How to Repent (It's not how you think)

Psalm 46, Jeremiah 31:31-34

When I was in college, I spent the large part of one summer sleeping on a 3-foot round papason chair cushion on the floor of an apartment five friends were renting in Dinkytown, in Minneapolis. At one point, we ran out of toilet paper and went through all the napkins, coffee filters and finally, Far Side comics, before someone finally bought more. But whatevs. We were young.

When Andy and I graduated from seminary, we were in our mid-twenties, and were willing to go anywhere in the US to start our next life chapter. Coast? Desert? Mountains? Big City? Tiny town? Sure! Why not! Andy applied to programs all over, and when we moved to Princeton, New Jersey, we packed up all our things in a u-haul and drove from LA for five days across the country. Each day was spent listening to Harry Potter cds and eating sunflower seeds and drive-through fast food. Each night we parked the truck with everything we owned in the world, towing our only car, strategically where we could watch it from our motel window so it wouldn’t get stolen.

There are times in our lives we anticipate upheaval. We expect it; invite it, even. We are totally open to change, happy to cooperate with a little chaos. But I think we think that is supposed to stop. That you will go through your change and chaos phase, and then after that, things are supposed to be predictable and secure. 

But life never stops with the turmoil. And upheaval is not an isolated incident. Children, or not, homes gained and lost, illnesses, adjustments—the changes just keep coming. That first friend to get divorced becomes one of many, maybe even yourself. That dream job you pursued falls through, that church you loved falls apart, that person you trusted falls away. And then your book club moves to zoom and eventually stops meeting, and your go-to restaurant goes out of business, and the person who has cut your hair for 20 years retires.  The neighbor you love moves away and the new people don’t seem interested in connecting, and that special, lonely spot you found solace as a child has become a sea of strip malls.

And these are just the little changes, the everyday, ordinary, constant disturbances. That is to say nothing of global horrors, war and atrocities, famine and hunger, natural disasters or community violence, nor of the unexpected personal catastrophes and devastating deaths that leave you breathless and disoriented, trying to figure out how life will look in a landscape you did not choose.

Disruption doesn’t restrict itself to phases, and chaos doesn’t play by any rules. Trouble, tumult, terror, and seismic shifts happen in our lives and in the world all the time. From our birth until we die, living with the unexpected and navigating constant change is basically what it means to be human.  anything can change at any moment, and everything does, all the time. 

 And in the midst of all this upheaval, we’re busy. We’re doing so much, and there is so much more we could be doing, and we only have time and energy for a fraction of it, and things are moving so fast who can keep up? But people seem to, so we strive, and reach, and do more, and wonder at our capacity, but keep scrambling to get our footing, racing to catch up, and feeling exhausted, overwhelmed, and anxious so much of the time.  

In our Jeremiah text the people of God are exhausted by turmoil, unsettled by circumstances, unsure of their capacity.  They’d been ripped from home and forced into a life unfamiliar and uncomfortable, with no ease in sight, disoriented, trying to figure out how life will look in a landscape they did not choose.

They don’t know if they have what it takes to live up to their end of their relationship with God. In fact, all evidence from history and experience tells them that if it is up to them to remember and live from the truth of their belonging to God and each other they will fail.  

But God says it’s not their job to uphold this relationship. God will make a new covenant, a new bond, not dependent on their ability to remember correctly and teach each other rightly, but written into their very hearts, every one of them. God will be God. They will be God’s people. This covenant can’t be broken because it will be inside them and God will do the heavy lifting. Their belonging, identity, security is from God; God does this. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” 

They are invited to trade their way of being for the one God is offering. They’re called to trust God and participate with God in a life of freedom and care for others, not when things get easier but right now - despite the upheaval, and right in the midst of their unsettledness. This home God is offering them is not dependent on what happens around them, because it happens within them, and between them.  

    Lent is a season of repentance.  Repent doesn’t mean wallow in your disgustingness and come groveling back to God. The Greek word for repent, means literally “change how you think after being with,” ‘turn around, shift your being in another direction, change your purpose after this encounter.”  Essentially, exchange your perspective for God’s, trade your way of being for the one God is offering.  Repentance is the wake-up moment, when we say, Oh! I don’t want to live afraid, resentful, stingy, anxious and striving! I want to live connected to God and others in freedom and care.

The opening line of Psalm 46, sum up the theology of the whole book of Psalms in these words: God is our refuge and strength. God is our safety. A very present help in trouble. Not a helper in the midst of trouble but Help itself. Very present help. Right here. Right now. Right in the midst of it. Therefore we will not fear. 

        But I fear a lot. I am a very skilled fearer.  I’ll let you in on the secret to my success: I practice fear by worrying. What if, what if, what if… My favorite time to do this is when I would really like to be sleeping.  When I am finally still, at the end of the day, I’ve stopped rushing and outrunning my anxiety, then it all catches up to me and I let buckle down and get to my worry workout, what if… what if.. what if…

I would love to trade my worry for trust. I would love some ease and trust, To not feel tossed about by chaos and upheaval but grounded in God’s care.  But if it’s up to me to remember my belonging to God and each other I will fail.  So what does repenting even look like, and how do we do it? 

It turns out, repenting is less something we do than what we stop doing. 

Be still. Psalm 46 goes on to say. Be still and know that I am God.  Be Still. In Hebrew, it means “put down your hands”-  cease striving. Quit doing stuff. Stop overestimating your own power to fix, change, control or escape things. Quit your fleeing and flailing and wait for God to act.  

In scripture, Be still is not a soft invitation to a spiritual spa moment. Be Still! is a command for the chaos. For the impossibility. For the crisis, and the injustice and the division and the shame. Be still appears as a command two places in scripture. One is here, in our Psalm, where it comes after telling us this doozy: Nations are in an uproar! kingdoms totter! God raises his voice and the earth melts....Be still and know that I am God.

The other place is 1000 years earlier than where we met the exiled Israelites today, when their ancestors have been delivered out of Egypt, but Pharoah has changed his mind, and has sent his entire army after them to destroy them. There they are, at the edge of the Red Sea, the chaos of waters blocking their way forward, and Pharoah's whole army bearing down on them from behind. They are trapped, hemmed in by danger, facing sure and certain death, and the command comes, Be still! The Lord will fight for you.

At the very moment when it seems like you should be scrambling and grabbing, and mustering all your resources, put your hands down.  Right in the middle of chaos and the tumult, when you’re uprooted from home and stuck in a place you do not choose to be, when you’re trapped, with nowhere to go, and certain death bearing down on you, Put down your hands. 

Stop moving. Stop doing. 

You are not God. Let God be God.

When things feel overwhelming. Be still.

When fear threatens to rule you. Be still.

When you’re unsettled and lost. Be still.

When the whole world seems to be convinced that we are about to be destroyed, Be still.  

Be still and know I am God.

When we’ve stopped rushing and outrunning our anxiety, when it all catches up to us, when we surrender our grabbing for control, God meets us here and takes us in another direction. 

God-- who breaks the bow and shatters the spear and burns the chariot and raises his voice and the earth melts and finds us when we’re lost and makes a way where there is no way and brings us home in love wherever we are—this God answers worry’s incessant what if, what if, what if, with the steady and unwavering heartbeat of Love, holding us close,  “Even though… Even if… Even when…” Even then.

Even though the earth changes. And mountains fall into the sea, and tsunamis and storms and whirlwinds roar through our world, and the very ground seems to shake beneath our feet and turmoil and tumult overwhelm us.  Even when the divisions between us seem insurmountable, and the constant voices around us urge urgency, and the judgment within us is loud and unceasing. Even if we’re between jobs with no prospects yet, or we’re staring down a diagnosis we can’t yet get our heads around. Even when the state of the world feels precarious and dangerous, or our precious kids that we’ve been so focused on raising are suddenly off adulting half-way across the country. Even then. Not because these things don’t or won’t happen, but because they will, and do. Even now. 

We will not fear. 

God is our refuge and strength.

God’s salvation meet us just exactly how we need to be met, to heal us where we are sick, and mend us where we are broken, and release us where we are caged, and find us where we are lost, and be our refuge in tumult, and give us a stability and security not dependent on what happens around us, because it happens within us, and between us, not by what we do but by mighty hand of God. 

Our belonging, identity, security is from God. God does this. “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts, God says, “and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.”

We are God’s people.  Always. No matter what. 

May we rest in trust.

Amen.

Portions of this message were adapted from a chapter of Receiving This Life.

Choosing Life, Being Found

                    

Jeremiah 31:31-34
 
This week I found myself needing to repent. I got caught up in a pattern of behavior that was life-draining for me and caused pain and confusion for others.  And when I woke up to it, I felt awful and flooded with regret.  Because I was thinking about repentance as our theme this week, it was especially uncomfortable because most of me was caught in the pain and agony of the experience, and a small part of me was watching myself and taking notes. 
 
The Greek word for repent, Μετανοεῖτε means literally “change how you think after being with,” in other words, turn around, shift your being in another direction, change your purpose after this encounter.”  Repent is not a moral word of judgment and condemnation, like we like to make it. It actually isn’t about being good or bad.  Repentance in the biblical sense is a complete reorientation.  It is turning from death to life.  We could think of it as laying down your mind and exchanging it for the mind, perspective, and purpose of Christ. Sometimes repentance is used as something that happens to you, rather than something you do.  One biblical scholar says, “It can be more about being found than about finding oneself." (Matt Skinner, Working Preacher).
 
When we recognize we have sinned, that is to say, when the lightbulb goes on and we can see that we have made a choice toward death and division instead of life, we are flooded with regret and sorrow. We can’t go back and undo what we did or take back what we said. So what happens next?  
 
Sometimes we double down; it’s too painful to honestly face what we’ve done or own what we’ve said, so we blame other people, or the circumstances.  We may make excuses, or drink to forget. We may deflect and point at someone else whose actions are “worse” than ours, to try to make ourselves feel better.  All of these things usually make us feel worse and more stuck.
 
We have no good human mechanism for getting ourselves out of sin, the power of sin, the mindset of sin, which is separation, isolation, judgment. Paul says we are a slave to sin.  Trapped in sin we move to the punishment of sin, condemnation.  Because Sin is living as though God is not God and we are not beloved children of God created to live with and for each other.  So when we get caught in sin, and we are suddenly aware that we are caught in sin, we often sin more to try to make ourselves not feel so alone, so trapped, so disappointed in ourselves.  Or we judge and condemn ourselves, or each other for the sin, which is just another way of staying locked in sin, being ruled by the way of fear.
 
But God has a mechanism to get us out of sin.  All the way back to Adam and Eve, through the prophets and judges and kings, to John the Baptist shouting on the banks of the Jordan this message is then embodied in Jesus himself who proclaimed the words that set us free: Repent! Repent for the kingdom of God is right at hand!
 
Translation: Trade out your way of sin and alienation and disconnection for my way of belonging and love.  Let yourself be found, for God’s way of life is right here for you.
 
Like sunflowers turning their face toward the sun, like exhausted, angry toddlers running back into their parent’s arms, repenting returns to our true selves, and our true place in God. We turn our wilting little hearts back toward their source of life.
We don’t even have to believe we will find mercy, though we will. We may be craving the judgment and condemnation we think we deserve, but this is the power and beauty of God’s way: once we repent, once we turn our sorry selves back toward love, we are released from judgment and condemnation. Once we repent, we receive grace and find ourselves held by God with others. We only need to trust just enough in that belonging to open up and admit we feel ashamed, and acknowledge our regret over what we’ve done.
 
So many of our texts this Lent have been connected to the Babylonian exile – the Israelites ripped from home and stuck somewhere unfamiliar and uncomfortable that is not home.  This feels fitting because this pandemic has been like the whole world living in a kind of exile.  The promise of this prophet to the people in exile is a relationship with God that is not dictated by rules, shaped by fear of punishment, or demanding careful tiptoeing, but a connection defined by love, covered in grace and secured by the Divine and not by us, steered by the One who anticipates our need for salvation and offers it before we ask.
 
These people don’t know if they have what it takes to live up to their end of the deal. In fact, all evidence from history and experience from history tells them and if it is up to them to remember their place and live from that truth they will fail at staying true to God.  But God says it’s not their job to uphold this relationship. God will make a new covenant, a new bond, not dependent on their ability to remember correctly and teach each other rightly, but written into their very hearts, every one of them. This covenant can’t be broken because it will be inside them and God will do the heavy lifting.  They will be God’s people and God will be their God, period.
 
We long to be connected and alive, to sense God and see others, and we long to contribute to connection and love and joy for others.  So for us, repentance is the gift of this connection, the tool right here in our own hearts, to come home when we fall away, to remember when we forget, to let ourselves be put back together again by God, whose love and mercy meet us not only when we step up and reach out, but especially when we’re stuck in our sin.
 
God’s goal isn’t punishment but reconciliation, reconnection. God wants for us wholeness and love.
 
So we get to step up and claim it. We get to accept being accepted, like we said last week that Sabbath rest offers us.  Repentance does this too.  It’s the wake up moment when we say, Oh! I want to trade my pitiful way of greed, resentment and constant condemnation, for God’s way of love that belongs me to God and other people!  And in that moment, we let God’s salvation meet us just exactly how we need to be met, to heal us where we are sick, and mend us where we are broken, and release us where we are caged and find us where we are lost.  Our anger or disappointment, our mistakes or our stupidity, do not get to set the terms, define our lives, keep us divided or trapped. God’s love sets the terms. Grace holds us. When we receive God’s forgiveness, we can forgive ourselves, and we can forgive each other.  
 
But we have to do that part. We have to repent. We have to take that step of complete vulnerability and say it – to God, to ourselves, to the person we’ve wounded. We have to admit we’ve gone off track and let ourselves get turned back around by God, to the way of love and trust, to our true selves.
 
After repenting, I felt relief and hope and clarity.  It’s painful to look honestly at yourself, but it means a new way opens up. Nobody in my house is under any delusion that I wont behave badly ever again, but I got to experience being seen, being forgiven, remembering my place alongside those I love, and more ready to forgive and see and love them as well.  We belong to each other. I belong to all others.
 
A few of us meet online for morning and evening prayers each day. Every Friday night we pray Psalm 40:8. It says, “I delight to do your will, O my God, your law is within my heart.” We delight to do God’s will. We delight to feel ourselves part of the fabric of life, connected to others, aware of God, awake to gratitude and fullness of joy. God’s way is inside us, part of us, leading us, and leading us back when we lose our way, bringing us home again.
Thanks be to God.

Amen.