January 25--From Repentance to Hope

"The Lord spoke his word to Jonah again and said, 'Get up, go to the great city Nineveh, and preach to it what I tell you to say.' So Jonah obeyed the Lord and got up and went to Nineveh. It was a very large city; just to walk across it took a person three days. After Jonah had entered the city and walked for one day, he preached to the people, saying, 'After forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed!' The people of Nineveh believed God. They announced that they would fast for a while, and they put on rough cloth to show their sadness. All the people in the city did this, from the most important to the least important. . . . When God saw what the people did, that they stopped doing evil, he changed his mind and did not do what he had warned. He did not punish them" (Jonah 3:1-5, 10).

Jonah was not the first Hebrew prophet to speak God’s justice to Nineveh. The prophet Nahum also addressed this city of bloodshed, this city of violence, this city of imperial expansion that had led the Assyrian destruction of the northern kingdom of Israel 700 years before the birth of Christ.

"How terrible it will be for the city that has killed so many," Nahum proclaims in righteous anger. "It is full of lies and goods stolen from other countries. It is always killing somebody. . . . Many are dead; their bodies are piled up—too many to count. People stumble over the dead bodies" (Nahum 3:1, 3b-c).


If Nahum is like any one of us who has been deeply wounded to the core of his being by a violent oppressor, he wants God to punish his mortal enemy without mercy. If Nahum is anything like me, he expects justice to look something like vengeance, he wants his oppressor to hurt as deeply as he and his people have been hurt, he feels his justified outrage turn into simmering anger, he puts that anger into the mouth of God.


"'I will pull your dress up over your face,'" Nahum says to Nineveh, supposedly on God’s behalf, "'and show the nations your nakedness and the kingdoms your shame. I will throw filthy garbage on you and make a fool of you. I will make people stare at you'" (Nahum 3:5b-6).


Nahum’s language is as bad as it sounds: murder and rape and shame employed as tools of divine justice.

Is this what God tells Jonah to say? Is this the call to repentance that leads all of Nineveh to comply? Is this the kind of punishment God decides to withhold?


It is a shocking message, indeed, for we who claim to worship a God of peace.


But those of us who have suffered extreme violence at the hand of another—whether it be rape or bombing or the insidious damage of mental or spiritual abuse—those of us who have been violated to the very core of our being know that it is just plain honest in the midst of our agony to admit we do pray for this kind of justice to roll down like waters. To admit we do want this kind of righteousness to flow like a mighty stream.


“It is not right what they have done to us!” Nahum reassures a broken people. It is not right what they have done to us, the preacher declares to a broken world.


Nahum did not expect Nineveh to repent upon hearing the news of God’s anger. But Jonah did.


“’This is why I ran away to Tarshish,’” Jonah complains to God when Nineveh repents. “’I knew that you are a God who is kind and shows mercy. You don’t become angry quickly, and you have great love. I knew you would choose not to cause harm!’” (Jonah 4:2b). How could you let my enemy off so easily!


It can be easy to blame Jonah for running from God’s call. It can be hard to understand his frustration with God’s mercy. Unless we understand the modern-day parallels.


Jonah speaking repentance—and mercy—to his mortal enemy Nineveh is perhaps something like Ghandi speaking repentance—and mercy—to the British colonialists. Jonah speaking repentance—and mercy—to his mortal enemy Nineveh is perhaps something like Martin Luther King speaking repentance—and mercy—to racist White America. Jonah speaking repentance—and mercy—to his mortal enemy Nineveh is perhaps something like Sister Helen Prejean speaking repentance—and mercy—to death row inmates awaiting execution. It is really, really hard.


For some of us reading Jonah this week, God may be challenging us to take the hard step of speaking the truth in love to those who have hurt us, asking them to change their hearts and minds, trusting God’s merciful love to restore us all to new life.

For others of us reading Nineveh this week, we hear God’s call to repentance, to acknowledging that others have good reason to hate us, to changing our hearts and minds, to committing to a new way of life.


And for me reading Jonah on this particular day, in this particular week, I cannot help but hear God’s merciful and joyous celebration over the people of the United States, who continue to repent of our racist heritage, who continue to say we don’t want to live that way anymore, and who ask God to continue walking with us to the end.


Surely God’s concern for Jonah, God’s concern for Nineveh, God’s concern for every one of us will correct us when we fail, will applaud us when we succeed, and will sustain us every day of our lives yet to come.


May it be so now and forever. Amen.

Gusti Linnea Newquist

(Additional lectionary texts: Psalm 62:5-12; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20)

January 11--A Baptism of Repentance

“John was baptizing people in the desert and preaching a baptism of changed hearts and lives for the forgiveness of sins. All the people from Judea and Jerusalem were going out to him. They confessed their sins and were baptized by him in the Jordan River. John wore clothes made from camel’s hair, had a leather belt around his waist, and ate locusts and wild honey. This is what John preached to the people: ‘There is one coming after me who is greater than I; I am not good enough even to kneel down and untie his sandals. I baptize you with water, but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

At that time Jesus came from the town of Nazareth in Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan River. Immediately, as Jesus was coming up out of the water, he saw heaven open. The Holy Spirit came down on him like a dove, and a voice came from heaven: ‘You are my Son, whom I love, and I am very pleased with you’” (Mark 1:4-11).


I really love this translation of the baptism story. It comes from the New Century Version of the Bible . . . one I picked up this summer because I wanted something small and light and easy to carry for travel. I had never heard of this version before.

I like this translation because it gives a full meaning to the Greek word usually translated as “repentance.” So often we equate repentance with badness: I did wrong. I confess. I promise not to do it again. But metanoia is about transformation. A new heart. A new mind. A new life. And it is happening all the time.

A baptism of true repentance can be a powerful, powerful thing. A drug dealer can decide to turn his life around. An addict can seek help in recovery. An abused spouse can leave a toxic relationship. An old cynic can learn to love. God can make a way out of no way. God can transform every part of our lives.


The great debate in biblical and theological scholarship around this baptism story has been about why Jesus needed to be baptized. If he was truly without sin, scholars wonder, what was the point?


But baptism is broader, I think, than the individual sins we do or do not commit and our need for forgiveness from them. Baptism is just as much about the sin committed against us and our need to be healed from it.

Jesus certainly did “take on” the sin of the world . . . and not just as a priestly sacrifice on our behalf. He was betrayed, denied, despised, rejected, beaten, oppressed by an occupying power, spat upon, tortured, killed. Perhaps his baptism was about trusting God to transform the sin committed against him. Perhaps his baptism sustained him as he encountered that sin, as he stared that sin down, as he felt abandoned, as he died.


We who follow Christ have a deep, powerful, transforming message to proclaim through baptism. God will not rest until our hearts and lives have been changed. God will not rest until good comes from evil. God will not rest until resurrection comes from crucifixion.

In baptism we acknowledge that we need to be transformed, every one of us, whether we have done wrong or whether we have had wrong done to us. In baptism we accept our human limitations and admit our need for God’s transforming grace. In baptism, we admit that evil exists in the world, that we are a part of it as perpetrators and as victims, and that we don’t want to be anymore. In baptism we bring every broken part of who we are, offer it to God, and ask to be reborn through the life-giving water of the Holy Spirit. Whether we were baptized as infants or adults, and whether or not we have formally participated in that public ritual of transformation, we can trust God to make us new, to change our hearts and lives.


May we experience this kind of repentance throughout the new year. Amen.


Gusti Linnea Newquist


(additional lectionary texts: Genesis 1:1-5; Psalm 29:1-11; Acts 19:1-7)

October 12--The God Who Remains

Exodus 32:1-14; Psalm 106:1-6, 19-23

(Additional texts for this week: Philippians 4:1-9; Matthew 22:1-14)







“We have sinned just as our ancestors did. We have done wrong; we have done evil.” –Psalm 106:6


“These are scary times,” I said to Kristen earlier this week as we prepared for the waitressing gig we had both picked up for the night. I was thinking of the economic bailout debate and the upcoming job loss report and my evaporating retirement plan and the uncertainty of a long-term job search. “These are scary times,” Kristen agreed, thinking of her three kids and her pending divorce and the increasing scarcity of work just at the time when food costs and gas costs and the New England winter’s energy costs are on the rise. “These are scary times,” we hear from every economist on every newscast from television to radio to newspaper to blog. “We’ve never been here before,” these economists say. “We just have no idea how things will turn out.”


“These are scary times,” I can’t help imagine the ancient Israelites of our Exodus text saying to one another as they linger in the desert morning after morning, waiting for Moses to come back down off that mountain. “We’ve never been here before,” I imagine them saying as they go to bed at night with no plan in sight. “We just have no idea how things will turn out,” I imagine them whispering to one another as anxiety builds and panic spreads. “Make us gods who will lead us,” I can hear them beg of Aaron, the only leader they have left. “Moses led us out of Egypt, but we don’t know what has happened to him.” Give us something we can see and touch. Give us something we can trust.


I can’t help relating to their need for a tangible image of the god they claim to serve. I can’t help but see ourselves in them as they continue to cling for stability to the very thing that can never be stable--a god of gold.


“Take off the gold earrings that your wives, sons, and daughters are wearing,” Aaron responds to the Israelites, “and bring them to me.” And Aaron takes all their gold and molds it into a statue of a calf. Then he announces a feast in honor of God.

But God is not honored.

“They have made for themselves a calf covered with gold, and they have worshiped it and offered sacrifices to it,” God thunders at Moses, still up on the mountain. “I am so angry with them that I am going to destroy them. Then I will make you and your descendants a great nation.”


Gulp.


“Hold on a minute, God,” I want to say in defense of the Israelites, in defense of myself, in defense of every one of us who begs for some visible sign of security and stability. “How long do you expect us to languish in this leadership vacuum with no clear path forward and forecasts of gloom and doom everywhere we turn? We just wanted to see you. Aaron’s the one who made us worship the god of gold. Wall Street did it; not me!”


And it’s true, of course. Aaron did decide to mold the gold into a calf. Corporate lenders did decide to entice borrowers to make mortgages they could never afford. Government regulators did fall down on the job. Partisan bickering did contribute to the crisis, rather than solve it. Why should people like Kristen and me and the average Joe on the street bear the brunt of God’s anger, bear the burden of the bailout, bear any responsibility for where we are now and how we move forward?


But of course . . . if we’re really honest . . . if we’re really, really honest . . . most of us did dance—at least just a little bit—in that party for the golden calf we’ve been having for a while. Most of us, if we’re really honest, at some point have asked for that visible image--for that god of gold--to keep us safe, to keep us secure, to give us a reason to party when we're scared. Most of us, if we’re really honest, want our leaders to make it easy for us, so we don’t have to do the difficult spiritual work of trusting in a God we can’t see and a future we can’t know. Most of us, if we're really honest, deserve at least just a little bit of divine anger in response to our sin. We're in this one together, and it hurts all the way through.


And so it helps to see God negotiate with Moses, who is pleading our case forthrightly, who is appealing to God’s reasonableness, to God’s reputation, to God’s promise already given. And it helps to see that God can “repent” of anger, that God can “turn away” from the evil consequences of our actions, that God can give us the opportunity to do the same. For this is exactly what God chooses to do in this Exodus text. God will not abondon us to the consequences of our actions. The evil we have done is not the final answer.


It is not an easy reconciliation. It is not an immediate fix. Moses returns to the people and imposes a day of reckoning. The relationship between the people and God remains tenuous. But it remains!


And that, in the end, is the one thing we can depend on. Whether we have worshiped the god of gold or whether we got dragged to the party without participating in it. Whether we begged Aaron to make us a god we could see or whether we helped to fashion it ourselves. God is still with us, repenting of anger, turning us away from the evil we create. We can have another chance. We can make a new way together.

“Let anyone who wants to follow the LORD come to me,” Moses says to the people upon his return. Let anyone who wants to follow God join together, we can say to one another now that the truth of our economic crisis is upon us. It is time to repent. It is time to turn around. We can make a new way, with our God as our guide. May this be our commitment in the days and weeks to come. May we seek out those who will help live anew. In the midst of a crisis comes a new opportunity. We can begin again. May it be so. Amen.



Gusti Linnea Newquist