There’s a word that Jesus used when he walked the streets and byways of first century Judea: repent. “Repent,” he would say, “for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”.
It’s a word that carries a heavy weight. For that reason it’s been sometimes sidelined a little within some of our circles. We try to explain it without saying it, to summon it without asking for it by name. But if we’re followers of the way of Jesus, repentance should be a consistent theme of our life’s journey.
Repentance means to change our mind or purpose, to turn back in the right direction. It requires humility, it requires us to accept that we are not the highest authority, that our way may not always be the right way. It’s impossible to be a follower of Jesus without repentance. His kindness, Paul teaches us, is the thing that leads us to repentance.
From that time Jesus began to preach, saying, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
– Matthew 4:17
To repent isn’t just to feel regret or to say sorry, but to change course and bear fruit in line with that. How can we change our course and turn around, unless we first accept that we weren’t right? Unless we have the courage and honesty to own our faults?
I find the words of Thomas Cranmer helpful when thinking about repentance. In the confession prayer he talks about sin, “through negligence, through weakness, through our own deliberate fault”.
With the conversation about racial equality elevated to the forefront of the public consciousness, it’s all too easy to say we have no part in it. We’re not racist. We wouldn’t do that. We have black friends, after all. But if we look at sin through the lens of the confession then whether we’ve overtly committed racist acts is no longer the question.
It’s impossible to be a follower of Jesus without repentance.
What have we neglected to do? Where have we been weak? What systems are we complicit in that uphold injustice? Where have we sub-consciously been conditioned by societal stereotypes we’d never openly agree with? Where might we have simply not cared enough? Or have neglected the mandate of Jesus to become one with each other even as he and the father are one? We are in need of repentance.
Returning to the verse we started with, something we often forget about repentance is how closely Jesus links it to the kingdom of heaven. “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand”.
Being part of his kingdom requires us to repent. Refusing to repent is a refusal to accept the need to change but when we repent, we’re accepted as we are and given the grace to change into who we were created to be. Following His way isn’t about becoming more comfortable, but becoming more holy.
Following His way isn’t about becoming more comfortable, but becoming more holy.
If there’s a system that is oppressive, that system has no part in the kingdom of heaven. If there’s a system that deprives people, made in God’s image, of their dignity or makes them more likely to suffer violence; that system has no part in the kingdom of heaven. It’s our prayer that the kingdom would burst forth here on earth and our task as his followers to be part of making that happen.
The life of a follower of Jesus is necessarily one of repenting of our ways and learning to follow his. I believe that in this moment, we’re called to a place of change – and change starts with the kindness of God calling us to repentance.
I’d love to invite you, if you’ve read this far, to call to mind any ways that your actions have been less than perfect, and join me in praying the words of the confession.