Hardest Words

Mk. 1:9-15[1]

Some people say that the hardest words to utter are the words “I’m sorry.” It is difficult to say those words at times. It takes a great deal of humility. We may have to “eat crow,” as the saying goes, in order to apologize to someone we’ve offended or wronged. And as we all know, eating crow is not a savory dish! But as hard as it is to utter the words, “I’m sorry,” I think it is even harder to say the words, “It’s my fault.” Apologizing for something still leaves room for the possibility that you didn’t mean any harm, that you innocently offended or wronged the injured party. Saying, “It’s my fault” goes way beyond that and accepts responsibility for what is wrong.

What I’m talking about here is a real change of heart. We call it repentance. I think that’s one of the hardest challenges we may face in our spiritual pilgrimage. At some time or other, we have to come to the conclusion that “I have sinned,” and we have to admit that sin to another human being. I find the words of the traditional mass interesting: in the prayer of confession one says, “mea culpa, mea culpa, mea maxima culpa.” Those words have recently been rendered in the mass as “through my fault, through my own fault, through my own most grievous fault.”[2] Those are hard words to say. I think they’re much harder than saying “I’m sorry.”

So I would suggest that perhaps the hardest words for one person to admit to another are the words, “It’s my fault, my own fault, and mine alone.”[3] But it seems to me that as difficult as those words may be to utter, they are essential to the spiritual life. We’ve been talking a lot about the presence of God that surrounds us continually, no matter where we are or what our circumstances. It seems to me that one of the challenges of the spiritual life is for us to actually open our hearts to that presence that is surrounding us with love and life. That’s not an easy thing to do! It’s hard enough to open your heart to trust another human being. How do you open your heart to trust the invisible, ineffable, immortal God?

In a very real sense, I think that’s what Jesus was calling people to when he announced, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news” (Mk. 1:15). I think he was calling people to open themselves to the presence of God, who is constant moving among us to set things right, to heal and restore those who are wounded and broken, and to bring peace and life into every life. I think that’s what Jesus meant when he said “the kingdom of God has come near.”

But the essential problem remains: how do you open yourself to something like that. Well, this may sound simplistic, but I think Jesus himself tells us how to do it: repent and believe. In a very real sense, repentance is necessary before we can really open ourselves in faith to accept the gift of life and peace and freedom that God offers us all.[4] In order to get to that place, we have to be willing to say, “I’m the one who sinned.” We have to be willing to admit, “It’s my fault, my own fault, and mine alone.” Those are hard words, but healing words.

But the repentance that opens our hearts to that transformation doesn’t end with saying “It’s my fault.” That’s just the beginning. Repentance means actually doing something to make things right. Whether we like it or not, the coming of God’s kingdom of justice and peace and freedom into this world presents us with a “road not taken” kind of choice.[5] If we really want to experience the healing and loving presence of God, then we need to face a hard reality: it means choosing not to continue pursuing the selfish ways of this broken world. In another gospel text, Jesus says that this kind of repentance means “denying” ourselves. That’s a transformation that doesn’t just happen automatically. It is a journey, not a one-time experience. It’s a pilgrimage we make our whole lives.

There’s only one starting point for that life-long journey toward God’s peace and freedom. Like any healing journey, it can only begin when we recognize that “It’s my fault.” It begins with repentance. Experiencing the love and life of the God who is constantly working to heal us all begins with hard things—hard words, hard changes. But it’s worth it to utter those hardest of words, and to take up that hard challenge, because it opens the door to the joy and peace and freedom of the new life God offers us all. That’s why those words are so powerful and so essential to our spiritual life. In order to say them, we have to let down our walls. That’s the only way to really let the healing presence of God into our lives so that we can begin to experience the transforming love and life of God. When we let down the walls of fear and suspicion, and actually open ourselves to the joyful presence of God’s life and peace and freedom among us, then we can experience the kind of personal change that Jesus was constantly calling people to make.

---

[1] © 2012 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 2/26/12 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2]Edward Sri, “Through My Own Most Grievous Fault,” Catholic Education Resource Center, http://www.catholiceducation.org/articles/religion/re1093.htm .

[3] Compare the definition of repentance in the Westminster Shorter Catechism, question 87: “Repentance unto life is a saving grace, whereby a sinner, out of a true sense of his sin, and apprehension of the mercy of God in Christ, doth, with grief and hatred of his sin, turn from it unto God, with full purpose of, and endeavor after, new obedience.”

[4] Cf. Hendrikus Berkhof, Christian Faith, 433: “Without repentance all the notes of the Christian faith are off-key or silent.” Cf. also Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 2.2:552.

[5] Cf. Karl Barth, Church Dogmatics 4.2:199, where he says that repentance is a decision that is “both comprehensive and radical,” and that it “claims the whole man [sic].”

Rule Number One

Rom. 13:8-14[1]

Some of the most memorable lines come from films that are entirely forgettable. In the “Karate Kid” series, a boy named Daniel is “adopted” by a kind Japanese man named Mr. Miyagi, who teaches him Karate as a means of helping Daniel learn to stand on his own two feet and choose the right path in life. At one point, Mr. Miyagi takes Daniel to his family dojo, where there are only 2 rules to learn: “Rule number one—Karate is for defense only; rule number two—first learn rule number one.” In some ways our lesson from Romans today reminds me of that line—“Rule number one” is and always has been to love God with all your heart and to love others as you love yourself. After all that Paul has said about God and the Gospel, it seems like where he winds up is “Rule number two: first learn rule number one!”

We've covered a lot of ground over the last few months as we've worked our way through Paul's letter to the Romans.

· We’ve looked at faith as trust in God's love that never gives up on us.

· We’ve seen God’s grace as God's great “Yes!” to all humankind.

· We’ve caught a glimpse of what God is about in this world—to restore us all and the entire created order to our rightful place in relationship to Christ.

· We’ve heard the good news that Jesus the Christ died and rose again to set us free from everything that would bind or oppress or destroy us to enjoy a life that is full of living hope, lasting joy, and genuine love.

· We’ve heard that when we encounter God’s grace and God’s constant love in the new life we have through our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, we are changed in such a thorough way that there is no going back.

And after covering the whole sweep of “salvation history,” in effect Paul comes back to the heart of what God has been about from the very beginning—a “rule number one”: love God and love others. At the conclusion of all our theology and preaching, all our spirituality and worship, we come right back to where it all started:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might” (Deut. 6:5) and “You shall love your neighbor as yourself” (Lev. 19:18).

Although the subtle truths of the Gospel can be deep and complex for us to grasp, this is not hard for us to grasp at all. That's why Paul says the one who loves others fulfills the whole of God's Law, God’s torah, God’s truth.

But the real question, and where the difficulty comes in, is how we actually carry out the commandment to love others. You’ve all heard the saying, “We have to love other people but we don’t have to like them.” I think that betrays a fundamental misunderstanding about the kind of life that God has asked of us from time immemorial.

What does it mean to love another person in the way the Scriptures have taught us from the earliest days? Paul says it means that love does no harm to others (Rom. 13:10). In a sense, he echoes the famous Rabbi Hillel, who summarized the whole of torah in a kind of “negative golden rule”: “What is hateful to yourself, do not do to your neighbor. That is the whole Torah. The rest is explanation.” Sounds a bit like “first learn rule number one”!

Jesus echoed the same idea in his version of the “golden rule”: “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” (Matt. 7:12). In effect he says to treat other people the way you want them to treat you. And Jesus said this “sums up” the whole of the “law and the prophets.” Again, it sounds a bit like “first learn rule number one”!

One of the interesting features of the Reformed tradition is the way in which our Confessions spell out what that looks like in very specific terms.

For example, in the Heidelberg Catechism of 1562, loving your neighbor as yourself is defined in terms of showing “patience, peace, gentleness, mercy, and friendliness” to all, even your enemies (Heid Cat 4.107)! It means to “work for the good of my neighbor wherever I can and may” (4.111), and “to defend and promote my neighbor’s good name” (4.112). In the Westminster Shorter Catechism of 1647 it means to have “a right and charitable frame of spirit toward our neighbor” (Shorter Cat 7.080). [2]

So what does it look like in our day and time to go back to “rule number one”? I think, in the most basic sense, loving others means respecting others as human beings and treating them with dignity—the dignity of one who is created in the image of God and made the object of God’s love.[3] In a very real way it means doing what it takes to promote the well-being of another person. But at the end of the day, “The imitation of Christ in his life of service and suffering … is not an optional version of the Christian identity. It is the very essence of Christian identity. It is the pattern by which every other claim about the spiritual life must be measured if it is to be considered Christian.” [4] When you come down to it, “rule number one” fundamentally means sacrificing ourselves in service to others like Jesus did.

---

[1] © 2008 Alan Brehm. A sermon preached by Rev. Dr. Alan Brehm on 9/7/08 at First Presbyterian Church, Dickinson, TX and at A Community of the Servant-Savior Presbyterian Church, Houston, TX.

[2] For further examples in various aspects of life, see Jürgen Moltmann, The Church in the Power of the Spirit, 163-189; 282-288 and Hans Küng, The Christian Challenge: A Shortened Version of On Being A Christian, 297-311.

[3] Cf. Jürgen Moltmann, The Spirit of Life, 255: it means combining, “respect for the other person’s freedom” to be an individual “with deep affection for him or her as a person.” See also ibid., 258, where he says, “the basic law of the community of Christ is acceptance of others in their difference, for it is this experience of our neighbours, and only this, which is in line with Christian experience of God.”

[4] Luke T. Johnson, Living Jesus: Learning the Heart of the Gospel, 201; Moltmann, Church in the Power, 278, calls this “a life in accordance with the gospel of Christ.” Cf. also ibid., 283-84.