PROPER 19, YEAR C

September 11, 2022

Christ Church, Woodbury, N. J.

 

Exodus 32:1,7-14

Psalm 51:1-11

I Timothy 1:12-17

Luke 15:1-10

 

A key theme running through today’s readings is repentance. When we hear the word repentance, the first image that may come to mind is being sorry for our sins and resolving to sin no more. But in the biblical languages, the term’s original meaning is something more like to turn around or to change one’s mind.

 

For this reason, our Old Testament reading today is able to speak, somewhat surprisingly, of God repenting. God has no sins of which he needs to repent—otherwise he wouldn’t be God as our Judeo-Christian tradition understands him. But many stories in the Bible suggest that God is fully able to repent, in the sense of changing his mind and turning away from some course of action that he’d previously decided upon.

 

When the Israelites fashion a golden calf to worship in the wilderness while Moses is up on Mount Sinai, God’s initial reaction is to write them off completely and start over: “I have seen this people, and behold it is a stiff-necked people; now therefore let me alone, that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; but of you I will make a great nation.”

 

But instead of just accepting God’s judgment and letting him get on with it, Moses intercedes on behalf of the people. (In this way, incidentally, Moses foreshadows Christ. Just as on the mountaintop Moses pleads with God to spare his people the condemnation they deserve on account of their apostasy and rebellion, so the risen and ascended Christ pleads before his Father’s throne in heaven to spare us the condemnation we deserve on account of our sins.)

 

And the truly remarkable twist in the story is that Moses actually succeeds in persuading God to change his mind. He does this by reminding God of his promises made to the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, to multiply their descendants and to give them a land for their inheritance. And so, the reading concludes, “the Lord repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people.”

 

This divine repentance teaches us something about God’s nature. First and foremost, he’s a God of mercy. The people have forsaken him by worshiping false gods, so he would be entirely justified to forsake them and let them die in the wilderness. But unlike a despotic king whose sentence of condemnation is irrevocable once uttered, God shows himself more than willing to change his mind and give his people another chance: and not just once, but again, and again, and again.

 

And this willingness on God’s part to change his mind opens up a whole new world of possibilities for us, allowing us to change our minds, turn around, and return to the Lord even when we’ve previously turned our backs on him. In short, because God is able to repent, we’re able to repent as well.

 

Psalm 51 expresses the joy of repentance. “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your loving-kindness; in your great compassion blot out my offenses. Wash me through and through from my wickedness, and cleanse me from my sin.” Notice that the Psalmist makes no attempt to plead his innocence or to offer excuses. “For indeed I know my transgressions, and my sin is ever before me … And so you are justified when you speak, and upright in your judgment.” Yet the Psalmist trusts God not only to forgive him by washing him clean from his sins, but also to give him a new heart so that he’ll no longer even want to sin: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.” The “right spirit” of which he speaks is, of course, none other than the Holy Spirit. 

 

Today’s Collect makes a similar prayer for God’s gift of his Holy Spirit to reform us from within: “O God, forasmuch as without thee, we are not able to please thee: mercifully grant that thy Holy Spirit may direct and rule our hearts, through Jesus Christ our Lord …”

 

Occasionally, however, I talk with people who believe that their sins are so bad, and who are so wracked with guilt, that they’re convinced that God could not possibly forgive them. That might indeed be true if, somehow, we had to earn or merit God’s forgiveness on our own. But the heart of the Christian Gospel is the reassurance that by the merits of Christ’s suffering and death on the cross, no sin is beyond forgiveness, no sinner beyond redemption.

 

More than that, in today’s Epistle reading Saint Paul expresses the wonderful paradox that God sometimes calls the worst sinners to be the chosen instruments of his saving purposes. All his life, Paul was acutely conscious that before he became the Apostle to the Gentiles, he’d been the persecutor of the Church, who’d even aided and abetted the stoning of Stephen, the first Christian martyr. So, Paul writes to his youthful protégé Timothy: “though I formerly blasphemed and persecuted and insulted [Christ] … I received mercy … and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.”  So, even though he was the foremost of sinners—or even because he was the foremost of sinners—he received mercy so that “Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience for an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life.”

 

In the same reading, Paul writes: “The saying is sure and worthy of full acceptance, that Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.” And today’s Gospel rounds out this picture by describing the amazing lengths to which God goes to find those who’ve become lost, and to rescue those who’ve strayed from the right path.

 

When the scribes and Pharisees complain that Jesus is associating with all the wrong people, even breaking bread with notorious sinners, Jesus tells the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin. His point is precisely that he’s come to seek and save the lost. Just as a shepherd rejoices at recovering one lost sheep out of a hundred, or a woman rejoices over finding one lost coin out of ten, so the angels in heaven rejoice over one sinner who repents. 

 

In other words, there’s nothing grudging or resentful about God’s forgiveness. No matter how far we’ve strayed, we’re always welcome back: with no reproach, no recrimination, no humiliation, no dishonor, no shame—only eternal celebration. Such is the infinite depth of God’s love and mercy that he runs to embrace us joyfully with open arms whenever we repent and return to him.