For Lent this year, four area congregations are sharing worship together doing a series on Fasting, based on the book Feasting on the Word: Lenten Companion.
This week’s topic is Fasting as Repentance and I preached at Grand Avenue United Methodist Church here in Port Washington.
The Scripture readings are Psalm 50 and Joel 2:1-2, 12-17.
Here’s the sermon audio:
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I heard a story once about a man who was driving his car down a country road when he came across a Lutheran and a Methodist pastor standing on the side of the road holding a sign.
In big, bold letters, their sign read, “Turn around. The end is near!”
Now, the driver wasn’t someone who liked being preached at, so he rolled down his car window, yelled, “Mind your own business, you religious nuts,” and he kept driving.
A minute later, the pastors heard a squeal of tires, followed by a splash. The Methodist pastor turned to the Lutheran and said, “I told you we should’ve just written, ‘Bridge Out.’”
Tonight’s Scripture reading from the prophet Joel has exactly the kind of doom and gloom message about the end being near that so many people don’t like to hear from church. “The day of the Lord is coming!” “Return to the Lord, your God.” “A day of darkness is near!” “Let the people weep and cry out to God for mercy.”
When you and I hear these calls for repentance, I think we hear them filtered through our history of fire and brimstone revival preachers and people holding signs at football games or bullhorns on the street warning people to repent or perish, to turn or burn.
God can work in strange and mysterious ways, so I’m sure there must be some people who have come to faith by being yelled at, but I suspect there are just as many (if not more) who have been so turned away by well-intentioned Christians hollering threats at them that they’ve left organized religion behind. Bellowing at people to repent is about the least effective means of sharing God’s love I can think of.
And yet, here we are, calling for repentance, because despite its reputation, repenting is essential for the Christian life. The word “repent” comes from the Greek word “Metanoia,” and it means to turn around, to make a change. Literally, it’s a 180 degree turn.
When you’re on the road and you see a sign saying “Bridge Out Ahead,” that’s the time for metanoia, to turn around. It’s stopping what you’re doing and going the other way.
In Joel’s time, the people of Israel are suffering. And there’s a reason for their suffering. Israel has abandoned God, and God is punishing them for it. They’re facing the consequences of their sin, their rebellion against God.
The immediate issue Joel’s describing is a plague of locusts destroying their crops, but in his prophecies, he’s has been going through a whole litany of everything going wrong in their world. It’s a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness. Their enemies are massing on the borders, and they’re losing hope. Joel’s message is blunt, because the situation is dire. They’re almost out of time.
He calls the people to repent, to turn back, to fast, to weep, and to mourn, and maybe God will take pity on them and come to their rescue. What they’re doing isn’t working, and it’s time to make a change. Repent! Return to the Lord your God!
Now, we may not have a plague of locusts outside right now, and there are no armies threatening us here in Wisconsin, but these words from the prophet Joel should challenge us to look at our own lives.
What do we as modern-day Christians need to repent of? What sins are we holding on to? What do we as churches need to repent of? Where are we trying to go our own way instead of God’s? What do we as a community need to repent of? What needs to change in our lives?
Perhaps it is our amazing ability to ignore God at work in our lives, our tendency to take credit for our own success. We really like to claim we’ve worked hard for everything we have and therefore it’s ours to do with as we will, rather than giving credit to God.
Perhaps it’s our isolation, our willingness to ignore our neighbors’ needs. I’m really good at enjoying a soup supper with some rich desserts and ignoring famines around the world. Right now, there are people still homeless from the earthquakes in Turkey and Syria. There are people starving due to famines in Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Yemen. Do we care?
What are we called to repent of? From what harmful practices ought we to fast? Where in our lives are we called to stop and to go the other way? What are we called to stop ignoring and turn and confront?
Five hundred six and a half years ago, a monk named Martin Luther (I can talk about Martin Luther in a Methodist church, right? Did you know that when John Wesley’s heart was “strangely warmed at Aldersgate” he was reading Luther’s writing?).
Anyway, Martin Luther looked at the state of the world and the state of the church, and he wrote 95 points, 95 Theses for debate, aimed at some of the abuses of the church. Posting his 95 Theses marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation, which all three of our church traditions have roots in.
Luther’s very first Thesis, number one of his 95, was “When our Lord and Master Jesus Christ said, ‘Repent,’ he willed the entire life of believers to be one of repentance.”
Living a Christian life means repenting, turning away from ourselves toward God. It means caring about the suffering of others, being Christ to our neighbors. In this season of Lent, we engage in fasting to keep God central in our lives, to put God first rather than ourselves.
Repentance is not a one-time thing; it’s not even just something to do during Lent – it’s something we keep doing. The entire life of a believer is a life of repentance. Following Jesus means orienting ourselves towards God, walking on the path to which God calls us.
Joel describes repentance not as merely something external, some ceremony to make yourself feel better. Instead, he tells the people, “Rend your hearts and not your clothing.” We are called to break open our hearts, to move beyond ourselves and allow our hearts to be broken for the good of the whole world.
This idea of turning away from ourselves towards God, of denying ourselves, fasting in order to serve our neighbors is radically counter-cultural. The message of our world and our culture is to put yourself first; you can have whatever you want if you work hard enough.
Worry about yourself first, then maybe if there’s extra, think about helping people in need, and maybe you can get a tax break out of it. Living a life of repentance goes against what our world stands for.
Joel’s prophetic call to repentance can sound like condemnation. The needs of the world and the magnitude of human sin can seem overwhelming. The people Joel is talking to have abandoned God, and they’re sure they are being punished for it. But in that dark, fearful situation, when they’ve given up on God and when God has every right to give up on them, there is hope.
A call to repentance is good news, because it means there is still hope. God is there when we turn around. As we read from Psalm 50, “Call on me in the day of trouble; I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.”
God wants us to repent. God wants us to return to the right path. God pleads with us to return, to stop wandering away. And no matter how far we stray, God doesn’t give up. You can never go so far, sin so badly, fall so low that God will give up on you. Instead, the Lord says, “Yet even now, return to me with all your heart. Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.”
I think those three words are some of the most critical words in the Bible. “Yet even now.”
It is not too late to repent. No matter how many chances we miss, no matter how much goes wrong in our lives, no matter how much we abandon God, we can always turn around. And God forgives. God welcomes us back with open arms. When we repent, God hears. Psalm 103:12 says, “As far as east is from west—that’s how far God has removed our sin from us.” God’s forgiveness in Jesus Christ has no bounds.
Tonight’s reading from Joel ends at verse 17, but listen to the next verse, verse 18. It says, “Then the Lord became passionate about this land, and had pity on his people.” God hears the people’s cry of repentance!
Even with everything they had done wrong, despite how far they’d wandered away down that wrong path, God was waiting for them when they turned around, waiting for them with mercy, grace, and love. God comes to their rescue. God is waiting for you. God is seeking you.
“Yet even now.” The good news of the Gospel, the good news of Lent is that whenever we repent, whenever we turn around, God is there waiting for us. God still loves us.
We’ll see the proof of that love on the cross on Good Friday and in the empty tomb on Easter. Amen.