A vicar parked his car on
double-yellow lines a large city because he was short of time and couldn’t find
a space.
Then he put a note under the windscreen wiper that read:
“I have driven up and down this street 10 times. If I don’t park here,
I’ll miss my appointment…Forgive us our trespasses.”
When he returned, he found a ticket
from a traffic warden along with this note:
“I’ve walked up and down this street for 10 years. If I don’t give you
a ticket I’ll lose my job….Lead us not into temptation.”
It’s right to be thinking about temptation in Lent, and indeed our
trespasses. Next week is Laudate Sunday, or Mothering Sunday, it
is that brief moment of respite in Lent when we can relax a little.
But today, it’s all about repentance.
“Repent.” In the
gospel today (Luke 13:1-9) we hear Jesus saying, “unless you
repent, you will all perish”
The word REPENT has
some rather scary connotations. In
my mind, it is associated strongly with some of the non-conformist preachers of
the past, and the image of them banging their fists on the pulpit, with a
terrified congregation below.
But actually repentance doesn’t need to be
like that at all. What repentance is, is a turning away from the things we have
done wrong, the things that have hurt God or hurt other people, or things that
we have failed to do which we should have done, and saying sorry.
It is a commitment on our part to accept our failures, and try and
improve our lives. In fact therefore, repentance is actually a great gift from
God. It is the chance to say sorry and begin afresh. It is a chance for us all
to get closer to God.
That sense that God will give us a clean slate, if we are earnestly repenting, is something that
continues to mystify me, and has done so since my childhood.
So, it was good to think more deeply about this particular mystery
for this sermon.
REPENTANCE is best
understood in stages, and the first stage is to recognise the areas
where we are failing or have failed.
There is nothing that God can’t accept, there is nothing that he isn’t willing to accept in our pasts, as long as we are recognising
that what we have done or failed to do was
wrong, and we are sorry.
We are always suspicious of anything that is free, but this is
free. Sometimes we may not be able
to forgive ourselves, but God can forgive us.
The second stage is to realise that just because forgiveness
is free, repentance needs work, lots of work.
Being sorry, really sorry about something, is the
hard part. God forgives us, and
that might make it worse. We know
that to be really sorry we need to change the way we are, how we see others,
and sometimes being sorry means changing a lot. God makes no unreasonable demands about
repentance and forgiveness, we do that to ourselves, and others do it to us.
It all seems very easy, but I’m sure we’ve
all tried saying sorry at some time and found it very difficult.
There are a whole host of reasons why;
· There may be
the feeling that actually we did the right thing, maybe in the wrong way
· The person
we shouted at got what was coming to them, the insurance company we were less
than honest with have taken plenty of our money in the past
· The person
we gossiped about gossips about us, and so on.
But, as Christians we can find no such justification, Jesus offers
us a gospel which talks of accepting that people will hurt us
but still loving those people.
It was particularly poignant, when Bishop Dominic said in his
first Lent talk that he wished he had loved
his parishioners more when he was a parish priest.
I think that’s true of us all, spending more time with people, and
not with books, praying with people,
and not just for people.
Another reason why we may find it hard to seek repentance, is that
we may have gone too far down a particular road. The mistake has got bigger and
bigger and we are too proud to say we have been wrong all along.
Again, of course, it’s no excuse. Carrying on with something just
because you’ve always
done it is sheer stupidity if you now know that thing too be wrong.
Again, it is important to stress that God is not interested in our
pasts, whatever they contain, as long as we are looking to do better in the
future, and commit our lives to him. We cannot allow pride or anything else to
get in the way.
So, it is important to recognise the areas that are damaging our
lives and our relationship with God, too much time worrying about the past
ruins the future.
The American philosopher, Mortimer Adler, before he was eventually
converted to Christianity he was asked why there had been such reluctance in
the past. He replied that he had been close to accepting Christianity on a number
of occasions but didn’t do it. He went on to say,
“If one is
born a Christian, one can be light hearted about living up to Christianity, but
if one converts by a clear conscious act of will, one had better be prepared to
live a truly Christian life. So you ask yourself, are you prepared to give up
all your vices and weaknesses of the flesh.”
This is a bit daft , although I understand what he means. There is no difference really. The reality is that the standards Jesus calls for are very
different from those so often seen in the world today, and as Christians we
must follow and proclaim Christ’s standards whatever the cost to ourselves. As we go through Lent
we reflect closely on the journey Christ took for us, it is quite sobering when
we think of how little we are asked to do for him, we don’t do a lot
to wear the badge of the Christian do we?
What do we do then?
We come to church, we are the
gathered church, the people of God together. Whatever particular tradition, whatever language we use,
wherever we are, it is what we are called to do
The Bible tells us that we should pray at all times. Again it isn’t something
God needs from us to make him feel
better, it is a gift to us a way of getting closer to him, a way of asking for
help and guidance, a way of giving thanks or confessing, and it’s a way of
listening to God it is also a way of joining our prayers with others, to make a
real difference.
Community is
essential as a Christian, John Wesley once said that the New Testament knows
nothing of solitary religion. We are not intended to worship alone. Yes, there
will be times for private prayer and Bible study, but we are also called to
support and care for one another.
If Christianity is to be taken seriously then we must live out the
Gospel in our everyday lives...we will be judged by the world for the things we
say and do, and that reflects on the church. And Christ too is judged by our
actions.
So there you have it, repentance is not only desirable, it is
necessary. It won’t bring quick
answers to all the questions of life, it never is an easy road, and it
certainly doesn’t mean that we will never make the same mistakes again, but we
are called to be repentant, we are called to put things right, we are called to
live our lives in love for others.
