So Fred the painter got a bid to paint a church in his home town, but even though it was God’s house, Fred decided to do what he always did. He thinned his paint right down with turpentine so that it would go further and he could make a little more money off the church. He was painting right along and got near the very end of the project. He was standing on the ladder on a bright, sunny afternoon.
Suddenly there was a huge clap of thunder that knocked Fred off his ladder and on to the ground. Then, out of nowhere, a cloud opened up and rain started pouring down on the church. The thinned paint started running off the side of the building and down into puddles on the ground.
Fred knew that it was a sign from God. So he got on his knees and started praying, “God, I know what I did was wrong. Forgive me. What should I do?”
A loud voice came from heaven and said, “Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more.”
I want to talk for a little while this morning about what it means to repent. I want to go back and look at the Bible stories for this morning. I want to talk about what it means to be United Methodist. And most importantly, this morning, I want to tell the truth. Can you handle the truth? Let’s see what we can do together this morning.
Repentance is one of those things that you just can’t escape if you read the Bible. Biblical characters are always telling people to repent. When King Solomon dedicated the Temple in Jerusalem he talked about how the people of Israel, even if they got dragged off as captives to a foreign land could repent and God would forgive them. John the Baptist, when he came out into the wilderness preaching told the people, “Repent! For the kingdom of God has come near.” Jesus, when he began his ministry after being baptized by John said, “Repent! For the kingdom of God has come near.” Then today, in the scripture from Acts, we hear it again. Peter tells the people, “Repent! And be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” Repentance must be a pretty important thing because each of these figures is beginning a new phase in the life of God’s people by calling them to repent.
But I’ll bet when we think about the word “repent” we get some pretty specific images in mind. We think of loud preachers on street corners with bullhorns and signs. We think of hellfire and damnation sermons. We think of signs on the front of churches that say “Turn or Burn.” Is that what you think of when you hear this call to repent?
What is it that we are supposed to hear when the good news tells us to repent? It’s not about fear. From my reading of the scriptures, and particularly the passage from Acts that we have for today, it’s about facing the truth.
The “Turn or Burn” sign has something right about it. Repentance is about turning. At its heart the word “repentance” means to turn around. It means to stop walking away from God and to turn back toward God.
Peter knew something about turning around. Peter was the disciple who had sworn to Jesus that he would not abandon him, even if he had to die with him. But only hours later Peter was the one who turned his back on Jesus when he was confronted in the courtyard. “Surely you were with him, too?” they asked. “I do not know him,” Peter said. Three times he said it. Peter knew something about turning his back on God.
But something happened to Peter. Something happened to those other disciples who were gathered with him on Pentecost. The wind blew. Tongues of fire danced. The Spirit descended and all heaven broke loose in Jerusalem. And now, there was Peter preaching to the crowd and confronting them with truth…calling them to turn around.
“Let all Israel know without a doubt,” Peter said, “that God made him Lord and Christ – this Jesus whom you crucified.” It was an uncompromising message. He told them straight out – all of them – that they bore responsibility for Jesus’ death. But he also told them straight out who Jesus was – the Lord and Christ. They knew this because the old prophecies were being fulfilled. They knew this because Jesus had been raised from the dead. They knew this because the Holy Spirit was roaring through the land. They knew that Jesus was Christ because the world was being turned upside down.
So the people who had watched Jesus die on the cross…who pierced him in the side, were pierced to the heart themselves and they say to the disciples, “What should we do?”
Peter says very simply – “Repent and be baptized, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ.”
Repent. Turn around. Wake up and smell the coffee. Take a hard look in the mirror. Get a clue. Face the music. Face the truth. And the truth is that we are sinners in need of a savior but Jesus is that savior.
You see, repentance is the result of a real confrontation. It happens when we are confronted with the depth of the world’s woundedness and our own failures. Repentance happens when we can see the truth that those things we call bad habits are actually critical flaws that lead us and others away from God.
The truth is that our harsh words to others DO have a lasting consequence. The truth is that gossip IS damaging to the body of Christ. The truth is that pornography on the Internet DOES degrade human dignity and pervert God’s intentions for the gift of sexuality. The truth is that the coarseness of our culture and the breakdown of our families WILL lead to injured children and long-term hurt. The truth is that we CAN buy ourselves into perdition by accumulating stuff and storing up treasures that we can’t take with us. The truth is that, contrary to Gordon Gecko’s infamous words, greed is NOT good. The truth is that the silence of good people in the face of injustice IS a sin against humanity. The truth is that I AM my brother’s keeper and my sister’s keeper. The truth is that I CAN’T earn salvation by my own merit…that I WILL fall short of the glory of God…that the world does NOT have my best interest at heart…that my identity must be somewhere else or I am most to be pitied. The truth is that if I am going to move forward there must be some other place to look for who I am and that place is in Jesus Christ.
This is why the gospel is such a radical thing. It tells us the truth about who we are meant to be. The Greek word for repentance is metanoia and it literally means “a change of mind.” But that’s not a change like, “I could have done this, but I changed my mind.” It’s a change like, “I once was like this, but now my mind is transformed.” Repentance convicts of what we have become and how far we have fallen short of God. Repentance holds up a mirror so that we can see what sin has done to us – we who were made in the very image of God. But most importantly repentance turns us around so that we can see Jesus and understand what true humanity looks like. This is the message Peter proclaims to the people in Jerusalem in the story from Acts today. This is the message that we are called to proclaim in our day.
I said I was going to say a word about what it means to be a United Methodist. I’m going to be talking about that some more over the next couple of weeks because we are coming up on a very big event for our denomination and I want us to be in prayer for the United Methodist Church. On April 23rd, just a little over two weeks from now, United Methodists from all over the world will be gathering in Fort Worth for our General Conference. It only happens once every four years. About 1,000 delegates, lay and clergy, 30 of them from Virginia, will be going there to write our Book of Discipline, which is the book that organizes our church and establishes our doctrines and standards.
It’s not an easy time. While the United Methodist Church is growing very fast in some parts of the world, like the Philippines and the Congo, in other places, like Europe and the United States, it is not. We can look at other denominations like the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and see that we have some of the same issues. We are divided on some social issues. We have a real shortage of young clergy and lay leadership. And in many parts of the country we have stopped reproducing. It’s not just that United Methodists aren’t having as many children as we used to – it’s also that we have stopped baptizing new adult United Methodists and starting new churches.
The hardest thing that the General Conference will have to do is to tell the truth. The hardest thing it will have to do is to call the church to repentance. It will need to say that our primary allegiance is not to something called the United Methodist Church but to the body of Christ. It will have to say that our mission is not to perpetuate a denominational structure but to make new disciples. It will have to point out the fact that we are not here to serve an organization plan but to transform the world. It will have to give pride of place to the poor and the outcast and the forgotten. It will have to confess that this church that we love is not a permanent establishment, but a temporary arrangement and that the United Methodist Church is only useful and should only survive if it is serving God’s kingdom and helping others to know that God is with them.
One reason I have a lot of hope for United Methodists is because our theology is so rich. John Wesley left us a great legacy for talking about salvation and the way that God calls us to life. He talked about repentance a lot. He talked about sin. But he also talked about grace and the many ways that it operates in our lives, surrounding us, converting us, justifying us and making us whole and holy. We can handle the truth about who we are because of the reality of God’s grace – giving us what we cannot earn and could not give ourselves.
There’s another example of truth-telling in our scripture readings today. It comes from Luke’s gospel and it tells about Jesus walking down the road to Emmaus with a couple of the disciples following his resurrection. He just shows up while the two of them are walking away from Jerusalem and they don’t recognize him. When he asks a question about what they are talking about, they treat him like he’s clueless. “Are you the only person in Jerusalem who doesn’t know what’s been going on?” they ask him. Surely this stranger must have heard about the crowds, the crucifixion, the high drama of the empty tomb.
Soon, though, Jesus has taken the initiative and he begins to explain to them, as they are walking along, how consistent all of this was with what God had told the people would happen. He talks about the scriptures from Moses on and relates them to their lives and to this man whose loss they are grieving. It’s just a walk among companions.
At the end of the day the disciples stop off at the house where they are going to stay and it looks as if the stranger is going to go on, but they urge him to stay with them. They are intrigued by what he has to say. It’s just a meal among friends. It’s just a table with food. It’s just bread. It’s just bread until…
The stranger takes the bread and blesses it and breaks it and gives it to them. Then it’s not just bread. And this is not just a stranger. It’s not just a meal. It’s Jesus and it’s a sacrament and the world is not going to be the same. Truth has been told.
You see repentance doesn’t come separated from grace. A new world opens up when we can see who we truly are and when we’re connected to brothers and sisters. Peter tells the truth to the crowd in Jerusalem and 3,000 souls are baptized. The truth hurts, but it’s a good hurt – a searing hurt – a cleansing hurt. And on the other side is a God who loves us and is waiting for us at a table to share a meal. Thanks be to God.
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Then Peter stood up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and declared to them…”Therefore let all Israel know without doubt that God made him Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Hearing this they were pierced to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “What should we do, brothers?”
Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Because the promise is for you and your children and all those who are far away, for all those that the Lord our God is calling.”
With many other arguments he testified and urged them, saying, “Save yourselves from this distorted generation.”
So those who accepted his message were baptized and that day about three thousand souls were added.
Suddenly there was a huge clap of thunder that knocked Fred off his ladder and on to the ground. Then, out of nowhere, a cloud opened up and rain started pouring down on the church. The thinned paint started running off the side of the building and down into puddles on the ground.
Fred knew that it was a sign from God. So he got on his knees and started praying, “God, I know what I did was wrong. Forgive me. What should I do?”
A loud voice came from heaven and said, “Repaint! Repaint! And thin no more.”
I want to talk for a little while this morning about what it means to repent. I want to go back and look at the Bible stories for this morning. I want to talk about what it means to be United Methodist. And most importantly, this morning, I want to tell the truth. Can you handle the truth? Let’s see what we can do together this morning.
Repentance is one of those things that you just can’t escape if you read the Bible. Biblical characters are always telling people to repent. When King Solomon dedicated the Temple in Jerusalem he talked about how the people of Israel, even if they got dragged off as captives to a foreign land could repent and God would forgive them. John the Baptist, when he came out into the wilderness preaching told the people, “Repent! For the kingdom of God has come near.” Jesus, when he began his ministry after being baptized by John said, “Repent! For the kingdom of God has come near.” Then today, in the scripture from Acts, we hear it again. Peter tells the people, “Repent! And be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.” Repentance must be a pretty important thing because each of these figures is beginning a new phase in the life of God’s people by calling them to repent.
But I’ll bet when we think about the word “repent” we get some pretty specific images in mind. We think of loud preachers on street corners with bullhorns and signs. We think of hellfire and damnation sermons. We think of signs on the front of churches that say “Turn or Burn.” Is that what you think of when you hear this call to repent?
What is it that we are supposed to hear when the good news tells us to repent? It’s not about fear. From my reading of the scriptures, and particularly the passage from Acts that we have for today, it’s about facing the truth.
The “Turn or Burn” sign has something right about it. Repentance is about turning. At its heart the word “repentance” means to turn around. It means to stop walking away from God and to turn back toward God.
Peter knew something about turning around. Peter was the disciple who had sworn to Jesus that he would not abandon him, even if he had to die with him. But only hours later Peter was the one who turned his back on Jesus when he was confronted in the courtyard. “Surely you were with him, too?” they asked. “I do not know him,” Peter said. Three times he said it. Peter knew something about turning his back on God.
But something happened to Peter. Something happened to those other disciples who were gathered with him on Pentecost. The wind blew. Tongues of fire danced. The Spirit descended and all heaven broke loose in Jerusalem. And now, there was Peter preaching to the crowd and confronting them with truth…calling them to turn around.
“Let all Israel know without a doubt,” Peter said, “that God made him Lord and Christ – this Jesus whom you crucified.” It was an uncompromising message. He told them straight out – all of them – that they bore responsibility for Jesus’ death. But he also told them straight out who Jesus was – the Lord and Christ. They knew this because the old prophecies were being fulfilled. They knew this because Jesus had been raised from the dead. They knew this because the Holy Spirit was roaring through the land. They knew that Jesus was Christ because the world was being turned upside down.
So the people who had watched Jesus die on the cross…who pierced him in the side, were pierced to the heart themselves and they say to the disciples, “What should we do?”
Peter says very simply – “Repent and be baptized, each one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ.”
Repent. Turn around. Wake up and smell the coffee. Take a hard look in the mirror. Get a clue. Face the music. Face the truth. And the truth is that we are sinners in need of a savior but Jesus is that savior.
You see, repentance is the result of a real confrontation. It happens when we are confronted with the depth of the world’s woundedness and our own failures. Repentance happens when we can see the truth that those things we call bad habits are actually critical flaws that lead us and others away from God.
The truth is that our harsh words to others DO have a lasting consequence. The truth is that gossip IS damaging to the body of Christ. The truth is that pornography on the Internet DOES degrade human dignity and pervert God’s intentions for the gift of sexuality. The truth is that the coarseness of our culture and the breakdown of our families WILL lead to injured children and long-term hurt. The truth is that we CAN buy ourselves into perdition by accumulating stuff and storing up treasures that we can’t take with us. The truth is that, contrary to Gordon Gecko’s infamous words, greed is NOT good. The truth is that the silence of good people in the face of injustice IS a sin against humanity. The truth is that I AM my brother’s keeper and my sister’s keeper. The truth is that I CAN’T earn salvation by my own merit…that I WILL fall short of the glory of God…that the world does NOT have my best interest at heart…that my identity must be somewhere else or I am most to be pitied. The truth is that if I am going to move forward there must be some other place to look for who I am and that place is in Jesus Christ.
This is why the gospel is such a radical thing. It tells us the truth about who we are meant to be. The Greek word for repentance is metanoia and it literally means “a change of mind.” But that’s not a change like, “I could have done this, but I changed my mind.” It’s a change like, “I once was like this, but now my mind is transformed.” Repentance convicts of what we have become and how far we have fallen short of God. Repentance holds up a mirror so that we can see what sin has done to us – we who were made in the very image of God. But most importantly repentance turns us around so that we can see Jesus and understand what true humanity looks like. This is the message Peter proclaims to the people in Jerusalem in the story from Acts today. This is the message that we are called to proclaim in our day.
I said I was going to say a word about what it means to be a United Methodist. I’m going to be talking about that some more over the next couple of weeks because we are coming up on a very big event for our denomination and I want us to be in prayer for the United Methodist Church. On April 23rd, just a little over two weeks from now, United Methodists from all over the world will be gathering in Fort Worth for our General Conference. It only happens once every four years. About 1,000 delegates, lay and clergy, 30 of them from Virginia, will be going there to write our Book of Discipline, which is the book that organizes our church and establishes our doctrines and standards.
It’s not an easy time. While the United Methodist Church is growing very fast in some parts of the world, like the Philippines and the Congo, in other places, like Europe and the United States, it is not. We can look at other denominations like the Episcopalians and the Presbyterians and see that we have some of the same issues. We are divided on some social issues. We have a real shortage of young clergy and lay leadership. And in many parts of the country we have stopped reproducing. It’s not just that United Methodists aren’t having as many children as we used to – it’s also that we have stopped baptizing new adult United Methodists and starting new churches.
The hardest thing that the General Conference will have to do is to tell the truth. The hardest thing it will have to do is to call the church to repentance. It will need to say that our primary allegiance is not to something called the United Methodist Church but to the body of Christ. It will have to say that our mission is not to perpetuate a denominational structure but to make new disciples. It will have to point out the fact that we are not here to serve an organization plan but to transform the world. It will have to give pride of place to the poor and the outcast and the forgotten. It will have to confess that this church that we love is not a permanent establishment, but a temporary arrangement and that the United Methodist Church is only useful and should only survive if it is serving God’s kingdom and helping others to know that God is with them.
One reason I have a lot of hope for United Methodists is because our theology is so rich. John Wesley left us a great legacy for talking about salvation and the way that God calls us to life. He talked about repentance a lot. He talked about sin. But he also talked about grace and the many ways that it operates in our lives, surrounding us, converting us, justifying us and making us whole and holy. We can handle the truth about who we are because of the reality of God’s grace – giving us what we cannot earn and could not give ourselves.
There’s another example of truth-telling in our scripture readings today. It comes from Luke’s gospel and it tells about Jesus walking down the road to Emmaus with a couple of the disciples following his resurrection. He just shows up while the two of them are walking away from Jerusalem and they don’t recognize him. When he asks a question about what they are talking about, they treat him like he’s clueless. “Are you the only person in Jerusalem who doesn’t know what’s been going on?” they ask him. Surely this stranger must have heard about the crowds, the crucifixion, the high drama of the empty tomb.
Soon, though, Jesus has taken the initiative and he begins to explain to them, as they are walking along, how consistent all of this was with what God had told the people would happen. He talks about the scriptures from Moses on and relates them to their lives and to this man whose loss they are grieving. It’s just a walk among companions.
At the end of the day the disciples stop off at the house where they are going to stay and it looks as if the stranger is going to go on, but they urge him to stay with them. They are intrigued by what he has to say. It’s just a meal among friends. It’s just a table with food. It’s just bread. It’s just bread until…
The stranger takes the bread and blesses it and breaks it and gives it to them. Then it’s not just bread. And this is not just a stranger. It’s not just a meal. It’s Jesus and it’s a sacrament and the world is not going to be the same. Truth has been told.
You see repentance doesn’t come separated from grace. A new world opens up when we can see who we truly are and when we’re connected to brothers and sisters. Peter tells the truth to the crowd in Jerusalem and 3,000 souls are baptized. The truth hurts, but it’s a good hurt – a searing hurt – a cleansing hurt. And on the other side is a God who loves us and is waiting for us at a table to share a meal. Thanks be to God.
Acts 2:14a, 36-41
Then Peter stood up with the eleven, lifted up his voice and declared to them…”Therefore let all Israel know without doubt that God made him Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”
Hearing this they were pierced to the heart, and they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “What should we do, brothers?”
Peter said to them, “Repent and be baptized, each of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. Because the promise is for you and your children and all those who are far away, for all those that the Lord our God is calling.”
With many other arguments he testified and urged them, saying, “Save yourselves from this distorted generation.”
So those who accepted his message were baptized and that day about three thousand souls were added.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment