Repentence
Rev. Tim Wood, MDiv, LLP
406.402.0068
pastorTimWood@pm.me
Originally delivered 9/8/2024 to Stevensville United Methodist Church.
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WELCOME
No matter who you are and where you are on your journey, I welcome you to gather and worship with us in community.
One of the central messages of the Christian faith that is most often overlooked is that Christ is present in an
Summaries of Previous Weeks
S01
Passage: Luke 21:29-33
- 29 Jesus told them a parable:
- “Look at the fig tree and all the trees.
- 30 When they sprout leaves, you can see for yourselves and know that summer is near.
- 31 In the same way, when you see these things happening, you know that God’s kingdom is near.
- 32 I assure you that this generation won’t pass away until everything has happened. 33 Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will certainly not pass away.
Passage: Jeremiah 24:1-10
- 1 After Babylon’s King Nebuchadnezzar had deported Judah’s King Jeconiah,
- King Jehoiakim’s son, and the Judean officials, as well as the craftsmen
- and metalworkers from Jerusalem to Babylon,
- the LORD showed me two baskets of figs set in front of the LORD’s temple.
- 2 One basket was filled with fresh and ripe figs;
- the other basket was filled with rotten figs—too rotten to eat.
- 3 And the LORD asked me: “What do you see, Jeremiah?”
- I replied:
- “Figs! Some good ones and others very bad—so bad that they can’t be eaten.”
- 4 Then the LORD said to me: 5 The LORD, the God of Israel, proclaims:
- Just as with these good figs,
- I will treat kindly the Judean exiles that I have sent from this place to Babylon.
- 6 I regard them as good, and I will bring them back to this land.
- I will build them up and not pull them down;
- I will plant them and not dig them up.
- 7 I will give them a heart to know me, for I am the LORD.
- They will be my people, and I will be their God,
- for they will return to me with all their heart.
- 8 And just like the rotten figs that are so bad’ that they can’t be eaten,
- the LORD says, I will do to Judah’s King Zedekiah and his officials,
- as well as the remaining few in Jerusalem and those who are living in Egypt.
- 9 I will make them an object of horror and evil to all the kingdoms of the earth.
- Wherever I scatter them, they will be disgraced and insulted,
- mocked and cursed. 10 I will send the sword, famine, and disease against them until they vanish from the fertile land that I gave to their ancestors.
Recap
Last week we talked about how Jesus and those who wrote multiple parts of the Hebrew Bibleused figs as a metaphor for abundance. And it turns out that wisdom is pretty practical. For me, it spoke to how seven of us made it through five days backpacking by finding abundance in the little we carried in with us and the creation around us. Today, we’re going to build on that and the idea that figs also represented peace and prosperity. That even in a world of violence that we can not control, we can bring peace and find prosperity.
Childrens Sermon
Introduce Ms. Allie and send kids to the Children’s Place
Good and Bad Figs (over and over and over again)
Ground Hog Day: the basics
Who’s seen the movie Ground Hog Day?
[As a refresher…], Bill Murray plays a cynical frustrated weather reporter who thinks heart-warming stories are the very opposite of everything that’s important. And, once again, he’s been sent from the big city to a smal rural town to cover whether Punxsutawney Phil, will see his shadow. Bill knows fully well there is no correlation between what Fuzzy Cuddlable Phil sees and whether there will be six more weeks of winter. So, when he wakes up the next morning, he’s ready to head home only to discover he’s living the whole day over again… until he wakes up the next morning hoping it was all a bad dream only to learn he’s still living the whole day over agaiin …. until he wakes up the next morning deciding to change events but learns he’s still living the whole day over again
Big Plot Suprise for those who have not seen the movie.
He continues to live the same day over and over again.
But, slowly, he starts to grow and change.
Good and Bad Figs (on a journey)
He eventually changes so profoundly that, in many ways, he seems like his own opposite. In one of our passages Jeremiah sees opposites in a vision of good and bad figs. Good figs are tasty, delicious, nutritious and mouth watering. Bad figs are corrupt, rotting, sour, sickening, and might just get you sick.
We think of figs and other fruits and vegetables as starting good and then going bad. We pull too many apples from the tree or buy too many bannanas from the store, and leave them out… some are going to go bad. In some movies, that’s the origin story for villians. The hero saved the world but but did not save the future villains’ mother/child/partner/dog. But Bill Murray’s character goes the opposite direction. We begin to see him change, his cynicism breaks down. He goes from bad fig to good fig. It’s easy to assume from Jeremiah’s metaphor that people are stuck in one category and stay there. But, the truth is people can choose another way, they can come home, they can change.
Repentence is a process… Better is a process
The beginning of change… the process of change
Repentence… the name of my sermon… is a loaded word in people’s minds. It might conjure up what happens during a fire and brimstone sermon: people breaking down in tears, admitting the horrible things they’ve done. But, that image gets in the way of understanding the word and what we’re talking about today. The word itself simply means turning, as in turning towards god. It implies turning away from. If you’re looking for grace in this movie, you can see it in the fact that the character keeps getting a chance to learn. For Bill Murray’s character learning begins with again and again and again and again discovering that what he’s doing keeps producing the same results… it’s not working. Eventually he goes from learning what doesn’t work to learning what does. If you watch the movie again, you’ll see that in his relationship with one women. He begins learning what to do different, he begins making choices that slowly but surely change him and ultimately transforms him.
The Cynic’s trap
Part of his problem is the classic cynic’s trap. The cynic looks out at the world and thinks it’s broken, thinks it needs to change, and is convinced it can’t do anything about. From that viewpoint, things are broken and we can’t change them. It’s resignation. Some times, the hardest thing to do is to realize that you have to break out of your defaults. We’re so busy being upset that the world, or other people, are broken that we don’t think about what we can change.
Repentence and the process
From one perspective, we watch Murray’s character live almost an entire lifetime in one day. John Wesley spoke of this kind of changes as a process, as being perfected … that happens over our lifetimes. Depending on your spiritual journey, you may think of it as becoming more like Jesus, or reflecting the divine, or dozens of other terms.
One of the ways it shows in the bible is at the core of covenants. Covenants are not contracts between legal entities but processes involving relationships. We see one buried in Jeremiah:
They will be my people, and I will be their God,
for they will return to me with all their heart
You notice that covenants says nothing about demanding that others change? Change often begins with starting to accept other people as they are. God loves you no matter who you are and where you are on your journey. God loves everyone, loves all creation, no matter who they are and where they are on their journey. When you accepted the peace of Christ from others this morning, you were recognizing that they have the peace of Christ to offer you. When we speak of being created in the image of god, we are speaking of god leaving a trace in each of us.
Now, here’s where this point looks different in Season of Creation… Where we speak of god as the creator in creation, we are speaking of the trace of the divine in everything that exists… of all that is in Creation. Even the squirrel that I saw trying to find something on Paul and Julie’s cement driveway this morning. Central to repentance is recognizing the presence and trace of god throughout creation …. and accepting people and creation just as Christ accepts us. Acceptance. What does it look like when we begin to look on everyone and everything we meet in this way?
There’s a second part to this process: learning. An old hymn says Teach us…. your lessons as in our daily life… Returning… begins with turning. If you turn you’re going to see something new… to get somewhere you have to do something with that information, adapt to it, learn from it. Ground Hog day would not be the same movie if it wasn’t for is all the things negative and positive that he learns along the way.
But, he doesn’t just learn for the sake of learning. One of the most educated people I shared a classroom with already had a PhD from an Ivy League College. He didn’t get Bs. He didn’t loose arguments. He learned intellectually and it didn’t change the way he lived. From what I’ve heard and seen, his marriage is a mess and and trying to be a working pastor, he’s developed a drinking problem. On our journeys, it’s not enough to just learn. With both Jesus’ teachings and our passage from Jeremiah, the core impetitus is to be guides that help people recognize grace, learn (including from their experiences) and change. To have our hearts moved. To reflect what we’ve learned in our lives and the way we are in all our relationships from our enemies to our friends to all creation around us.
Which brings me to the final part of this process. When I spoke of Acceptance, a lot of people thought what about this person or that. What about the politician he wants to destroy America. What about that national leader who is committing war crimes? What about that Bear …or wolverine… that I meet on the trail. Accepting that Gd has left a trace in everyone, that each and every being we meet is valuable in of itself, does not ignore that Gd’s heart aches for the salvation, liberation and transformation of all creation. They have not arrived any more than you have. Repentence still speaks to those you meet. Instead, it involves asking for today’s encounters with all who are in need… what role have I played and can I play. Can I come alongside them in their needs and their dreams? Has what I’ve, that we’ve done, been part of the pain and hurt they’ve suffered. In this season of creation, we recognize that humanity has caused countless harms including changing the climate and pouring micro-plastics into the environment… many of which are beginning to impact us… you can taste it in the air this morning. We also recognize that there are ways that people and life suffer that has we did not have a role in… But, whatever role or not we have had, ask in today’s encounters with all who are in need, all those who dream, how can I?
Our weather man starts doing this. If he starts, metaphorically, as a basket filled with rotten figs, what happens is not just emtpying the basket of the rotten figs but filling it with the good figs. Good figs are not just a thing that sits in a basket, but something that others enjoy, that make that smile, that give them something to speak about, that -mabye, just maybe– inspires them. By the end of the movie, Murray’s character is beginning to change everyone around him. Not by forcing them to change but as he himself is being changed.
Conclusion
Comedies are not my favorite type of movie but Ground Hog day is one that has continued to grow on me. At the heart is the story of a frustrated cynical man who thinks he’s figured it all out and is resigned to being stuck being sent to cover meaningless stories that perpetuate psuedo-science. Over the course of the move he changes. And he becomes this place of peace and finds a surprising prosperity that changes people around him.
At the heart of it is a process of repentance, again and again turning, learning and being changed that reflects what we see reflected in Jeremiah and Luke.
[1] Accept others… including all creation…
[2] Learn from your experiences … including being accepted by god and others
[3] Be changed by what you learn
[4] Ask in today’s encounters… be curious what do they need, what do they dream… ask how can I?
Accept others…. Learn… Be changed… Be curious and ask how can I?
Accept…. Learn… Be changed… Be curious and ask how can I?
Benediction
Those who tend the fig tree will eat its fruit.
Those who watch for Adonai will be honored.
Just as water reflects one’s face,
the heart reflects one’s true self.
May our hope reflect God’s action,
May our action reflect God’s hope.
THE Lord BLESS YOU
AND KEEP YOU;
THE Lord MAKE HIS FACE SHINE ON YOU AND BE GRACIOUS TO YOU;
THE Lord TURN HIS FACE TOWARD YOU
AND GIVE YOU PEACE