Lent: A Season of Renewal - Repentance
This is the text I spoke from in my sermon on repentance on 2/26/23:
Good morning everyone, I’m happy to be back. The last time I was here was 33 days before my wedding, and with how quick I’m back I wondered if it would also be 33 days after my wedding, so I looked it up and sure enough…58 days. So not quite, but it’s good to be back.
Today is the second week in the sermon series on Lent, and I was asked to preach on repentance. It’s an interesting position to be in, being asked to preach on a topic that feels so big, so my first step was to take a look at the dictionary and see if I could start to draw some inspiration from somewhere. According to the definition provided by Google, repentance is:
The action of repenting; sincere regret or remorse.
Alright, let’s close in prayer.
“Lord, thank you that we can make jokes in sermons.”
So hopefully it’s obvious I’m kidding here, but maybe that definition did serve its purpose, because I looked at it and thought, “that doesn’t seem robust enough.”
Now, as much as I’d like to speak authoritatively about what repentance is, I’ve found in the last few weeks that I have observations I can make about many different passages in the Bible, but I’m still learning and crafting a definition. So I’ll invite you to join me on part of that journey today, which will be starting in Deuteronomy chapter 4, so if you’d like to make your way there, I’ll pray to get us going and then meet you there.
“Lord, we thank you again for giving us today, and for the chance to come together here. We ask for eyes to see, ears to hear, and the ability to focus our attention on you this morning. Amen.”
So Josh started his sermon last week with a thought about “returning to simple,” which was really funny for me based on how complicated writing a sermon can feel. My initial plan for this sermon was an overview of repentance in the nation of Israel that probably would’ve directly quoted from…let’s say 8-12 books of the Bible. Add on top of that multiple conversations about this sermon topic over the last two weeks, and my brain was starting to kick into an anxiety-induced overdrive.
See, the more I look at something that either is or seems simple, the more work I see going into that thing. I find myself now in a job that includes writing and graphic design, and I can tell you that simple, for a variety of reasons, is not always easy.
Remarkably, there are some similarities there to the idea and practice of repentance. I know I just jokingly ended the sermon short a couple minutes ago, but legitimately, a sermon on repentance could be as short as “continue to turn your gaze to God,” and we’d be out of here in just a couple seconds.
And yet, what seems simple is far from easy. For some reason, we need repetition, like we’re continuing to forget the dozens of sermons we’ve heard about repentance, our own desires to follow God, or the numerous calls to repentance we read in the Bible. When you’re stuck in a cycle where, over and over, you seem unable to turn to God as you want, you can feel completely hopeless and helpless.
Or maybe that’s just me.
As it happens, we’re in good company with these feelings. Or perhaps it’s more accurate to say we have an example of people who seem to show a remarkable capacity for turning away from God, even when he is present before them. It starts from the very beginning, probably on page 2 or 3 of your Bible with Adam and Eve, but the story really comes into its own the further you read. You get to a point in Exodus where the people of Israel have just seen God miraculously save them from the Egyptians after setting ten plagues on Egypt, provided Israel safety through the Red Sea and nourishment through the desert, and then they get so scared when Moses is on the mountain receiving the law from God that they call for an idol to be made and worshiped. Then, after repenting from that and making a covenant to follow the law and will of God, the nation goes on to spend 40 years wandering the desert because they were scared of the people in the land God had promised them and didn’t believe God would be with them as they entered the land.
All of that history not only brings us to the book of Deuteronomy, but is actually repeated by Moses in the first three chapters of the book. He follows that up in chapter 4 by warning the nation of Israel away from the practice of idolatry, which is worshiping any God other than YHWH, and then follows that warning with the passage we’re going to look at.
Alright stop. And for the Vanilla Ice fans, collaborate and listen.
I just spent maybe 2 minutes going through essentially the first 3 and a half chapters of Deuteronomy. I have a feeling, because I’ve been known to do this too, that if we were to read the start of Deuteronomy on our own, we might blaze through that text thinking, “yeah, I’ve heard this before,” and then read through this coming passage and miss some of what might be happening.
So as much as the Vanilla Ice bit was a joke, we’re actually gonna take his instructions in reverse. Let’s listen to the text, and then do some collaborating.
Deuteronomy 4, verses 25-31.
After you have had children and grandchildren and have lived in the land a long time—if you then become corrupt and make any kind of idol, doing evil in the eyes of the Lord your God and arousing his anger, 26 I call the heavens and the earth as witnesses against you this day that you will quickly perish from the land that you are crossing the Jordan to possess. You will not live there long but will certainly be destroyed. 27 The Lord will scatter you among the peoples, and only a few of you will survive among the nations to which the Lord will drive you. 28 There you will worship man-made gods of wood and stone, which cannot see or hear or eat or smell. 29 But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him. 31 For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath.
Ok, I want to go through a series of questions here, and I’m actually looking for some responses.
First, does this passage seem to be talking about the past or the future? I would say future.
Second, does it say that Israel will sin? I would say no; in verse 25 it says “if” these things happen. But it kinda feels like an ominous ultimatum.
Third, what is Israel being warned from doing? Right, I already gave this away before we read the passage, right? Warned away from worshiping idols. Trick question! I said that about the start of chapter 4. This goes beyond a warning: this is the consequences.
Now some of you might be asking, what’s the difference? It is a warning against idolatry here too. The difference is that we’re modern readers and we know the end of the story. We look at this and see foreshadowing! For hundreds of years after entering the promised land, Israel continuously rebels against God, breaks the covenant, and worships idols. And it gets to the point where Israel gets conquered and many of the people are taken away to foreign lands.
So we might read this and say, “oh, I’ve seen this one before. Tell the people in the story not to do something and that means they’re definitely gonna do it.” It looks like Israel had no shot at obeying. And honestly, that may be true as a plot point, and is true if we hold to the doctrine of original sin. But here, we have listened, we’ve collaborated, and now we stop again. Why is this passage here? Not, like, why does it exist at all, but why is it placed here in the book? We get a 3 chapter history lesson and then immediately go to Israel being doomed in the future?
I want to explore a potentially unorthodox idea here. I think there are some moments in the Bible where it seems like a passage which looks totally like it’s talking about the future is actually also talking about the past.
What did we see from Israel in that history lesson? Rebel, turn back to God. Rebel, turn back to God. Rebel, turn back to God. And what do we see in the passage? If, which doesn’t actually sound like an “if,” but if you rebel, turn back to God. To which we say, “great, we went on an exploration just to see FOR SURE that the book is telling us Israel is going to rebel.”
But don’t just look at the rebellion.
I’m going to ask another question where I’m looking for an answer. In this passage, Deuteronomy 4:25-31, do you see repentance? Where?
Can we move forward to the next slide? Verses 29-30: “But if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul. 30 When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him.”
These verses might sound familiar to you because they sound a lot like a verse Josh quoted from Joel last week: Joel 2:12
“Even now,” declares the Lord,
“return to me with all your heart,
with fasting and weeping and mourning.”
But these verses are familiar to me because I’ve preached them to you before, almost 2 years ago, when I preached on Jeremiah 29. Jeremiah quotes Deuteronomy in this chapter. Verses 12-13: “Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. 13 You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.” If we want to think of the Deuteronomy passage as the sunrise of Israel in the promised land, Jeremiah 29 comes at the sunset. Jeremiah is living what Moses warned of in Deuteronomy. He’s sending a letter to Israelites who have been taken to Babylon in exile after a lengthy period of idolatry. A sad bookend for Israel, but even sadder if we only focus on the rebellion. What I said in that sermon remains true here: this passage is being used as a passage of hope:
Deuteronomy 4:31: “For the Lord your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your ancestors, which he confirmed to them by oath.”
Jeremiah 29:14: “I will be found by you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back from captivity. I will gather you from all the nations and places where I have banished you,” declares the Lord, “and will bring you back to the place from which I carried you into exile.”
God is not changing. This is the promise, that we can return to God with all our heart and we will find Him where He said He would be. That’s our fade to black, roll credits ending. Arm in arm with God, leaving a trail of footprints in the sand… until someone cuts back in and says, “wait, how? And repent from what?”
Because what we want is an example, right? Or maybe a list - cross these things off and I no longer have to worry about this. We want something we can install and have one less thing to worry about.
I dream of that being the reality, with my black-and-white brain. Then maybe I can clear this ledger I’m keeping with all the stuff I’ve done I think might have been bad, the things I feel sincere regret or remorse for, and I keep adding more black-and-white lines to my brain as I try to figure this out.
Do you ever have moments where you’ve heard something over and over, but you look at it just a little differently and something clicks? What I’m about to tell you I was going to write anyway, but thinking about it while I was writing the sermon made something nudge just a little closer to making sense. This orientation, the question of what we turn from in order to repent, is incomplete.
I want to read part of a different definition of repentance for you, this one from the Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics. The definition begins with this: repentance is “...a turning from whatever hinders one’s radical orientation to God, together with a turning to God in wholehearted devotion and faithfulness.” Let me say it again: repentance is “...a turning from whatever hinders one’s radical orientation to God,” what do we turn from; “together with a turning to God in wholehearted devotion and faithfulness,” who we turn to.
This much of the Bible [hold up whole Bible] is God’s people asking what to turn from and receiving a prophetic message to turn to God.
What did the Deuteronomy passage say? Verse 30: When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the Lord your God and obey him.” That return to God is the action of repentance. And what are they returning from? Idolatry.
There’s a chance some of you either just perked up or disconnected. Idolatry in the Deuteronomy passage points pretty specifically to man-made images of wood and stone. But it goes beyond that. I had a seminary professor who talked about the fault in how idolatry is understood today. We don't have physical idols, so we point to idolatry as worshiping money, power, status, whatever you want to fill the blank in with as the object of our focus, rather than God. This, he says, is not idolatry. Idolatry is having a life that focuses on those things while creating an image of a God who permits that focus. That is the false God of our idolatry. If we want to worship God, we need a shift in our understanding. “What do I repent from” asks what I can keep. “Who do I turn to” asks how I orient my life to God.
Israel, I would maintain, had the same problem. We see consistently in scripture that Israel’s idol worship is paired with worshiping YHWH. Their idol worship allowed them to ignore the vulnerable groups they were commanded to care for; it allowed them to extort, steal, pursue their financial desires; it allowed them a variety of impure and immoral actions; and they brought all of that reality into worship of YHWH and believed he would protect them because they were the people of God. But their worship itself was their sin.
Additionally, their entire lifestyle and society fueled that worship. In order to approach repentance, to allow for an actual change that stuck, Israel had wrongs against God and against the people around them that needed to be righted. Our second look at the Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics says this, that “...repentance, if it were genuine, would be accompanied by a will to make right the wrong committed or to change the situation that eventuated the wrongdoing, and a concomitant (or, a naturally occurring) alteration of future behavior.” That is to say, repentance would automatically be paired with righting the wrong and changing the situation that allowed the wrongdoing to happen.
I was recently reminded of the phrase that Christians need to “count the cost” of living a Christian life. I think when I’ve heard that phrase before, it’s exclusively been about persecution for living your faith. I think there’s another cost. It is costly to repent. This simple instruction to turn to God is costly, painful, radical, because it requires all of us. It requires every part of our life, and it asks it of every one of us.
I know a lot of us would love personal direction on how to approach repentance in our lives, not only turning from something but bringing it to set at God’s feet. Unfortunately, I’m not qualified to do that for each of you individually, but I do have thoughts about other changes we can consider as a whole.
With my areas of study, I’m much more open to the idea of corporate sin, sin that comes at group levels, demographic levels, national levels. I take concern with social issues, and I believe we have a call to respond. I believe we have a responsibility for things in our society that are not only inequitable, but which allow for people to be treated as less than human. The call to care for the vulnerable did not stop with ancient Israel. That call continues today.
I understand if you question that, or are tired of that. After entering our third year of COVID, having a political climate we could politely describe as volatile, shootings, violence, racial issues, gender, sexual orientation, immigration, war, poverty, disease, famine, and now, of all things, spy balloons, I could understand a desire to just turn that firehose of awareness off. But if repentance calls us to orient everything toward God, I think we’re called to care for what God is concerned with. I think if there is a barrier in place which keeps people in a situation where they are treated as less than human, we need to count the cost of addressing that barrier.
We’ve been told how to do this: through the two great commands to love God and love our neighbor as ourself; to act justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with our God; giving food to the hungry, drink to the thirsty, clothing the naked, inviting in the stranger, visiting the prisoner. It’s a call that rings throughout scripture, Old and New Testament alike. It’s a call we’re meant to answer.
I want to leave you with one last thought. Growing up in an Evangelical church, attending Evangelical schools, and working in a number of Evangelical contexts, it’s been easy to see that our tradition has an incredible focus on evangelism and converting people to Christianity. The moment of conversion is celebrated, counted as a growth metric for ministries, retold as our testimony, all meant to celebrate people coming into relationship with Christ. That is important, but always left me wondering what came next, what happens after that moment. Well, I discovered something interesting as I put this sermon together. The Hebrew word translated “repentance” is also translated as “conversion.” Looking back to the Dictionary of Scripture and Ethics, we see that “...in the Old Testament conversion is not understood in an evangelistic sense to refer to change in religion or personal faith; the primary concern, rather, is the maintenance of covenantal relationship.” What would it look like if we oriented ourselves in such a way where there was as much focus on, as much celebration for, each time we convert our life to God in repentance as we do for the “conversion story?” Repentance probably still wouldn’t be easy, but maybe the repetition necessary wouldn’t seem so daunting, or costly. Instead, maybe we would think of repentance as a chance to celebrate returning to right relationship with God and each other, over, and over, and over. Let’s pray.
“Lord, we come to you again, as we will continue to do. I come to you, as I will continue to do. I thank you for the chance to continue learning, and for the sacrifice that was made which gives me, and us, that opportunity. Continue to work in us, and to help us understand what it means to fully orient ourselves to you. In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we pray, Amen.”