Teach Us, To Repent!
Posted on Feb 18, 2015 by David Whetter
Grace and peace to you from God our Creator, our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit, who abides in which of us. Amen
This past Sunday, we read the story of Jesus’ Transfiguration and in that story, God speaks and as I noted on Sunday, what makes that story so powerful for me is that when God speaks, it is the only time he speaks directly to us humans in the gospel. Remember what God said? Jesus had been transfigured, he is seen by the disciples in all his glory and in addition they witness him speaking to Moses and Elijah, and Mark tells us that they were terrified. But, in their terror, God spoke to them and he said, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” (9:7). God’s one and only command in the gospel of Mark is that we are to listen to Jesus.
Lent is a time of the church year when we can focus on listening to Jesus. Jesus came to teach us how to live and as we know if we are going to learn something, anything, then one of the things we need to do is listen and that is not always easy for us to do, because often times we think we know better. But, if we are going to grow in our faith; if we are going to have the strength and courage to live out the gospel and to truly make a difference in this world then we must learn to listen to Jesus and be willing to ask Jesus to continue to teach us how to live faith-filled lives. So, during the Season of Lent, we ask Jesus to continue to “Teach Us, O Lord.” Over the next seven weeks we will take each week to ask Jesus to teach us something different. Our themes will be teach us, O Lord, to repent, to follow, to obey, to worship, to live generously, to die, to live with tension, and to love. All of these are things Jesus taught us about in his lifetime, but we often overlook them and so today we will begin by asking God to teach us how to repent that is to teach us how to change our ways and turn to God.
Today is Ash Wednesday, and Ash Wednesday is one of those days when we always hear Jesus teach the same lesson. This teaching is from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount and Jesus begins this time of teaching by saying, “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven (Matthew 6:1). Following this he goes on say, “when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret” (6:3-4); and “whenever you pray, go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret (6:6); and finally he says, “whenever you fast, do not look dismal, like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces so as to show others that they are fasting” (6:16). Now most of us have been really good at listening to the first half of these instructions. We take seriously the command not to give alms publically. We don’t want anyone to know what we give away. It is really important to us that even here at church that no one knows how much we give. We want our charity to be a secret and we do that we say, because Jesus said to keep it a secret. And when it comes to prayer, we definitely don’t want to pray in public, after all, Jesus said not to do that. And finally, fasting is also something many of us frown on, because, well we think Jesus said it wasn’t necessary and to be honest, for many of us, especially if we are life-long Lutherans, well, it’s just too Catholic.
But the problem with these responses to Jesus’ teaching is that to practice our faith in such ways is to say that we have not fully listened to Jesus. Jesus did not say keep your giving a secret. He said, "So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others (6:2). What he warns against is the why would tell others. If we tell others what we give away to make ourselves look good, then that is wrong. On the other hand, if we tell others so that they might learn that tithing, or giving, is possible for anyone to do, or to share that giving is a spiritual practice that has helped us grow closer to God and helped us turn and live as God has called us to live than it is perfectly fine. It is our motive that Jesus is telling us to change, not the act itself. We are not to form acts of piety in order to win praise from humans. We are to do them so that we might change our ways and the world.
The same is true for prayer and for fasting. All three of these spiritual practices are acts that are designed to help us to turn to God and to live differently. You see, aside from listening to Jesus, we are called to practice what he preached and almsgiving, prayer and fasting do just that. When we give alms we are practicing loving others. When we pray, we enter into a relationship with God. When we fast, not just from food, but from any of our desires, we are reminded of our complete dependence on God. When we do these things for God’s glory and for God’s purposes they are good.
When we fail to listen to Jesus fully, we cannot live repentant lives. To not pray publically, to not share with others how we share our gifts (almsgiving) to not take time to fast, is to not let the light of Christ shine in this world. Shortly before this teaching, Jesus said “Let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Jesus was not telling us to not live out pour piety publically, no, he was warning us to make sure our motives for such actions were not self-serving.
As we journey through this Lenten season, let us call to Jesus and ask him to teach us to live lives that are constantly seeking to live as he has called us to live. Let’s continually pray that he teaches us to repent and to change so that as pray, as we fast, as we share our gifts with the world, that others might see those actions and realize that we do them not for our sake, but for Christ’s sake. We do them so that others might come to know the love of Jesus. We do them so that others might be freed from the oppression of greed, fear, hatred, violence and so many other human acts.
Practicing our piety ought to be a public act of faithfulness that helps lead others to repent and turn to God. Brothers and sisters living repentant lives is not easy, so let us pray together now this prayer, Teach us, O Lord, to repent! Amen.