My friends, repent. For the kingdom of heaven has come near. What a great invitation to our annual meeting!
That kingdom of heaven thing; it sounds like a good idea, no? But since it’s one of those many church-ey phrases that we don’t really use in everyday conversation, I found myself curious about what it might mean. Matthew uses this phrase more than any other evangelist, most often in the context of parables. You’ll probably recognize some of these: the kingdom of heaven is like a sower, like a treasure hidden in a field, like a mustard seed, like a man about to go on a journey, like ten virgins, like a landowner, like a king. These are some pretty diverse allegories, but one thing they have in common is what they are not. None of them involve pearly gates to a city of gold and jewels. That image comes from the book of Revelation, and describes the New Jerusalem; the home of God and humankind at the end of time. A beautiful vision, but nothing that Jesus himself ever spoke of. At all.
Instead, Jesus’ metaphors were profoundly earthly, and full of as many rogue characters as good ones. The kingdom of heaven, as he described it, resembled recognizable places like fields and palaces, and was peopled by characters who practiced justice, patience, persistence and inclusion. The kingdom, now as much as then, was to be found whenever ordinary people in ordinary places chose the better way. Often at the invitation of a king.
So it should be no surprise for us to meet Jesus this morning at the shore of the unremarkable Galilean sea, inviting fishermen to follow his own countercultural reign. He was embodying his own kingdom parables. The kingdom of heaven is like a beach, and like fishermen. Like the places you already know well, he promised. Just repent.
That’s another word we don’t use so frequently. Can you imagine including it in our cathedral marketing campaign? There’s a place at the table for everyone. Just repent. Repent, for the heart of downtown San Jose is near. Repent, and come join me at church. It’ll be great.
This mostly hasn’t been our message in the Episcopal Church, at least not recently. This week our Presiding Bishop preached a revival to some 1200 Episcopalians who had gathered in Atlanta. Bursting with his usual enthusiasm, Michael Curry urged the crowd to break through the barriers that separate us from one another. “Love of neighbor is affirmative action on steroids,” Curry exclaimed. “If there’s a Democrat in the house … if you love your neighbor, you’ve got to find yourself a Republican and love that Republican! And if there’s a Republican in the house, I want you to find the most liberal Democrat you can get your hands on and you love that Democrat! And if there’s an independent in the house, you can love anyone you want! But love somebody!” he insisted. Vintage Michael Curry; I doubt he mentioned the word “repent” event once.
But a deeper listening to the word suggests that Bishop Curry and his fellow Episcopal evangelists are not so far from Jesus’ original meaning. The English is confusing, since etymologists argue whether our word repentance comes from the Latin meaning “to reconsider” or its cognate “to feel regret or sorrow.” By the time the concept wend its way through French and Old English, however, it had taken on a clear message of shame, which is mostly how we use it—or avoid using it—today.
But the Greek word that it translates is not so. In the New Testament, the word is metanoia, which is a compound of the preposition meta (meaning after), and the verb noeo (meaning to perceive). The preposition includes the meanings of both time and change, so that the whole word means: ‘to think differently after’. Metanoia is the new way of thinking, different from the former thought. So another way to translate Jesus’ invitation to the first disciples might be “change your mind and heart—change your consciousness—and you will find the kingdom of God to be nearby.”
The renewed minds of those who follow Jesus was an article of faith for Paul, who insisted that the bickering Corinthian church be “united in the same mind” even when all evidence of their behavior was to the contrary. Paul had heard his Lord’s call to metanoia and wasn’t going to let any of his congregations forget it. And neither is Bishop Curry and neither am I. Sisters and brothers, we are called not to shame nor regret, but rather to a new consciousness. One in which the place we already inhabit shines with the light of the kingdom of God. The people who walked in darkness—that’s any of us, at least some of the time—we have seen a great light. We who live in a land of deep darkness, on us light has shined. It is not shame that enables is to see the new community we are called to be, but rather our willingness to change our minds. Our willingness to follow the call of Jesus.
As best we ever hear it, of course. Discernment—which is a fancy theological word for figuring out what we are supposed to do as Christian people—is a skill that takes some practice. But it’s never a bad thing to start our discernment by noticing what happens when Jesus calls his disciples. Last week, John had Jesus asking hard questions, like “what are you looking for?” This Sunday Matthew’s version gives him a much more imperative voice. Jesus said to Simon Peter and Andrew “Follow me.” And immediately they left their nets, the story says.
If that sound rather sudden, listen to what follows: “I will make you fish for people.” Their true vocation was their original vocation as fishermen, transformed. That’s probably true for many of you, too. I think of our deacon, Lee Barford, an electrical engineer, who is known internationally for his work on ethics in technology. I think of Jim Alexander, an attorney who now makes his case through writing theological fiction. He’s one of four new vestry candidates who have been share their rich professional gifts for the good of our Christian community. Like a parable of the kingdom, the extraordinary calling is already hidden inside the ordinariness of our work.
Thomas Merton has said that “discovering vocation does not mean scrambling toward some prize just beyond my reach but accepting the treasure of true self I already possess. Vocation does not come from a voice out there calling me to be something I am not. It comes from a voice in here calling me to be the person I was born to be, to fulfill the original selfhood given me at birth by God.
It may look and sound like an Annual Meeting, but make no mistake. What we do today when we choose our leaders and vote on our budget is, in our very Trinity-specific way, an opportunity to let our light shine. If you’re not yet excited about it, repent! We are called to renew our minds and hearts and find the kingdom of God to be nearby. Within ourselves, within this congregation, and within this diocese and city we are called to minister to in love.
