The Rev. Canon Dana Colley Corsello: Repent and Live!
David Brooks wrote a piece in the September issue of The Atlantic entitled, “How America Got Mean.” He concedes that while social media, self-induced isolation, demographic shifts away from a white-dominated nation, and high levels of economic instability all contribute to plummeting social trust, America got mean because quote “We inhabit a society in which people are no longer trained in how to treat others with kindness and consideration…people feel licensed to give their selfishness free reign.”[i]
His thesis is that morally formative institutions have lost their sway with Americans. He means schools, religious groups, community organizations such as the YMCA, Scouts, and sororities/fraternities). The very organizations that “form people into kind and responsible citizens, the sort of people who show up for one another,”[ii] no longer have the influence and power to mold our citizenry.
His piece is lengthy, and I can only offer a summation for our country’s moral disintegration, but a few reasons stand out: 1. The content of one’s character doesn’t much matter anymore. Character used to be destiny—to possess honesty, kindness and integrity was one’s north star. 2. Our focus on hyper-individualism has evolved into “emotivism” which means “Whatever feels good to me is moral,”[iii] and third, “The line between good and evil does not run down the middle of every human heart, but between groups. Life is a struggle between us, the forces of good, and them (the other), the forces of evil.”[iv]
Brooks postulates that people have sought to fill the moral vacuum with politics and tribalism. For people who feel invisible, unheard, disrespected, and alone, politics is now a seductive form of social therapy. “A person’s moral stature is not based on their conduct or character, but on their location on the political spectrum. You don’t have to be good; you just have to be liberal—or you just have to be conservative.”[v] End quote.
While Brooks offers solutions to our nation’s moral crisis, he doesn’t include the ancient remedy for healing and restoration desperately needed when we humans go off the rails—the big “R” Repentance. And frankly, it doesn’t matter if one is religious or not, we’re all called to get our messy house in order. “Repent and live!” begs Ezekiel in today’s Old Testament scripture. “Repent and live!”
In a culture that has forgotten how to blush, that counsels belligerents to “never admit a mistake,apologize or explain,” or even worse to “double-down,” Ezekiel’s admonition might sound archaic and out of touch. But for those of us who strive to live a moral life, it’s not. When I think about all the silly, exasperating, and dangerous political machinations that went down at our nation’s Capital last week, the taste of sour grapes is left in my mouth. Are your teeth on edge too? Our civil discourse is often modeled, for better or worse, on the conduct of our lawmakers. So when that conduct is mean and tinged with resentment, retribution, and retaliation—it trickles down to us. Mean begets mean. Repentance is always preferable to hypocrisy. For this reason and a thousand others, repentance is the only way forward.
Please understand that repentance is central to life rather than peripheral. It’s essential rather than optional. And contrary to modern misconceptions of fire and brimstone, repentance is entirely life-giving rather than death-dealing. It is not an act of shame, but one of optimism.
“Repent—the word itself means ‘to turn around, change one’s mind.’ There can be no forgiveness without repentance, without a turning around. Remorse is not enough. Remorse is not repentance. It is just an emotion. Like anger—just an emotion. Repentance is a process. It involves asking, ‘Lord, how shall I proceed?’ and then acting. It is an act of will. It is not for the weak or shallow.” Repentance is also a movement toward wholeness rather than a descent into self-destruction. The prophet is begging the Israelites to turn from their transgressions and accept a new heart and a new spirit—it’s theirs for the asking. And since we’ll never know perfection this side of heaven, there will never be a time when we don’t need repentance as our friend.
But before it can begin for the Israelites, Ezekiel must protest the proverb that has prevented them from restoration, ‘The parents have eaten sour grapes, and the children’s teeth are set on edge,” (Ezekiel 18:2). Why? Because it allowed people to turn away from their present responsibilities by blaming the past. This specific theological view allowed one to blame the sins of father or mother on their children—in other words connecting and haunting generations by way of their ancestral sins.
To this “legacy of sin,” Ezekiel is saying No! In the eyes of God, and at the end of the day, God will judge us as individuals; we are singular. Yet, this does not mean that we pretend that our ancestors’ sins do not have generational consequences. Do our teeth not get set on edge by the inability or unwillingness of some to acknowledge the log in their own eye regarding our nation’s past transgressions, such as the sin of slavery? Understanding the truth of our founding, learning from that truth, and honoring everyone’s humanity and autonomy is essential for progress and equality. If we do not — both as individuals and as a country — we will continue to inflict harm on the neighbors who God has commanded us to love. Repent and live!
Now, this brings me to the gospel this week. Jesus offended his listeners when he claimed that prostitutes and tax-collectors understood repentance better than the religiously righteous types. The religiously righteous wrongly believe that they are better than they really are; they imagine that they don’t need to repent. Moral outcasts have no such illusions.
To make his point, Jesus tells the story of a man who had two sons. When the father asked the first son to go and work in the vineyard, that son said, “No, I will not,” but later changed his mind and did the work. When the father asked the second son to go help in the vineyard, that son said, “I will, sir,” but then he didn’t go. “Which son,” Jesus asks the chief priests and the elders, “did the will of his father?”
Of course, we know the correct answer. We know it as well now as the religious authorities knew it back in Jesus’s day. The first son followed the will of his father. It was not what either son said that mattered in the end; it was what they did. We know the correct answer to Jesus’s question — and yet we struggle to bridge the gap between what we say we believe, and what we actually do to build God’s kingdom in light of those beliefs. We convince ourselves that our good words and our intentions are enough to keep God off our backs.
Friends, it won’t do us any good to think that this Gospel isn’t for us. Because it is. The judgment implicit in it is meant to make us uncomfortable, to be confronted, to ask ourselves: Which son am I? Am I the son who makes promises I fail to keep? Am I the son who talks the talk, and sincerely believes that my good intentions are enough? Or am I the son who doesn’t see repentance as alifelong work imbued with mercy, forgiveness, and grace?
There is also something important in Jesus’ parable about the power of changing of one’s mind. The first son changed his mind and went. The tax collectors and prostitutes believed that John came in the way of righteousness, so they went down to the river to be transformed. The religious authorities did not change their minds even after seeing how the sinners were made clean. What causes us to change our minds? How many of you cannot change your mind or admit you were wrong, just out of spite or embarrassment? Do you dig in your heels? Guilty as charged! So this morning we have to ask ourselves what blocks us from allowing ourselves to be changed? And what allows for our hearts to be broken open? These questions are at the heart of the gospel because the very definition of repentance is a change of heart and mind, a turning-around toward the love of God that beckons us.
God changed God’s mind when he was going to smite the Israelites during the exodus, so we can certainly change our mind and begin healing our hurting world. Pulling a “U-ee” and heading in the other direction is a sign of strength, not weakness.
The goal is to become morally better, not to “win”; we become morally better when we learn to see others just as we want to be seen and heard—deeply. We become morally better when we learn to envelop others in the kind of patient, caring regard that makes them feel seen, heard, and understood. Iris Murdoch, in her book The Sovereignty of Good, writes, “We become morally better when we engage in the simple act of paying attention and asking: Do I attend to you well?[vi]
Today is President Jimmy Carter’s 99th birthday—God bless him. He was asked in 1999 on the PBS news program Religion and Ethics this question: Suppose you could choose a lesson right now, not only for your church in Plains, but for the whole country. What do you think it is we most need to hear? Carter responded: “One that comes to mind is, ‘Be ye kind, one to another, forgiving each other as God through His mercy has forgiven us.’ I think that’s the one that can ease tension and create a better society.” Amen, Mr. President.[vii]
Just as for the tax collectors and prostitutes, the waters of baptism, the prayers of repentance, the grateful submission to Jesus’s authority — these are our lifeblood. Friends, the admonition to repent begins now with us. Repentance begets forgiveness, which begets wholeness, which begets peace. This is living water for our parched tongues. Yahweh prophesied through Ezekiel that God has a claim on our lives. Let’s admit our need for grace, do what we say we’re going to do, and not be afraid to change our minds so that we can turn—and in turning, live. AMEN.
[i] Brooks, David, “How America Got Mean,” The Atlantic Magazine, September 2023, p. 70
[ii] Ibid.
[iii] Ibid, p. 73.
[iv] Ibid, p. 74.
- Brooks, David, “How American Got Mean,” quoted Iris Murdoch from The Sovereignty of Good, p. 75.
Vi Ibid.[v] https://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/1999/10/29/october-29-1999-president-jimmy-carter-extended-interview/15369/.