(Re)Turning

 (Re)Turning

Psalm 25; Mark 1:15[1]

The language of “sin” and “repentance” doesn’t get much traction in our world these days. For quite some time now, we’ve been much more concerned about enhancing self-esteem than confessing that we’ve done wrong. Even, and especially among those of us in the church, there are many who bristle at the notion of gathering every Sunday and praying a prayer of confession together. There are those who not only reject the language of sin, they also object to any kind of admission that they are fallen, or broken, or less than whole just as they are. It would be nice if that were true, but if we’re honest with ourselves and with each other, we have to admit that we all fall short. And we do it far more often than we’d probably like to admit even to ourselves. Confessing our sins together week after week may not be the most comfortable part of our worship, but it is necessary.

To some extent, I understand what motivates those who object to the language of sin. Over the centuries, church leaders have used that language like a club to beat people over the head. They’ve used guilt to manipulate and control people. Especially in traditions a particular leader is the only one “authorized” to “dispense” forgiveness. And I understand the importance of maintaining a healthy sense of self-esteem. The fact that we have sinned makes us human, not worthless or shameful. Unfortunately, the language of our worship has at times created that impression. Even some of our beloved hymns have lyrics that can undermine a healthy sense of self-worth when taken to extreme. Phrases like “a wretch like me,” or “such a worm as I” don’t exactly resonate with a healthy self image. Even acknowledging our unworthiness can communicate to some people that they are “worthless.”

I would insist that we don’t have to abandon our sense of self-worth altogether to recognize and admit that we all fall short. In fact, I would suggest that part of a truly healthy sense of self-worth includes admitting that we all have room for improvement. Our lives are a journey, and in part that means we never stop growing. But in order to grow, we have to be willing to admit that there are areas of our lives that we could change. Again, the fact that we all fall short, that we all have room for improvement, that there are areas in our lives where we could change and grow, means that we are human, not shameful or worthless. It also means we acknowledge that, for all our efforts at following Jesus, none of us follows him perfectly. And we never will until we’re standing face-to-face with him and his love has made us completely whole.

In our Gospel lesson for today, Mark tells us that Jesus’ message was “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mk. 1:15). Or as the version we read today puts it, “Now is the time! Here comes God’s kingdom! Change your hearts and lives, and trust this good news!” I think we’re familiar with the “good news” of the “kingdom of God.” I’m not so sure that the language of repentance connects with us these days. It’s just not a word that we use in everyday life outside the church. I would imagine there are many in our day who might not even know what “repentance” means. One of the ways for understanding passages that have language that is unfamiliar or difficult I recommend to people studying the Bible is to compare different translations. I personally use the Bible Gateway website, because it makes it easy to compare many English translations at once.

When you compare translations of this verse, you find an interesting interchange in a couple of the translations we use on a regular basis. One is the Good News Translation, or “Today’s English Version,” first published in 1966. It translates the word “repent” in our Gospel lesson as “Turn away from your sins.” The other is the Contemporary English Version, first published in 1991. It translates the word “repent” as “Turn back to God.” What makes that interesting to me is that both of them were published by the American Bible Society. While the second translation wasn’t meant to be a “revision” of the first, there is a sense in which the Contemporary English Version was meant to be the successor to the original “Today’s English Version” or the Good News Bible. I think that makes it even more interesting that one translates “repent” as “Turn away from your sins,” while the other translates it as “Turn back to God.”

I point this out because I would say that based on my study of the Bible, I think they’re both right. Calls to “repent” in the Bible are meant to call people to turn away from their sins. At the same time, they are meant to call people to turn back to God. “Repentance” includes both movements: turning away from that which is harmful to us and to others, and returning to God, who is the sole source of life that is full and free. But that can be hard for us to do. We have to acknowledge that something we’ve done is “sin” in order to “turn away” from it. And we have to acknowledge that in choosing to sin we have turned away from God in order to return to him. It can be humbling to make either of those confessions, even to ourselves.

Again, I would say that humility can be a part of a truly healthy sense of self-worth, as long as it doesn’t turn into shame. I think that’s part of what our lesson from the Psalms is about. It’s a prayer of humility, recognizing that we all need help in order to truly follow God’s ways in our daily living. And that’s what the Psalm promises: God’s help. Our lesson says it this way, “The LORD is good and does what is right; he shows the proper path to those who go astray. He leads the humble in doing right, teaching them his way” (Ps 25:8-9, NLT). Notice, it doesn’t say that God shows the proper way to those who are already in the right, but rather to those who go astray! As a person who is fallen and flawed and who “goes astray” more often that I’d like to admit, I find that to be a great comfort! The promise of Scripture is that God shows us all the “proper way” and leads us in what is right.

The language of sin and repentance in the Bible isn’t meant to shame us or to beat us down with the notion that we’re worthless. It’s meant to inspire us to “change our hearts and lives.” That’s the way the Common English Bible, the version we used for our Gospel lesson today, puts it: “Change your hearts and lives.” This is no easy task. Sometimes we have to “hit bottom” before we’re even willing to admit that we need to change. Making changes in our lives means recognizing that we fall short. It means taking responsibility for what we have done as well as what we’ve failed to do. It means, as the Psalmist says, admitting that we need help to follow God’s ways in our daily living. It reminds me of what Jesus said in the Beatitudes: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of God” (Matt. 5:3). I like the way the Message translation puts it: “You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.” Being willing to confess our sins and repent, both in the sense of turning away from what harms us and others, and in the sense of returning to God, isn’t about thinking of ourselves as worthless or shameful. It’s simply about being humble enough to recognize that we need God’s help. And the promise of Scripture, is that to those who are humble enough to acknowledge we need help, God provides it time after time after time.

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[1] ©2024 Alan Brehm.  A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 2/18/2024 for Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.

What’s Your Name?

Genesis 32:9-12, 22-32[1]

Herman Melville’s classic story Moby Dick begins with an interesting line: “Call me Ishmael.” Now, to the average person that probably doesn’t mean much today. It sounds to most of us like a typical name for an American whaler in the 19^th Century— a bit old-fashioned. But Melville was writing to an audience he knew would assume more than that. You see, “Ishmael” is the name of an outcast. Ishmael was Abraham’s son who was rejected, banished from his home, and sent out into the desert with his mother to die.[2] Although the narrator of Moby Dick is the only one to have survived the tragedy of the good ship Pequod, he considers himself to be unlucky, rejected—an outcast. When he says, “Call me Ishmael,” it’s almost as if he’s apologizing for even existing!

We live in a much more “enlightened” era—we know better than to assume that our name somehow reflects who we are. Most of us were raised with the phrase, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” And so we know better than to let “name-calling” get to us, or to indulge in such uncivilized behavior! (My tongue is firmly in my cheek at this point!).

Of course not! Names are important, whether or not we choose to acknowledge it. Would you ever name a daughter “Jezebel”? Or who would name a son “Judas”? There are definite associations with those names in our culture that effectively remove them from the list of most parents’ possible baby names. The truth is that names do matter—not only our own names but also the names we create to attack and demean others.

When Jacob approached his homeland, he had been away from home some 15 years. And yet he was still afraid of what he might face when he met his brother Esau, whom he cheated out of his birthright. So Jacob did what he always did—he tried to manipulate the outcome by sending messengers to appease Esau (cf. Gen. 32:4–5). But instead of receiving word of his brother’s disposition, all they reported to Jacob was that Esau was coming with four hundred men, a small army!

So Jacob the deceiver continued his manipulative ways by dividing his caravan. He sent several groups of animals ahead as a gift to Esau, separating them into different groups, perhaps to magnify the size of the gift, perhaps to achieve the desired effect of placating Esau with repeated offers of good will. Jacob then sent his wives and children across the Jabbok River, and “strategically” remained behind! After all that Jacob had been through, it seems that he had not learned a thing!

Then Jacob did something we only hear of him doing one other time—he prayed! He prayed earnestly for God to deliver him from danger and rescue him from vengeance at the hand of his brother Esau. And in response Jacob encountered an unknown adversary attacking him in the night! He wrestled with this “someone” all night, and apparently was able to hold his own! At the end, Jacob’s adversary asked him his name, and the fact that he replied with “Jacob” suggests that he was admitting his character as a deceiver. Somehow this wrestling match brought Jacob to the place where he could finally admit to himself and to another who he really was—a liar, a cheat, and a fraud.[3] Jacob’s adversary then renamed him “Israel,” meaning “one who strives with God and with men and prevails.”[4]

It was only at the end of this strange wrestling match that Jacob realized he had actually been struggling with God! So he named the place “Peniel” in honor of the fact that he had seen God face to face and yet lived. Jacob crossed the river to rejoin his family, with a new limp to remind him of his encounter with God. The result was that instead of slinking up to his brother behind his wives and children, as he had originally planned, he went ahead of them. When Jacob met Esau, he was a changed man—so he humbly bows down to him seven times. Esau, himself a changed man, embraced his brother and forgave Jacob his past wrongs.

Thomas Moore, in Care of the Soul, reminds us that the first step toward embracing the life we have may very well be to embrace who we are. We can only embrace those around us when we can embrace ourselves, and we can only embrace ourselves when we can acknowledge who we are—all of who we are![5] Unfortunately, many of us are like the beautiful young man Narcissus of Greek mythology, or like Jacob the deceiver—we cannot really embrace those around us because we cannot embrace ourselves! The tragedy is that it leaves us disconnected, both from our own life and from the lives of our family and friends.[6] And if we never have to face who we are, like Jacob did, we may wind up selfish, rigid, intolerant, and perhaps even bitter![7]

The problem is that, like Jacob, we have to be “dislocated” or perhaps even “broken” in order to come to the place where we can actually look ourselves in the face and not only acknowledge what we see—all of what we see—but also actually embrace it![8] That’s what happened to me 8 years ago—I lost everything that meant anything to me. At the time I thought my family life was through and my career was over. Before my divorce, I was a lot like Jacob—very wrapped up with reaching my personal goals but not very connected with the people around me. But after all I went through, I came out much more comfortable with who I am—all of who I am, the good and the not-so-good! That kind of experience is one that many of us go through at one time in our lives or another. But the good news is that it brings us to the place where we can acknowledge our own name, with everything that goes with it, and that frees us to embrace our lives and the lives of those around us in the joy of friendship and love that God intends for us.

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[1] © 2008 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 10/26/08 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] The only other significant “Ishmael” in the whole Bible is Ishmael the son of Nethaniah, who assassinated the Babylonian governor who was appointed over the Jewish people after the fall of Jerusalem and then proceeded to kidnap his court (2 Kings 25:23, 25; Jeremiah 41).

[3] On this and other interpretations of the story, see Frederick C. Holmgren, “Holding Your Own Against God,” Interpretation (1990): 5-17.

[4] Jacob’s new name signifies the change in his character in an ironical manner. The name “Israel” itself means “God strives” or “God rules” (Holman Bible Dictionary, 722); in this text, however, the meaning of the name is interpreted as “one who strives with God and with men and prevails.” In a sense, because of Jacob’s resistance to God’s purposes, God was “striving” against him; yet in another sense, though Jacob was certainly “striving” against God, God graciously allowed Jacob to “prevail” by blessing him (cf. G. Wenham, Genesis 16–50, 303).

[5] Thomas Moore, Care of the Soul, 57.

[6] Moore, Care of the Soul, 58.

[7] Moore, Care of the Soul, 65-67.

[8] Moore, Care of the Soul, 61-62. Stuck with a certain “image” of ourselves that gets in the way of relating to others.

Comfortable in Your Skin

Genesis 4:1-16[1]

As we continue to discuss what it means to embrace life as it is, following Thomas Moore’s advice in his book Care of the Soul, I think one of the serious challenges we face can be summed up in a word: discontent. We are a people who are not content with our lives. How many people do you meet who are content with life just as it is?

The biblical story that I think best exemplifies the problem of being discontent is the story of Cain and Abel. Two brothers, one seemingly content with his life, the other apparently discontent. They have a fateful encounter with God one day, and God accepts the younger brother Abel’s offering but not Cain’s. The biblical text does not explicitly tell us why God did not accept Cain’s offering. The statement in Gen. 4:7 “If you do well, will you not be accepted?” may imply some sort of wrong-doing on Cain’s part.[2] Most commentators throughout history have observed that while Abel offered “the firstlings of his flock, their fat portions” Cain simply “brought to the Lord an offering of the fruit of the ground” (Gen. 4:3-4).[3]

Cain’s anger hints at the real problem—it would seem that he was jealous of his brother.[4] The “death” introduced into the world by Adam and Eve has now spilled over into jealousy and hatred and even violence, and the repercussions continue to reverberate! But what Cain missed was the importance and value attached to his very existence—as attested by his mother’s exclamation (Gen. 4:1).[5] He missed the fact that, “As the first-born, he embodies future possibility.”[6] It’s no wonder his discontent and his jealousy spilled over into violence!

Most of us would rather not fact the fact that we have many conflicting impulses within us, playing themselves out in our lives.[7] Sometimes those conflicts emerge in a way we’d rather not own up to. For example, the experience of jealousy over someone else’s good fortune makes us aware that there are aspects of our character that we’re not entirely fond of.[8] But the irony is that the only way to be free from jealousy’s poison is to embrace that part of us from which it comes.

The same is true of envy. When we are troubled by envy, the reality is that we both want something very badly while at the same time we actually sabotage our ability to attain it.[9] We see our fate as a cruel lot in life, but rather than embracing it and making the best of it, we spend our time and energy detailing the extent to which we have been cheated out of what’s rightfully ours while those around us who are more fortunate have received what they don’t deserve! Under envy’s spell, we spend our lives pining away for some fantasy of “what might have been.”[10]

But like Cain, our underlying problem is that we “fail to see the necessity and value in our own lives”—in the lives we have, our lives just as they are.[11] The truth of human existence is that there is something necessary to our existence in this world. There is something of value that we and only we can contribute to life. When you take that approach, then you have the freedom to “be good at what you’re good at,” regardless of whether you’re a farmer or a shepherd, a carpenter or a tailor, a salesman or a manager, an engineer or an artist, etc., etc.[12] Then you have the joy of finding satisfaction in what you do just because you enjoy doing it!

When we can adopt this approach to our lives, then we find ourselves empowered in a way that nothing can hinder—like a powerful river![13] But when we keep the river dammed up, we shouldn’t be surprised when it bursts out into all kinds of violence—just as with Cain and Abel.[14] The alternative is to simply be yourself—let your “individuality and unique gifts come forth” naturally and of their own, which they inevitably will do![15] That is an incredibly powerful act—perhaps the most powerful act anyone can do! In fact, just one person being willing to take that stance can change the course of the whole world![16]

Contentment is a rare quality these days. We have a phrase that fits the quality of contentment we’re talking about—being “comfortable in your skin.” When we can look at ourselves in the mirror, and recognize in the face we see a person whose life is important, whose life has value, whose life is necessary for the rest of us to thrive, then we can be comfortable in our skin. Then we can know the joy of contentment.

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[1] © 2008 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 10/5/08 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX

[2] The author of Hebrews says that Abel’s offering was acceptable to God “by faith,” perhaps implying a lack of faith on Cain’s part (cf. Heb. 11:4).

[3] Cf. Gordon J. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, 104; cf. Leon R. Kass, “Farmers, Founders, and Fratricide: The Story of Cain and Abel,” First Things 62 (Apr 1996): 22, who speaks of “the deep ambiguity at the heart of the human impulse to sacrifice,” suggesting, among others, Cain’s desire to “outdo” his brother! Contrast Walter Brueggemann, Genesis, 56, who overstates the case when he says “there is nothing here to disqualify Cain”!

[4] While the Hebrew text lacks the content of what Cain “said” to Abel in Gen. 4:8 (cf. KJV, NASB), the ancient Samaritan, Greek, Syriac, and Latin versions of the account supply what Cain said to his brother as “let us go out into the field,” strengthening the impression that he intentionally killed Abel. CF. Wenham, Genesis 1-15, 106.

[5] Kass, “Farmers, Founders, and Fratricide,” 20, points out Cain is the “the first farmer, the initiator of sacrifices, and the founder of the first city, as well as the progenitor of a line of men that invented the arts—including music and metallurgy”; cf. also Paula M. McNutt, “In The Shadow of Cain,” Semeia 87 (1999): 45-64.

[6] Brueggemann, Genesis, 56; cf. Robert Karl Gnuse, “A Process Theological Interpretation of the Primeval History in Genesis 2-11,” Horizons 29 (2002): 36, who says, “Cain was the center of attention and the hope for Yahweh's future relationship with humanity.”

[7] Moore, Care of the Soul, 98-99.

[8] Moore, Care of the Soul, 103-4.

[9] Moore, Care of the Soul, 113.

[10] Moore, Care of the Soul, 116.

[11] Moore, Care of the Soul, 114-15.

[12] Moore, Care of the Soul, 121.

[13] Moore, Care of the Soul, 119.

[14] Moore, Care of the Soul, 127.

[15] Moore, Care of the Soul, 127.

[16] Moore, Care of the Soul, 135.