The Mercy of Repentance
“O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy: Be gracious to all who have gone astray from your ways, and bring them again with penitent hearts and steadfast faith to embrace and hold fast the unchangeable truth of your Word, Jesus Christ your Son; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.” - Book of Common Prayer, p. 218
It’s a wonderful collect that we prayed together last week. The opening clause grabbed me as I read it aloud last week when we gathered for worship. Immediately following a reading of The Exhortation, it invited me to think differently about what the church was inviting through an exhortation to repentance and turning back towards God’s love as part of a meaningful Lenten practice. I was invited to understand the act of repentance and of seeking forgiveness - from God and from others - as one of the myriad ways that I am able to receive God’s mercy in my life.
We often shy away from the topic of sin and what it does in our lives. Perhaps it is because we have heard sin talked about in ways that are less than helpful for most of us. Instead of our discussion of sin being a discussion of a reality we have to deal with, we mostly hear about sin in the context of things we have to fix in ourselves in order to be more faithful to God and to live in the light of God’s glory. I find this particular focus on sin to be unhelpful and unrealistic.
It is unrealistic because it assumes that I can actually do something about sin in order to get rid of it. While I can be conscious with how I interact with people, there are forms of sin that I will not be able to avoid because they exist outside of my individual actions. Thus, I am not able to affect the change and be rid of the presence of sin in my life. The only thing I can do in these circumstances is ask for God’s forgiveness for the sins that I participate in without actually being able to change the source of the sin. Here, we might think of societal sin that happens beyond our control. We could include in this discussion the realities of racism, sexism, and all other -isms that operate in the world around us. While I can affect change in my prejudice, I, as an individual actor, cannot avoid the sin because it is embedded in the systems of our society.
That said, it does not mean that I am powerless to affect the impact of sin in the world. I absolutely can work towards the creation of a more just and loving world by joining up with others who are working for the same things. I have the ability to join up with the work of organizations that work for the improvement of the local community through advocating for policies that protect the most vulnerable in our communities and increase the quality of life for everyone precisely because the quality of life for the most vulnerable has improved and created a place in which more people are able to flourish and grow into the person God speaks into being each moment of existence. Our parish participates in this kind of work most pointedly in our Serve ministries with Valley Interfaith Project, Thew Elementary, Matthew’s Crossing Food Bank, Habitat for Humanity, and others. We are entering into the work of God’s mercy by committing ourselves to serving the vulnerable in our midst not out of pity but out of love for a sibling, a neighbor in whom we see Christ’s face.
The way that sin has been taught and discussed in the church is unhelpful because it has mostly relied on shame to get people to change not simply what they are doing but who they are as God’s children. Shame only leads to the diminishment of a person. It never leads to the building up of a person or the encouragement of a person in the ways that they are beautiful creatures in God’s eyes. Shame is a powerful social instrument that the church has used in devastating ways throughout its history. When we think about sin in this way and shame people into new behaviors, we are taking on the role of God. We are assuming that we know what is best and that we can find the answer to “fix” the problem of sin in a person’s life. Here again, we might be reminded of the scripture that tells us to pay attention first to the log in our own eyes.
All of this brings us back to the opening salvo of the collect last week: “O God, whose glory it is always to have mercy.” It is, without a doubt, a fitting description of who we know God to be. We experience the glory of God’s love in the ways that we witness God’s mercy. To be merciful to one another and to ourselves, then, is to attempt to reflect the love of God in our own lives as we journey the walk of faith with or towards God. We are invited in the collect not only to remember who God is (through the opening line, which is more a reminder for us than for God) but also to practice the same mercy - or at least that which approaches a reflection of God’s mercy - in our lives. Clearly, we are not able to practice the same mercy as God; we can only practice something that is analogical to God’s mercy.
Sin is going to happen in our lives and in the world around. We are invited to rely on God to help us recognize the times that we have sinned or the times that we have participated in sinful systems. We are invited to rely on the glory of God’s mercy to help us live in faithful ways and to remind us of the way of the Cross as we move through life. We will continue to have moments in which we will need to seek God’s help and forgiveness. We will continue to need to repent for things we have done and left undone.
Sin is too big a thing for us as mere mortals to tackle, and we will need God’s help to know the mercy of repentance and the glory of reconciliation with God and with one another. Today, we are invited to reflect on repentance as a gift of mercy through which we are invited to continue our walks with Christ.
In Christ,
Hunter+
