Keep on repenting and believing . . . and you will manifest God's glory around you and discover faith.

      I know some of us get tired of me using Body & Soul as an illustration of God’s redemptive grace in our life together.  Some have said overuse.  But I have a new one today!  The last time we had a significant snowstorm was my first year here.  I held services, and only a couple people could attend each service.  But now, thanks to the pandemic, look at everyone online!  We are old pros at using digital platforms thanks to the beginning of the pandemic and our continuing use of hybrid services.  And I see a couple folks are not sharing their camera, which tells me some are still in their jammies and have really mastered this new technology.  See, they would turn on their cameras to prove me wrong, right?  Can you imagine being able to gather more online than in-person 9 years ago and being able to worship and be comfortable enough to laugh together?  Me either.  But God is good all the time, right?

     It’s good that we have that illustration because I was fairly confident where God was calling me to preach this week, but I could not, for the life of me, come up with any illustrations.  Now, that meant my sermon would be more like a homily, right?  And there is a bit of irony in that because today we get Jonah’s 8-word sermon that causes the city of Nineveh, the largest city in the Assyrian Empire, to repent.  Of course, I am way past 8 words already, so you know I was probably not called to preach on Jonah today.

     Our reading from Mark today takes place after the Temptation of Christ in the wilderness.  We jumped from Mark to John last week, and this week we jump back to Mark.  Notice a couple interesting tidbits from Mark.  What is the precipitating event that causes Jesus to begin preaching?  The arrest of John the Baptizer.  Those of us who like dates will not be happy about this.  But part of Mark’s teaching is that God is behind all of this, that God sets the date, that God calls Jesus out of seeming nowhere, and that God’s idea of a Messiah differs radically from Israel’s understandings of a king with military or supernatural support casting off Roman oppression.  What matters to Mark is that this is all God’s plan.  All of it.  Even the beginning of Jesus’ ministry does not begin until the one crying out in the wilderness has completed his mission.

     And Mark tells this with an interesting flare or use of literary device, our wordsmiths might say.  The word which our translators call “arrested” really means “handed over.”  Mark will bookend his Gospel again by using the word toward the end of the book by stating that Jesus was handed over.  Remember that when we get to Holy Week.  Remember it, too, when we celebrate the Eucharist in a few minutes.  We remind ourselves each time that Jesus was handed over to suffering and death, right?

     Mark says that Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Gospel of God and saying “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near.”  Again, we are reminded that God is as much in control of time as He is of anything He created.  John the Baptizer has been handed over, so now Jesus, God’s Messiah, can get on with His work.

     Jesus’ announcement that the kingdom of God has come near has been the subject of great debate and conjecture in the Church, and not a few PhDs.  What does Jesus mean by that statement, and why does Mark not clarify it?  Could it mean that Jesus, the Incarnation and Son of God, has physically come near?  Absolutely.  But Mark skips the Incarnation bit at the beginning of his Gospel, though we learned from at Jesus’ baptism that the Father called Him the Son and was well-pleased in Him.  Complicating matters more, how is Jesus’ kingdom coming near in any way, shape, or form a kingdom in our own minds, let alone the minds of those who heard Jesus’ voice?  Rome was still in control.  Worse, by the end of the story, Pilate does not consider Jesus’ claim to be God’s King a threat to the emperor.  Imagine, a governor who has put to death more than 200 false messiahs is of a mind to flog this one, the Messiah, because He is not a perceived threat!  The truth, of course, is that God’s kingdom is not like the kingdom of the world.  Its King truly cares about His subjects and goes so far as to lay down His life for His people.  His kingdom is not oppressive.  In fact, we would say His kingdom is the very opposite of oppression.

     After the semicolon in our translation comes our focus today.  I will warn you that this discussion could go on and on.  While in seminary at Wycliffe Hall in Oxford, we had a rousing discussion about this, so much so I ended up doing my final paper on it.  All that is to say, I am overprepared and will touch on the highlights, but feel free to come in and argue or discuss with me as you are interested.

     The first instruction given by Jesus we covered back in our discussion of our Lord’s Baptism.  The Greek word for baptism has a physical component that English has lost, or rather we have lost through poor discipling in the Church, I think.  We hear repentance and think “I’m sorry.”  That’s only half the equation.  Repentance rightfully describes that’s that true sorrow in Rite 2 language or bewailing in Rite 1 language that we hold towards our sins.  But, and this is the big but, the Greek word also reminds us that we turn toward God or turn toward His ways.  We begin that turn toward Him in our liturgy by repenting of those things we did which sinned against God.  We are forgiven.  And we ask God to send His Spirit to confirm us or strengthen us in goodness.  Then we are immediately nourished by His Body and Blood, reminding us of the handed over for our sakes and His Death, His Resurrection, and His Ascension, right?  This understanding of repentance, turning from our selfish desires and ways and to God, was so important that the Church, in Her guidance by the Holy Spirit, has always incorporated that turning in Her liturgy.

     Put more bluntly, and perhaps in the language of our time, what would people outside the Church think of us if we were truly sorry and truly trying to do what God said to do?  What would those outside the Church think of us were we more concerned with our sins and prayers to do God’s Will and less concerned with telling them they were going to Hell?

     One of the beautiful aspects of the Greek, which only Brian, Larry, and Joshua know, or knew, is the on-going nature of tense used.  English teachers among us would describe the verb as present, active, imperative.  Don’t panic!  We are not going back to the nightmare English classes of our youth.  In English, we rightfully translate it as a once-off command.  Jesus is instructing those in the sound of His voice to repent, turn from their selfish ways and to God.  The beauty of the Greek, though, is that it is also can be a continuing action.  In other words, “Keep repenting.”

     What does “Keep repenting” suggest to us that we lose in the often preferred translation of “repent”?  For one, it reinforces Jesus’ instruction that He did not come to judge, this time, right?  It reinforces the Church’s understanding that this is an on-going process in our lives, right?  We only come to a Eucharist when we are repentant before God and at love and charity with our neighbors.  Every single time we celebrate the Eucharist, we say the Confession and we pass the Peace.  Every single time.  Why?  Because the Church, inspired by the Holy Spirit and instructed by Jesus, understood that repenting is an ongoing action for those who follow Jesus.  Until we die, we are always repenting because we are always sinning, sinning against God and our neighbors.  This process continues our whole lives, a process we come to know as sanctification, but a process that we learn and inwardly digest is an evidence of grace in our own lives.  We know who we are, if we are honest before God.  When the world thinks we are righteous or holy, we know it is not our work but His in us.

     And in case anyone is feeling a bit depressed that they sin a lot, you are in great company.  We all sin a lot, whether we share our sins with each other.  Part of the Bible’s instruction for us is how God uses men and women just like us, full of all kinds of desires and fears and whatevers not of God, but who honestly agree to do His Will, accomplishing great things in His Name.  Think Peter or Moses or Abraham & Sarah or Jacob or Matthew or Paul or any other of your favorite biblical heroes ad heroines.  Just as He worked through them, He can work through us!  But that work begins with our repentance, our continuing repentance.

     The second imperative given by Jesus in this clause is the “believe in the Good News.”  Like the first commandment, this one can also be faithfully translated as “Keep believing in the Good News.”  Here’s where the real fight begins.  In English, we conflate faith and belief.  My guess is that if I asked each of you online or in person to explain the difference, you would struggle.  I did not ask for a show of hands, but I see some nods.  It’s ok, all of us have that struggle.  Remember, I said their were doctoral theses on the distinction and not a few passionate discussions in classrooms.

     How to differentiate quickly?  Belief is a kind of intellectual assent.  What do I mean.  Let’s take a couple examples we all know.  Those of us who are science oriented understand that physicists, astrophysicists in particular, assume that gravity is the same everywhere, the force of attraction between two masses is constant.  In fact, they call that force of attraction the gravitational constant, and it is plugged in as such in all kinds of formulae.  We use it to plan orbits of satellites and discover planets and moons.  They, and we, believe gravity is constant.  But do we know it is?  Our universe is about 16.2 million light years in diameter and expanding.  We have sent probes around our solar system and are pretty confident that in our solar system the force of attraction is constant, right?  We science as if it is, right?  But how can we know what the force of attraction is around Alpha Centari, our closest neighboring star at just over 2 light years away, let alone black holes or quasars or somewhere near the perceived edge of the expanding universe?  And for that matter, if gravity is constant, why is the universe still expanding?

     Let’s look a little closer to home.  We are in an election year.  For the most part, our country breaks down into two beliefs, two widely accepted ways to govern.  I realize that I am oversimplifying, but I want to make this short.  In general, Republicans believe that smaller government is better, that citizens can and should govern themselves and their communities better because they know their needs and strengths better than those in a centralized far off place.  Democrats believe that the government is responsible for caring for citizens on the margins, for providing a safety net, and limiting the selfishness of those with the most money and power.  The vast majority of our fights, and the bulk of our sausage-making in Congress, is between those to ideas.  Who can and should govern an issue?  What is our response to that issue?  So-called independents gravitate toward one party or another in any given election, nudging the country one way or another on the important issues of the day.  And when the independents think a party has gone too far or over-reached or ignored, what do they do with their vote?  Right, they vote the other way nudging us in that direction as a country.  Politically speaking, neither Republicans nor Democrats are evil – don’t get me started on God’s perspective, though!  They simply start from a different belief.

     Faith is different than belief.  Faith connotes an experience that confirms belief and trust.  If we went to a ¼ of the universe and found the force of attraction the same, our belief would begin to trend toward faith and trust that our observations are universally true.  Or if our politicians truly governed and addressed the issues we send them to address, rather than lining our pockets and manipulating our emotions and keeping themselves in office, how much more faith might we have in them and in our governments?  The same is true of our relationship with Jesus.  Best of all, He understands that better than us.

     Jesus’ commands this week are too keep repenting and keep believing.  Each time we gather for worship, each time we enter into prayer with Him, we are to keep repenting.  What happens over time, if we do as He instructs us, is that we come to learn just how misguided we are and just how gracious He is to us.  The same is true of the Gospel.  There are times, like at untimely deaths or at horrible suffering or at those things or people which frustrate us, that we grit our teeth and remind ourselves we believe in the Gospel.  The Feast of the Holy Innocents, which we used for our community right after the Covenant shooting, is a great recent example of this.  We hurled our complaints and cast our mourning on God, right?  Did we look to our politicians and government to redeem, prevent, or comfort us?  No.  Why?  Because our walk with God, over time, has proven to us that Jesus is, as Paul reminds us in Hebrews, the only One worth faith.  Because He is the Messiah, because He is Ascended to the Father, we have faith in Him.  We know, on some level deep within us, He will redeem all our suffering.  It is His promise.  He may not redeem our suffering the way we want.  He will likely even use our suffering to reach others, but He promises that He will redeem all things.  And because He was raised that glorious Easter Morning, we know He has the power to keep His promises.  And because we come to Him in Baptism and the Eucharist, because we continue to repent and to believe, at some point our belief becomes faith.  Best of all, the longer we obediently follow Him, the more we realize the follies of the world and the lies of the great Deceiver.

     My brothers and sisters, it is glorious News we have to share!  Our Lord does not demand perfection from within us!  Our Lord had no expectation we would “get it all right” as He willed Himself to hang on that Cross; yet that is precisely what He did.  He willed Himself to submit to the powers and principalities that seemed in control of the world and our lives.  He even gave up His life.  But in that Resurrection that we celebrate when we gather each time to give Him thanks and praise, we are reminded that all He asks of us is to keep repenting and to keep believing.  Those of us who faithfully and constantly do as He instructs are encouraged that, one day their belief will become faith, that one day they will learn however opaquely or in shadows in this world, who He is and how much He loves us, and that, in the end, we will learn completely who He is, how much He loves us, and how proud He is to call us a brother or a sister, a disciple who has done those tasks assigned by Him to each one of us well!  And in that process which we call sanctification in the Church, He is using us, those who are sinning and repenting and who sometimes struggle even with believing, to manifest His redemptive grace and glory in the world around us!

 

In Christ’s Peace,

Brian†