Turn Around! Repentance

Merciful God, who sent your messengers the prophets to preach repentance and prepare the way for our salvation: Give us grace to heed their warnings and forsake our sins, that we may greet with joy the coming of Jesus Christ our Redeemer; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (Second Sunday of Advent BCP 211)

One of the many things that has come to light during this year is the full depth of what it would mean for our country to truly repent of the sin of racism, and how we haven't managed to do so yet. This coming Sunday in the Gospel reading we will hear the call of John the Baptist by the River Jordan asking people to confess and repent. John was not the first and he hasn't been the last prophet sent by God reminding us to repent and return to God.

What does it truly mean to repent? The root word for repentance in Hebrew means to turn around. Repentance means a fully life change. When we recognize and confess our sins, we name them and acknowledge our sinfulness. However, truly repentance requires the further step of changing our lives so we can live in a different way, one without the confessed sin. True repentance is always harder than confession, which is hard enough!, because it requires us to change our lives.

The sin of racism is for many a hard sin to get the mind around. As a systematic institutional problem in our country, racism can be hard to see when you've lived in it all your life. At the root is the disconnection born of not recognizing other people as God's children. True repentance of the sin of racism involves acknowledging our own lack of recognition for certain other people as God's children and treating them as such. While the call of John the Baptist for repentance speaks in many parts of our lives, our disconnection from each other also keeps us disconnected from God. As we prepare for the coming of Christ in Christmas, we hope to return to loving connection with God and our neighbors.