Repent!

When I was in high school, I was always invited by my Baptist friends to their revival services in the Fall and Spring. It was kind of fun, because you saw people in church that you never would have dreamed would have been interested. O.k...so I was a bit judgemental in the day too. The sermons were the same year after year no matter who was preaching them...we were going to hell and we needed to repent. It's a familiar theme when your growing up because preachers everywhere think they need to scare us straight. Sex, drugs, rock and roll...watch out youngsters...they will get your soul. I used to think that this message of "repent" meant "turn or burn." In other words, change your life now or you may die unexpectedly tomorrow and end up in hell...oooooohhhhhh....very scary stuff. And it was scary, especially if you were a hormonal teenager on the verge of committing sin every day with temptations out there trying to snag you. The devil lurked under every rock and behind every tree. Watch out!

We still think about sin and repentance in that way. But in Jesus' day there was a very different idea of repentance. Our focus is on gaining some future glory in heaven by quote "not enjoying" our life too much down here. In fact we glorify sin with our idea that we have to somehow "suffer for God" by doing right on this earth, so that we can gain treasure in heaven after we die. That idea of repentance is so limited that it completely misses the point of why we turn to God in the first place...relationship. If God is all about punishment for our screw-ups and catching us doing wrong...then what place is there for Love and Grace. If God is all about obeying the rules, then why did Jesus have such a hard time with the law abiding Pharisees? They were perfect according to the rules...but they completely missed the point.

So what is repentance if it is not turning away from whatever behaviors we have identified as the big "sins." Repentance is really waking up to a new reality. Before we wake up and realize that we live in a world where God is our Father and we are His children, we live our lives dependent on ourselves.

The prodigal son parable shows this to us so vividly. He tried so hard to "make it." We try to organize our lives and be in control. We try to save enough, earn enough, impress the right people, and acquire power and control. Left to our own devices, we will build a life that is isolated, lonely, and spiritually and emotionally poor. We become like walking corpses...in a spiritual sense. Our solutions to our most desperate problems can be things that really hurt us in the end...greed, jealousy, abuse of drugs and alcohol...these aren't behaviors that God wants us to avoid because he doesn't want us to have "fun" in this world. These are things that kill our joy and keep us from having good relationships with Him and each other. These are things that kill our soul and keep us from experiencing "heaven" on this earth.

In the parable of the prodigal son...Jesus is saying that living life dependent on yourself IS hell. You don't have to wait to go to heaven or hell... How you live your life today is either heaven or hell on this earth. The prodigal son had everything he needed at home, but he didn't realize it. It's as if his eyes were closed to the tremendous love, support, safety and community that he had. He was asleep. He just needed to wake up to his reality. His situation is no different from ours today. He thought he could do better. He thought that if only he could rely on himself, be free to follow his own path and seek his own desires, he would be so much better off than living in his father's house under his father's authority. Sometimes out of ignorance, sometimes out of pride, we think the same thing. We don't realize that the life we are wanting to live, the happiness that we are seeking, the satisfaction that eludes us, can only be found by living in relationship to our Heavenly Father and accepting the reality that He is the source of all good things.

When we accept this, and when we choose to "wake up" to this new reality, then our lives start to make sense. We begin to actually have purpose and understanding. We begin to understand our world and our place in it. The prodigal son finally got it. He tried so hard to live life under his own rules, based upon his own ideas. He tried so hard to prove that he was right...then one day...working and eating and sleeping amongst the pigs he was hired to tend to, he woke up. Suddenly, he remembered who he was:

"When he came to his senses, he said 'how many of my father's hired men have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men.' So he got up and went to his father."

He was the son of a wealthy father whose servants ate better and had better lodging than he did. All he had to do was go home. All he had to do was live as a son of his Father...all he had to do was turn around and go back home.

And when he came back, how was he treated? Jesus tells it this way..."Quick bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate. For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found."

God doesn't want us to repent so that he can punish us. We are already punishing ourselves whenever and wherever in our lives we don't give to Him. If we aren't asking God to live through us and lead us...to show us what He wants in our lives...then we are missing the blessings that we would find by living a life in Him...in relationship with Him. He loves us, and He wants to shower us with blessings...with peace and love and understanding. Let's stop fighting Him and accept our place as His sons and daughters beloved and cared for. Let's accept that we can be alive again...once we were lost...now we can be found..."bring the fattened calf and kill it...let's have a feast and celebrate." May our lives be feasts shared with God and each other and may our celebration spill over to the entire world.