when we’ve spilt someone’s drink. Sometimes, usually those
times when it is most needed, ‘I’m sorry” doesn’t roll off the tongue as easily.
Sometimes it involves struggle, and real sorrow; when we’ve either intentionally
or unintentionally hurt another’s feelings, when we’ve disappointed a loved one,
been careless, or let down a friend. These apologies can involve real soul
searching, real pain.
“In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of
Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” You,
like me, may be more familiar with the reading “Repent,
for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” John stands on the fringes of society, both
literally and figuratively to proclaim, “Repent, the kingdom of heaven is
almost here and you might miss it!” What does John mean by repent? Does he mean
that we should be sorry for the bad things we’ve done, or for the careless way
that we’ve lived? Perhaps, but in English we often muddy the words and loose the distinction between being
sorry and being repentant; they are not the same. Being sorry, or to use an old-fashioned
word “contrite” is not what John the Baptist is demanding. Contrition is a feeling of remorse over something that we have
done, a grievance we’ve caused, or to use a not very popular word, a sin that we’ve
committed. Contrition is to have an awareness of one’s guilt, and while it is
the vital first step in repentance, it is just one step. There’s an ancient
Christian prayer called the Act of Contrition, many of you who grew up in the
Roman Church will be familiar with it, but for us Anglicans it still exists in
our prayer book as the General Confession. We use it at the Eucharist and in
our daily prayers. It reads, “Most merciful
God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by
what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with
our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly
sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy
on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways,
to the glory of your Name. Amen.”
“We
are truly sorry and we humbly repent.” Here are those words again, sorry and
repent, and they are each quite distinct.
John proclaims, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.” The
original Greek word used in Matthew’s Gospel is Metanoia. It doesn't mean to be
sorry, it means instead to have a radical change of
mind, a reorientation, a fundamental transformation of one’s outlook, of one’s
vision of the world and of oneself, it means to turn away from a path
that one was on and to head in another direction. John is calling us to follow
a new and unknown path; submitting our will to the will of God.
Most
of us find it relatively easy to say we are sorry, and even, unless we’re
sociopaths, to realize and openly acknowledge when we’ve done wrong. I can clearly
see an interaction in my head. “Mom, I’m sorry.” I’d teased my brother, not
cleaned my room, or committed some other childhood infraction. “It’s nice that
you’re sorry, but don’t let it happen again” my mother would reply. Why is the
memory of that interaction so clear? It’s because it did happen again, one
thing or another, again, and again, and again, and I wasn’t even a particularly
bad child. We are much the same with God and our prayers for forgiveness. We
are truly sorry, but we commit the same old wrongs, the same old infractions,
the same old tired sins, again, and again, and again. Why? We know what we
should do; we think we know what we want to do. Why then? Because we’re human,
because we’re weak; we try to stand on our own feet and find our own paths,
following our own habits, and customs of doing things. We are sorry, but we
forget that bit in the General Confession about walking in God’s way, about
repentance, about metanoia, about turning from our own course and walking in
God’s path.
Being
sorry is easy, metanoia not so much. And when it comes down to it, are we
really even sure that we want to change our direction; after all we kind of
like our path, our plans, our independence. How committed are we to “Preparing
the way of the Lord?” In his wonderful little book, Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis tells of a person trying to follow
Jesus. “Imagine” he writes, “ yourself as a living house. God comes in to
rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He
is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on; you
knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently
He starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not
seem to make any sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He
is building quite a different house from the one you thought of - throwing out
a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making
courtyards. You thought you were being made into a decent little cottage: but
He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.”
Have
you ever lived in a house undergoing renovation? Even a bathroom remodel is
painful, but a whole rebuild of our cozy interior house into a palace for God,
that is something else entirely, and just as in Lewis’ example, “My thoughts
are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.” We each have
maps and blueprints we’ve laid out for ourselves, but when John calls, “Prepare
the way of the Lord,” he calls us to turn away from our own paths, plans, models,
and blueprints, only then can we prepare God’s way; only then can we allow God
to prepare his way in us. But we cannot make that radical turn through our own abilities;
we can only do it is only with God’s help and through God’s mercy. God’s grace alone
can allow us to make it happen, to stay on that new path, God’s path, and to
walk according to God’s plan. Paul tells us that the steadfastness and the
encouragement of scripture, necessary for living in accordance with Christ
Jesus come as gifts from God.
John
calls the Judeans of his day to a ritual cleansing, not a baptism in the
Christian sense, but to a repeatable public act of reconciliation with God. Like
John’s baptism, we too are offered a repeatable ritual of reconciliation with
God; you can find it in the prayer book on page 446, the Reconciliation of a
Penitent, or in older terms, Confession. It is a rite that Christians have used
in one form or another for centuries, particularly in Advent and Lent. If this
is new to you, when you have a few moments, take a look at the notes, read the
words of the ritual. Talk to a priest. I guarantee that if you avail yourself you
will find it a blessing. To paraphrase a common Anglican saying regarding
Reconciliation, “All may, none must, most should.”
After
all being sorry is easy, metanoia not so much. But metanoia is what we must
have, what we must find through the grace of God, if we are to reach it, the
kingdom of God, the city on the hill. And it is near at hand, just over that
hill, just beyond the bend, a kingdom where the wolf lives with the lamb, where
the leopard lies down with the kid, and the calf with the lion; where a little
child leads them all.
May
the God of hope fill us with all joy and peace in believing, so that we may
abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
