Sermon: January 22, 2023 Third Sunday After Epiphany

Preacher: Rev Ryan Slifka

Scriptures: Matthew 4:12-23

I’ve mentioned before that I was an adult convert to Christianity. Prior to coming to faith I would have described myself as intensely skeptical towards religion in general. At that time there were certain Christian-y words that really rubbed me the wrong way. Words like “holy.” As in “holier than thou.” And “judgment.” Because it sounded, well, judgmental. Words that conjured up the worst behaviors I’d seen from Christian believers.

Another one of those words looms especially large over today’s scripture. And that word? Repent.

“Repent,” Jesus says. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” It conjures up in my images of street corner preachers proclaiming the end is nigh. I remember a friend of mine in seminary declaring that it was a word he’d never use again, on account of the way it was used as a hammer of judgment against him, because he was gay. For him, the word had become a symbol of pain, rejection, and self-hatred.

Needless to say, the word’s got a lot of baggage. So, if you’re like me, you probably hear the word “repent” and think “oh… goody.”

As much baggage as there may be, though, repentance is kind of an unavoidable concept. If you want anything to do with Jesus, anyway.

In our scripture John the Baptist, Jesus’ predecessor, has been tossed in prison. John’s main thing was gathering people down by the river Jordan, inviting them confess their sins and be washed in the water as a sign of forgiveness. The purpose? Repentance. There it is. And, as John tells us, he’s just paving the way for Jesus, the Messiah to come. So when Jesus starts his public ministry. When shows up in the land of Zebulun and Naphtali, the northern tip of the lake of Capernaum. The first thing Jesus says to kick off his entire career is this. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has drawn near.” One scholar says that this phrase, beginning with “repent,” is the frame for everything that comes after.[i]

Jesus first public act, his first teaching is a call to repentance. The call for repentance is as much Jesus’ mission as it’s John’s.  So, as negatively weighted as the word may be for some of us, the truth is that we can’t understand Jesus without knowing what this word means.

Part of the problem, I think, is a misunderstanding of the word. The Oxford Dictionary defines “the fact of showing that you are sorry for something wrong that you have done.” I mean, it could be. Feeling bad for something and proving our regret can be a good and healthy thing. But it’s more than that.

The word that’s often translated from Greek into English as “repent” in the New Testament is metanoia. Metanoia. Which means, literally, to “turn around.” To turn from one direction to the other. It’s used sometimes to describe a change of mind. Which can and would be part of it. But it’s more than that, too.

The Biblical commentator, Frederick Bruner gives a good biblical definition.

“There is nothing tricky about its meaning,” he writes. “There is nothing tricky. It does not tell what to turn from specifically; the emphasis is turning from our pre-occupations (or goods) toward God.  Whatever keeps one from turning toward the coming kingdom is that from which one should turn… repentance is not merely a change of mind or regret. It is a complete change of life direction.”[ii]

Repentance isn’t just feeling bad, it isn’t just changing your mind. It’s to turn away from those things that pre-occupy our lives, and to turn towards God instead. To repent requires a personal 180. A complete change of life direction.

It sounds like a lot. And it is. You can see it play out in what happens next.

Jesus begins his public ministry, he’s calling people to repent. He’s just traipsing up and down the shore of the sea of Galilee. And he runs into two brothers, Simon (who he’ll rename Peter) and Andrew. They’re out in the water fiddling with a net because, well, they’re fishermen. It’s what they do for a living. “Follow me,” Jesus says. “Follow me and I’ll make you fish for people.” No hesitation. IMMEDIATELY, it says, they drop their nets, and follow him.

Same thing, two other brothers James and John in a boat doing some spot repairs on their nets with their Dad, Zebedee. He calls to them, presumably the same way he did with Simon and Andrew. And same thing. James and John leave the boat and their Dad, net in hand, and join Jesus on the road.

This is what repentance looks like, according to Matthew. Jesus calls, and they repent, they turn away from their livelihoods. They turn away from obligations to extended family. From social ties, homes they’ve lived in their whole lives. These are all nets they’re caught in that keep them from swimming free with the Lord. And they turn towards God, by joining a homeless, wandering Rabbi in hooking others into doing exactly what he did for them. To follow Jesus takes a complete change of life direction. He calls, you drop everything you’re tangled up in that’s getting in God’s way, and you follow. That’s what it means to repent.

Now, I’ll be honest. It’s helpful knowing that the word repent isn’t just a hammer to swing around to threaten people or make them feel bad. That’s good. But knowing what repentance actually is doesn’t make it any easier. Or more appealing.

If you’re like me you find yourself tangled up in all sorts of stuff. Stuff that’s of no help to you, your family, your neighbours or—ultimately—the world. Some of us are more literally like the disciples. Caught up in our careers. Tied up in making money, or worrying about not having enough. Some of us are wound up by social media and politics, railing and raging at the state of the world. Some of us are bound up in addictions or our own self-centredness, caught up in putting our needs above the people we love, or the people who need love the most. And some of us are ground down by life, imprisoned by own grief, shame, trauma, or resentment that we couldn’t imagine life any other way. If you’re like me you know that you spend most of your time out there fishing for something that’ll never truly feed you or anybody else. If you’re like me you know you’ve got lots to turn away from. If you’re like me you know you’ve got plenty of which to repent.

And, if you’re like me, you’ll also know it’s not so easy. Knowing what repentance actually is and what we need to repent for doesn’t make it any easier. Repentance requires a radical shift in life direction, and we live in a world of deep compromises, and obligations, failure and falling short. The truth is that few of us have the kind of strength to overcome any of it. To paraphrase Elvis we’re caught in our own nets, and we can’t just swim out. No matter how hard we may kick our legs and promise ourselves we’ll work harder. But we can’t just drop everything and turn our lives around. At least not on our own.

We can’t do this on our own. The good news, I guess is that when it comes to the question of turning our lives around, we’re not actually alone. I mean, if there’s no God we are. If you believe that human beings are ultimately on our own in the universe, then yeah, maybe the kind of turnaround we need isn’t very likely. Maybe not likely at all.

But if this story is true then it means that maybe we’re not alone. Because the story says that when Jesus arrives on the scene proclaiming repentance, he says so because “the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The kingdom of heaven, the world as it was made to be, as it’s intended to be, and the life we long for has come near. It’s already on the way.

I mean, it’s interesting, because elsewhere in the New Testament repentance is described not as something we bring about after total discipline and a little elbow grease. But it comes as a gift. 2 Timothy 2:25-26: “God may perhaps grant that they will repent.” Or Acts 5:31: “God exalted Jesus at his right hand as Lord and Saviour, to give repentance to Israel and forgiveness of sins.” It’s something God brings to us.

The kind of change we’re looking for isn’t something we’ve gotta invent, or bring about. But it’s something that comes to us, something that’s already been set loose in the world. In the flesh, in the person of Jesus. It’s coming at us. Whether we like it or not.

Frederick Bruner, the same guy who provided our definition of repentance earlier says that when Jesus says ‘turn around,’ “he releases with that Word—even to us who hear it today—the spiritual power to turn around or the power to ask for the power to turn it around… Jesus’ Word changes people and things. It per-forms, it re-forms, trans-forms and con-forms whatever it touches.”[iii]

This past week I was reading about the British painter Peter Howson. Howson had a turbulent childhood, but eventually found great renown as an artist. He was commissioned in the early 1990’s to spend several months in Bosnia at the height of the conflict there, to give a kind of artistic expression of the war. He came back with gruesome portraits of violence and pain. Despite the darkness of their subject matter, these paintings made him famous, and wealthy. Celebrities like Madonna and Sylvester Stallone lined up to own his original pieces.

Despite all this artistic success, though, Howson’s personal life was falling apart. He’d fallen into bouts of deep depression, and was occasionally filled with rage, enough he says, to kill someone. He’d resorted to drinking and cocaine abuse as a way to cope. He knew he needed to turn his life around, but couldn’t. So in 2000, he decided he needed help and checked himself into Craig Castle Clinic for alcohol and cocaine addiction.

It was there in treatment where Howson had a mystical experience. A vision of Jesus, no less. Howson was raised going to church, but it’s not something he continued into adulthood. But Jesus came to him, he says. And he spoke. “You are loved,” Jesus said. “You are loved, and you don’t need alcohol and drugs.” And it’s at this point he started to focus a lot on themes of faith (painting—Judas).

“I’ve been angry for years,” he says. “And drink and drugs were part of that… until I realised that God is the only safe addiction. It took me three or four months to discover how it feels to be loved and to love.”[iv]

Peter Howson was caught up in the net of his success, snared in depression, dragged down in a life of dark dependence. A life he was unable to untangle himself from. But then Jesus spoke, and the kingdom of heaven invaded his life, and turned him around. With this word of grace, he was able to drop the drugging and the drinking and follow, to turn away from it all, and towards God instead. Even his art, which was the source of much of his suffering the “only safe addiction.” Jesus spoke, and repentance became a reality.

Friends, dear friends. We may not have the power to turn our lives around. But the good news is that Jesus does. His word “repent” here is not so much as a command as a promise. That because the kingdom of heaven is at hand, because there is a God and this God is good, and because this God is with us and for us and not against us, all that stuff we’re caught up in that’s keeping us from loving God and loving our neighbours, all that stuff that keeps us trapped in ourselves and away from others, all that stuff that stands between us and truly living… Jesus’ Word itself is a great relief. It’s the freedom of knowing that the way things are ain’t the way they gotta be.

You’ve gotta change. I’ve gotta change. We’ve all gotta change. We’ve all gotta turn away from the darkness and step into the light. We all know it. And we all know it’s all but impossible on our own. But hear the GOOD NEWS. The BEST news. We’re not on our own. YOU’RE not on your own. Because in Jesus Christ, the kingdom of heaven has drawn near. In him there’s hope. There’s power and strength in his promises, where the Spirit of the Lord is, there’s freedom.

Whatever net you’re caught up in, the good news is that you can let it go. You can leave it all behind. And follow.

AMEN.

[i] Leander Keck.

[ii] Frederick Dale Bruner, The Christbook: Matthew 1-2, 2nd ed. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004), 138.

[iii] Ibid., 139.

[iv] Willem de Vink, “He Went that Deep,” Artway.eu https://artway.eu/content.php?id=3281&lang=en&action=show