Tag: repent

The Winnowing Wind

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the Second Sunday of Advent, Year A

Click here to read the biblical passages.

So, we are now into that time of year when everybody hunkers down to watch their favorite holiday movies. Some people like It’s a Wonderful Life. Some people like the Hallmark Channel, but I only count that one as one movie because they all have the same plot. (No offense, I’m just preaching the truth.) Some people like Die Hard with Bruce Willis. Instead of deck the halls, he likes to deck the terrorists. But for me personally, there can be only one. And it’s The Muppet Christmas Carol. If you haven’t seen it, I highly recommend it. Because not only is it absolutely hilarious because of the Muppets, but Michael Caine, as Ebenezer or Scrooge, is just (*) chef’s kiss perfection. And finally, it’s actually one of the more faithful renditions of the classic novel by Charles Dickens. Most of us know the story already. Ebenezer Scrooge is a grouchy old miser, who gets visited by three spirits on Christmas Eve. The ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future. And through these visits, Ebenezer comes to a greater understanding of himself in order to make some necessary changes in his life. It’s a story about personal transformation, and that’s the exact same theme we find in today’s gospel.

The passage focuses on the ministry of St. John the Baptist, and as you may know, John could be more than a little intense, like camping. He walks in screaming,

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,”

calling people names, and talking about pitchforks and unquenchable fire. That’s why he’s called John the Baptist (because if he was John the Episcopalian, he would have been much more polite about the whole thing). But he wasn’t polite. He was a prophet. And the message that God spoke through this prophet was a pretty direct one.

I think it might help if we were to unpack that message just a little bit. So, first of all, we hear that word repent, which makes a lot of us think about those angry preachers we see screaming and waving a Bible around on TV. We think that to repent means to feel guilty or ashamed, but that’s not actually what it means. In Greek, the word is metanoia, coming from meta, meaning “change,” and noia, meaning “mind.”

So in the language in which the New Testament was written, the word repent actually means, “to change your mind.” Anybody here ever change your mind about something? It happens.

It makes sense to change your mind when you get new information. The poet Maya Angelo said it beautifully,

“Do the best you can until you know better. And then, when you know better, do better.”

That’s what repent means. It’s not easy, but it also has nothing to do with guilt or shame. And that’s the core of John the Baptist’s prophetic message.

He tells people to

“bear fruit worthy of repentance.”

This has to do with how they live their lives. This is what Maya Angelou was talking about: “When you know better, do better.” No need to wallow and shame. Just learn from your mistakes.

After that, John starts to get really deep, but we miss what he’s saying if we get stuck on that idea of punishment and shame. John says,

“I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me. I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire.”

Okay. I want you to remember those words: “Holy Spirit and fire.” They’re important. Specifically, I want you to remember that the Greek word for spirit is the same word they use for wind. So what John just said to the people is that the one coming after him (that’s Jesus) will baptize them with sacred wind and fire. I know that sounds weird, but stay with me because it’s about to become important.

John says,

“his winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Couple of unfamiliar terms in that sentence. They are agricultural terms, and I’ll deal with them in reverse order. First for us, and second for John, is the term chaff.

Chaff is a part of the wheat plant. It’s a kind of husk that protects the grain while it’s still growing on the stalk. It’s very important, because without it, the grain would be vulnerable to predators and the elements. So the chaff isn’t bad, it’s necessary.

The only problem is that it’s not very tasty or nutritious. So, if you want to harvest that wheat and bake bread, you have to get rid of the chaff first. That’s where winnowing comes in.

Winnowing is another agricultural term. After the farmers would harvest the wheat, they would heat it up over a fire, which would crack open the husks that surrounded and protected the grain. And then the farmers would take their winnowing forks and sift the wheat by tossing it up into the air, letting the wind blow the tough husks away and allowing the delicious and nutritious grain to fall back to the earth, where it could then be collected into baskets, and later baked into bread.

So, the thing to remember about chaff is that it’s the part of the plant that protects the grain while it’s still growing, but no longer serves the purpose of what the grain is meant to become. That’s the winnowing process, if we’re talking about wheat, and it’s also the repentance process if we’re talking about us, and using the word repent in the way that it was originally intended.

That’s what I see happening in Ebenezer Scrooge, throughout the story of A Christmas Carol. Our friend Ebenezer was taken on a journey through his childhood and youth where he saw how he had used study, work, and money as a shield to protect himself from the rejection that he experienced from his family and friends.

His skills made him very successful as a financial manager, but they left him empty when it came to the really important and valuable things in life. Miserliness for Ebenezer was like the chaff that protected the grain while it was still growing, but it was also the very thing that kept him from becoming the person he was meant to be. The work of the Holy Spirit in his life, the wind and the fire, was to help him let go of his old protective shell and embrace the truth of who he really was in God’s eyes, and I think the same thing is true for each and every one of us.

We all have old habits or beliefs that hold us back from living authentically as our truest and best selves. We might think that staying thin and beautiful is the key to a long and happy marriage. We might believe that next drink might make us the life of the party. We might wonder whether we will finally feel acceptable in God’s eyes if we could just pray the gay away. But none of these things are true. They are all chaff, and the work of the Holy Spirit in your life is the work of God, helping you to like yourself just the way you are and living that truth boldly and bravely in the world, just as God intended for you.

That’s what winnowing means. That’s what repentance means. And that is the message of St. John the Baptist for us in today’s gospel and in this season of Advent.

Kindred in Christ, I pray that you will come to know this message more fully for yourself during this holiday season, and that you will bear fruit worthy of changed minds by loving yourself, your neighbors, and God more authentically. When we finally come to that blessed celebration of Christmas, I pray that you will see the light of Christ being born in you in a new way, so that you can be that light for others and let your light shine for all to see.

The Gardener Who Never Gives Up

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

Sermon for the Third Sunday in Lent.

Click here for the biblical readings.

Hi, my name is Barrett and I make poor life choices.

Back in 2013, my family and I moved from upstate New York to western Michigan. We figured it would take a couple of days to pack up our stuff, load the truck, and get on the road. After all, we had made a similar move just a few years earlier, coming from the west coast of Canada to New York.

What we failed to account for, though, is that our previous move involved two broke seminarians in a one-room apartment. Everything we owned fit in the back of a modest U-Haul. Over the course of the intervening years, we had amassed a much larger collection of furniture, books, and kids (with all their accompanying accoutrements). A couple of days and a U-Haul wouldn’t be nearly enough to get the job done this time.

A visitor to my house asked, “Hey, aren’t you moving to Michigan next week?”

“Sure,” I said, “I figure I’ll just throw some stuff in boxes and hit the road.”

My friend very wisely took that opportunity to gently talk some much-needed sense into me, “Listen, you’ve got a lot more stuff in this house than you did when you got here. I don’t think a couple of days is going to be enough time.” Thank God for good friends, because this blessed soul organized a whole cadre of neighbors who descended upon my messy house for the entire week that it took the lot of us to get things packed and cleaned before moving day. In the end, everything came together right on time, but there’s no way it would have if it hadn’t been for the love of these people who rescued me from the mess of my own making. All in all, the stakes were relatively low in this crisis, but I was very grateful for the community that made a safety-net for me, when I needed it.

For other people, the stakes aren’t so low and a safety-net is not always there when they need it. Most of us have made regrettable decisions, of one kind or another, in our lives. Tragedy often strikes when unfortunate circumstances combine with our poor choices to leave us in a real pickle. Some of our unhoused neighbors, for example, could tell us heart-rending tales of woe about how they ended up living on the street, through no fault of their own. Others who have never experienced housing insecurity might be tempted to dismiss such stories as mere excuses. “The poor are poor,” some might say, “because of their own fault. If they had made better choices, they wouldn’t be in this mess.”

Thinking this way is tempting because it provides a false sense of security. Some might think, perhaps unconsciously, that they can protect themselves from disaster by being smart enough, good enough, or careful enough. But the reality is that life is rarely so simple. All of us have known good and hardworking people who nevertheless suffer hardship. The scary fact is that all of us are more vulnerable than we would like to think. Moralizing about the causes of disaster will not protect us when bad things happen to good people, especially since good people are also prone to making mistakes, from time to time.

So then, the real question for us Christians is not, “Why are the poor poor,” but, “What will we do about it?” That is the question that Jesus addresses in today’s gospel.

At the opening of the passage, Jesus talks about two terrible events that had happened in recent memory for his listeners. The first was a violent attack on worshipers at the temple by the Roman governor Pontius Pilate. The second was a building collapse in which eighteen people had been killed. Jesus answers the question about blame in a very straightforward manner: “Do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you.”

Jesus typically asks more questions than he answers and often responds to questions with figurative stories, but this is one of the few times when he gives a direct and unequivocal answer: Did these people deserve what happened to them? No, they did not.

What he says next, however, almost undermines what he just said. Jesus says, “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did!” In this moment, Jesus almost sounds like an old-timey southern preacher, screaming through a megaphone while standing on streetcorner soap box. But that’s not what Jesus intends.

It helps to understand that the word “repent” has very little to do with feeling guilt or fear. The Greek word translated as “repent” is “metanoia,” which literally means, “change your mind.” Likewise, the word used for “perish” is not just referring to physical death, which eventually happens to everyone, but spiritual death. The best definition of “perishing,” in the spiritual sense, was given by Dr. Martin Luther King when he said, “Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter.”

Jesus’ warning about “perishing” is about this kind of spiritual death that we are in danger of experiencing, if we do not change our way of thinking about the misfortunes that befall our fellow human beings.

What then is the alternative that Jesus recommends we follow? To answer this, we need to look at the parable Jesus tells in the next part of the passage. It’s the story of a fig tree that is not performing as expected. The owner of the field wants to tear up the tree and throw it away to make room for other, more productive plants. But the gardener recommends patience and care instead. He says, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.” He recommends that more attention, not less, be given to the plant. He doesn’t give up, but gets involved. God, according to Jesus, is more like the gardener than the owner of the vineyard.

Jesus presents us with the image of a God who does not give up on us, but is willing to get the divine hands dirty with hard work. The implication is that, if God doesn’t give up on us, then neither should we give up on each other.

What I find most interesting about this parable is the unresolved ending. We, the audience, don’t get to find out how the story ends. Did the owner agree to the gardener’s suggestion? Did the extra effort pay off, in the end? Jesus doesn’t say, so we just don’t know. The open ending of this parable does not leave us with certainty, but with hope. There are no guarantees in this life, but the stance of getting involved, rather than giving up, is the best hope we have for making a future that is better than the status quo we are enduring at this moment. The ending of this parable is Jesus’ way of telling us, “The ball is in your court. What are you going to do?”

When I failed to adequately plan for my big move from New York to Michigan, my friends could have easily shrugged their shoulders and said, “Well, that’s just what happens when you fail to plan ahead!” They could have rightly left me stewing in a mess of my own making. I am so grateful they did not do that. Out of their great love for me, they made my problem their problem and turned a moment of crisis into a moment of grace.

Kindred in Christ, the uncertainties of life and imperfections of human nature mean that we are all in the same boat together. We can choose to give up on each other and say, “It’s every man for himself,” or we can get involved with each other, get our hands dirty, and lean into the hope that we can make a better next year than we had last year.

In Matthew 25:31-46, Jesus gives us some practical advice on the kinds of things we can do to show up for each other. The Church has traditionally called them, “The Corporal Works of Mercy.” They are: To feed the hungry, to give water to the thirsty, to shelter the homeless, to visit the sick, to visit the imprisoned, and to give alms to the poor.

Like the gardener’s suggestions in Jesus’ parable, the Corporal Works of Mercy are not a guaranteed plan of social reform; they are a list of virtues that Christians ought to be practicing, for their own sake. We cannot solve the world’s problems, nor can we protect ourselves from the dangers of calamity and our own stupid mistakes, but we can show up for each other in a spirit of care and concern, willing to get our hands dirty with the kind of work that Jesus Christ calls us to do. By following Jesus, and practicing the virtues he taught us, we bear witness to the loving presence of the God who does not give up on us, who gets involved in helping each of us clean up the messes of our own making, and gives us hope for a better tomorrow than we had yesterday.

Friends, our God does not give up on us, so let us not give up on each other. Let us work together in hope, because it is a hope worth working for. Amen.

Reclaiming Repentance

On By J. Barrett LeeIn Sermon1 Comment

By Visitor7 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
By Visitor7 (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)%5D, via Wikimedia Commons

Repent is one of the most misunderstood words in the Christian religious vocabulary.  The sound of it typically conjures up images of wild-eyed, Bible-thumping preachers screaming about hellfire and damnation from atop a soapbox on a street corner.  Even those who know better still tend to associate repentance with feelings of guilt and shame over past failures.

Jesus uses that word in this morning’s gospel reading when he says to the people, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.”  I don’t think he was trying to lay a guilt-trip on his listeners, nor was he trying to frighten them into becoming disciples.

When Jesus uses that word, repent, he is inviting his listeners into an experience of expanded consciousness.  The word repent in Greek (the language in which the New Testament was written) is metanoia.  It literally means “to change one’s mind.”  Jesus is trying to get his listeners to think differently, think bigger, think outside the box.  Specifically, Jesus is inviting us to change the way we think about three things: God, ourselves, and the world.

First, Jesus is inviting his listeners to think bigger, think differently about God.  In the world of first century Judaism, people thought of God as being far away.  Moreover, they thought there were certain things that people needed to do or think in order to get God’s attention.  They thought God had to be appeased by certain rituals or impressed with good moral behavior and theological belief.  This is what groups like the Pharisees and Sadducees did with their time: they worked hard to get God’s attention/approval.

All of this is pretty consistent with what I call the human religious instinct.  In just about every human culture, on every continent, in every part of history, people have had some kind of belief in a Higher Power (e.g. God(s), Brahman, Tao, etc.).  Likewise, they have also had some kind of system in place for contacting, relating to, garnering favor with, or even controlling their Higher Power(s).  This is how religions are born.  Some scientists have even done studies that indicate our brains might be hardwired for forming religious beliefs and rituals.

One of the really interesting things about Jesus is that he takes this whole human religious enterprise and turns it on its head.  All religions present us with a way to find God, but Jesus presents us with a God who finds us.

He says in today’s reading, “The kingdom of heaven has come near.”  Other English translations read, “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”  Think about that: at hand.  Hold your hand out in front of you and look at it.  Think about those words: “The kingdom of heaven/God (i.e. the place where God lives) is at hand.”  Later on, Jesus would take this idea even further and say, “The kingdom of God is within you.”

This is a radical, prophetic, and mystical shift.  If it doesn’t blow your mind, then you weren’t really paying attention.  This turns the whole human idea of religion upside down.  God is not far away, God is close.  How close?  At hand.  Within you.  Taking a hint from Jesus, St. Augustine of Hippo says that God is closer to you than your own heart.

The other part of this is that there is nothing we have to do (or can do) to get God’s attention or gain God’s approval because we already have it.  Theologically speaking, this is called grace.  Grace is the unmerited favor, or unconditional love, of God.  Grace is God’s basic orientation toward the world.  It can’t be earned any more than a baby can earn the milk that comes from its mother’s breast.  It’s just there, free for the taking, because that’s just who God is in relation to the world.

This is how Jesus changes the way we think about God: he turns the whole human religious enterprise on its head by presenting us with a God who is close by and accepts us as we are.  The importance of this shift cannot be overstated.

As one might imagine, this change in the way we think about God would naturally have a profound effect on the way we think about ourselves and the world.

Under the systems and institutions created by our own human religious instinct, membership in the community of faith is intentionally kept exclusive.  There are certain things one has to do, think, or say in order to be let into “the club.”  The privileges of membership are reserved for the few who prove themselves worthy.  There is always an us and a them, insiders and outsiders, the saved and the damned.  This is the way that our human religious instinct has trained us to think, but it’s not the way that Jesus thinks.  To him, there is only us, there are no outsiders, no one is damned, and all are destined for salvation.  This is the good news that Jesus preaches.

And he doesn’t just preach it, either; he practices what he preaches.  For Jesus, the community of faith is not exclusive but radically inclusive.  They literally let anyone through the door of this party.

Jesus demonstrates this first of all in his ministry of table fellowship.  Sharing a home-cooked meal with someone in the ancient near east was a powerful thing.  It meant that you accepted this person as is, with no strings attached.  So, it was quite the village scandal when Jesus gathered a reputation for eating with “tax collectors and sinners” in the towns where he traveled.  The religious leaders of his time were constantly up in arms over the bad example he was setting by his willingness to accept and love all people unconditionally (even the losers, rejects, ne’er do wells, freaks, geeks, and criminals).

Another way that Jesus demonstrates the inclusive nature of his ministry is in the calling of his first disciples, which was also part of today’s gospel reading.  Look at this text with me, if you will.  What kinds of professional or spiritual qualifications does the text say that Andrew, Simon, James, and John had before Jesus was willing to call them to be his disciples?  Does it say anything about an interview process?  Do they have to attend classes first?  Does the text of Matthew’s gospel say anything about how often they went to synagogue, prayed, or studied their Torah?  No, it doesn’t.  Jesus just calls them and something within them responds, feels drawn to this person.  As I once heard someone else say, “Jesus doesn’t choose the qualified; he qualifies the chosen.”  That certainly seems to be the case here, even when it came to Christ’s apostles.

In the centuries since then, the Christian Church (in its better moments, anyway) has tried to embody the same kind of open inclusivity in its community that Jesus demonstrated in his.  In the early days of the Church, the big controversy was over the question of whether or not to let Gentiles (non-Jewish people) join the Church.  This might not seem like such a big deal to us, but I assure you that it was to Christians in the first century.  The debate got so heated that it almost split the Church.  They fought about it for a long time, but eventually landed on the side of inclusivity, saying that their faith would be a global faith with room for “every tribe, language, people, and nation.”

In more recent times, we’ve seen Christians reach out in the name of our inclusive faith to bridge the gap between denominations and religions.  We’ve worked hard to make room in our congregations for people from every race, gender, social class, sexual orientation, and disability.

Right now, at this divided and polarized point in our nation’s history, when the spirit of community seems to be breaking down at all levels, the inclusive gospel of grace is one that people particularly need to hear.  In spite of the fact that people in our age are more electronically connected than ever, we have never been more spiritually isolated from one another.  We, the people of Christ, have been called to carry his subversive, disarming gospel to the nations.

We are called by Christ to repent (metanoia – “change the way we think”) about God, the world, and ourselves.  The gospel of Christ calls us to let go of our efforts to get God’s attention by doing, thinking, and saying the right things.  Christ calls us to rise up out of our polarized, divisive, and tribal consciousness shaped by the human religious instinct.  We are called to be a light to the world and show them by our gracious living that there is another way to be human.  We are called to lift up every voice and preach the good news of salvation: “The kingdom of heaven is at hand.”

Amen.

Repent! Think Different.

On By J. Barrett LeeIn SermonLeave a comment

This morning’s sermon from First Pres, Boonville.

The text is Mark 1:9-15.

Three brothers grow up together in Dublin, Ireland.  When they come of age and go off to make their way in the world, they make a pact: whenever they drink, they’ll always order three pints of Guinness, one for each brother.  One of the brothers settles in New York, where he finds an Irish pub and becomes a regular.  He explains the pact to the barkeep, who always knows to bring him three pints.  Then, one fine day, the man comes in and asks for only two pints.  The barkeep realizes that one of his brothers must have died.

“Condolences,” he says as he brings the pints over, “these are on the house, on account of your loss.”

“What are you talking about?”  He says, “There’s no loss.  I just gave up drinking for Lent!”

I think this guy has the right idea about Lent.  He’s creative!  He’s thinking outside of the box.

Traditionally, this is the season of the church year where they really turn on the guilt.  A lot of people talk about “giving something up for Lent.”  This tradition got started way back in the olden days when new church members (called “catechumens”) would spend several weeks spiritually preparing themselves for baptism on Easter Sunday.  They would pray and fast for extended periods of time, sometimes intentionally going without food for days on end.

Eventually, this practice was extended to all Christians and has been watered down to the point where people symbolically try to break a bad habit or deny themselves some minor luxury, like chocolate, during the 40 days before Easter (as if going without M&Ms for a few weeks was really supposed to be spiritually empowering).  Our scripture readings in church during this time tend to be a little more somber in tone.  For example, Jesus starts his sermon in today’s reading from Mark’s gospel with a call for people to “repent.”

I don’t know about you, but that word (repent) stirs up some very specific mental images for me.  Maybe it’s just because I grew up down south in the Bible Belt, but I have several memories of fiery preachers on street corners with signs that said things like, “Repent, sinner!”

These guys (they were usually male), had a knack for going into great detail about the pains of hell that awaited those sinners who would face the wrath of God on the Day of Judgment.  The only way out, they said, was to repent.  And by repent, they mean: convert to (our version of) Christianity and feel really, really sorry for all your sins.  Do that, and maybe (just maybe) God won’t burn you in hell for eternity.

So, that’s their story.  I think I want to tell a different one.  I think we need to take a good, hard look at that word, repent, and see what it actually means, rather than let some fire-breathing preacher do the job for us.  The word repent in Greek is metanoia, which literally means “to change the way you think.”

Do you remember that series of advertisements for Apple Computers that came out about ten years ago?  They had pictures of all kinds of original geniuses like Albert Einstein, Jim Henson, Mahatma Gandhi, and Jane Goodall.  And next to each person’s photo was the phrase: “Think Different.”  To me, that’s what the word repent means: “Think Different.”  Think outside the box.  Get creative.  Imagine new possibilities.  “Explore strange, new worlds.  Seek out new life and new civilizations.  Boldly go where no one has gone before.”

So the, what is it that we’re supposed to “think different” about?  Well, the full text of Jesus’ sermon from today’s gospel reading goes like this: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”

We’ve already talked about what “repent” means.  What about the rest of it?  As many of you already know, one of my favorite phrases in the entire Bible is, “the kingdom of God has come near.”  A lot of folks like to think of “the kingdom of God” (a.k.a. “the kingdom of heaven”) as a happy place that exists way up on some cloud or in an alternate dimension where people go when they die, but that’s not how Jesus uses the phrase.  Listen to what he says again, “the kingdom of God has come near.”  Another way to translate “has come near” is “is at hand.”  Let’s try something.  If you’ve been hanging out here for a while, you’ve probably done this with me before, but we’ll do it again, just so the message sinks in.  Hold your hand out in front of you and look at it.  Jesus says, “the kingdom of God (heaven) is at hand.”  How far away is heaven?  As close as your own hand.

For Jesus, the kingdom of God is a present reality.  It has to do with this world.  The kingdom of God is Jesus’ vision of what this world would be like if God were allowed to be in charge instead of the powers that be.  In a world where “might makes right,” Jesus has the audacity to stand up and say, “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth” and “blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God.”  Remember the Berlin Wall?  It stood for decades as a symbol of the barrier between democracy and communism.  The powers that be on both sides of that wall had their guns and missiles pointed at each other around the clock.  Do you remember how it came down in a single night in 1989?  It didn’t happen because we Americans scared those Russians away with our big, bad nuclear weapons.  It happened because one East German official mistakenly announced on TV that their borders were now open.  Later that night, as people started lining up at the border, Harald Jaeger, a low-ranking border-guard, made the first decision to open his gate.  People flooded through to the other side.  Within days, the wall was torn down.  Within a year, Germany was reunited.  Two years after that, the great Soviet Union itself was gone.  An entire generation of Americans and Russians was raised to believe that the Cold War would end with a mushroom cloud and the fulfillment of Mutually Assured Destruction.  But it ended with dancing instead of marching, singing instead of marching, and the sound of champagne bottles being uncorked instead of the sound of gunfire.  Who could have imagined such a peaceful resolution?  “The kingdom of God has come near.”

Now, that’s a big-picture example.  I think the kingdom of God comes near to us every day.  Whenever we’re at the pharmacy, café, or supermarket and we look the server in the eye, “the kingdom of God has come near.”  Whenever some jerk cuts you off in traffic and you don’t give him the finger or blow your horn out of spite, “the kingdom of God has come near.”  Whenever two people in conflict sit down together and try their best to work it out, “the kingdom of God has come near.”  Whenever your kid comes home and says, “Mom & Dad, I’m gay,” and the first words out of your mouth are, “I love you,” “the kingdom of God has come near.”  Whenever your spouse is in the hospital and you’re standing by the bed, holding his/her hand and saying, “We’ll get through this,” “the kingdom of God has come near.”

Whenever aging parents agree to let their children hire in-home assistance for them, even though they don’t think they need it, but know that it will put their children’s minds at ease, “the kingdom of God has come near.”

The kingdom of God is a present reality.  It’s Jesus’ vision of what this world could be like.  He calls it “good news” and invites people to “believe in” it.  Have you ever “believed in” something or someone?  Maybe there’s some high school kid who is nervous before that big performance or big game and the coach or teacher says, “I believe in you.”  It’s empowering, isn’t it?  A statement like that can really make a difference in a kid’s life.  And I don’t care how old you are, whether you’re age 9 or 90, we all still need to hear that from time to time: “I believe in you.”  In the same way, you might donate your time and energy to cause you believe in: feeding the hungry, taking care of young kids, or helping underprivileged families have a Christmas.  When you believe in it, you give yourself to it, and that makes a difference.  Jesus called it “good news.”  He invites all of us to believe in that good news: “the kingdom of God has come near.”

And that leads us back to that word, repent.  It’s has nothing to do with guilt or fear.  It has everything to do with thinking outside of the box.  The great scientist Albert Einstein once said, “A new type of thinking is essential if [hu]mankind is to survive and move toward higher levels.”  Jesus is inviting you today to embrace the mystery of imagination and participate in the miracle of creativity.  Think different in order to make a difference.  That’s the “good news” Jesus is inviting you to “believe in” and be part of: the kingdom of God come near, the kingdom of heaven-on-earth.

We pray for it every Sunday:

“Thy kingdom come, thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”