Taking a Different Road

Homily for Sunday, March 23, 2025
The Third Sunday in Lent
Luke13:1-9

The events to which Jesus refers in this morning’s Gospel lesson – “the Galileans whose blood Pilate mingled with their sacrifices” and “those eighteen killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them” – [the events to which Jesus  refers] are lost to history;we can imagine, but don’t know for sure, to what Jesus refers.  But the focus of this morning’s passage is not those events but rather repentance:  “Unless you repent,” says Jesus (and he says this twice), “you will all perish just as they did.”  

The Greek behind “repent” is μετανoέω, which means “to change one’s mind,” not in the sense of, “Oh, I changed my mind,” but rather, “I am now changed because I have adopted a different way of looking at the world.”  The Hebrew behind “repent” is teshuvah, which means “to return,” or “to go back,” or even “to go home.”  So when Jesus says, “Unless you repent…” he is referring to more than merely saying, “I’m sorry.”  Rather, “repentance” is the first step to living a changed life, a life not only befitting of the Kingdom, but a life also befitting the person we know we are capable of being.

I want to get back to this morning’s Gospel lesson,including to Jesus’ parable of the fig tree, but first, “Everyone’s Spiritual Autobiography.”

Perhaps you’ve heard “Everyone’s Spiritual Autobiography.”  There are five stages:  

Stage 1:  We are walking down the street, and we fall into a hole.  It’s not our fault, and it takes a long time to get out.  

Stage 2:  We are walking down the street, and we see the hole, and still we fall into it.  It’s not our fault, and it takes a long time to get out.

Stage 3:  We are walking down the street, and we see the hole, and we fall into it.  But we recognize that it’s our fault, and we climb out more easily.

Stage 4:  We are walking down the street, and we see the hole, and we walk around it.

Stage 5:  We take a different road.

“Everyone’s Spiritual Autobiography” speaks to the kind of μετανoέω that is found in the New Testament.  When John the Baptist says, “Therefore, bear fruits worthy of repentance” (Lk 3:8), he’s not talking about merely saying, “I’m sorry;” he’s looking for the kind of change that means “to take a different road.”  When Jesus says that“the people of Nineveh… repented at the proclamation of Jonah” (Lk11:32), he means that the people of Nineveh did not merely see the hole and walk around it, but that they took a different road. Or in Acts when Peter preaches,“Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ”(Acts 2:38), he is telling the crowd that the first step to living a changed life is not only to see the “hole,” not only to recognize their responsibility in falling into it, not only to walk around the “hole,” but to take a different road.  When the New Testament speaks of μετανoέω, it is speaking to the kind of repentance that is bigger than saying, “I’m sorry.”  It is speaking to the kind of repentance that is intentional, that requires work, that takes time, that requires taking responsibility, and that results in a different way of looking at the world.  

Back to this morning’s Gospel lesson…  After Jesus says for the second time, “Unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did,” Luke explains with a parable:

A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none.  So he said to the gardener, “See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down!  Why should it be wasting the soil?”  He replied, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it.  If it bears fruit next year, well and good;but if not, you can cut it down."

In this parable, Jesus makes clear that:

·       Repentance takes time:  “For three years I have come looking for fruit… and still I find none…” “Sir, let it alone for one more year…”

·       Repentance requires work:  This parable is about a gardener who works the vineyard.

·       Repentance involves taking responsibility:  If the tree does not bear fruit, it will be cut down.

·       True repentance ends with μετανoέω: We will know that we have repented when we bear fruit.

“Repentance” is bigger than merely saying “I’m sorry.”  To repent fully involves μετανoέω, a change of perspective that leads us to take another road, that brings us from not bearing fruit to bearing fruit.  

As the liturgy on Ash Wednesday reminded us, Lent is a “season of self-examination and repentance” (BCP, p 265).  Here are three things we might keep in mind as we are in this “season of self-examination and repentance.”  First, in her book, Repentance and Repair, Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg writes:  

Repentance is… a kind of self-care.  When we do the work, we give attention to our own broken places, our own reactionary impulses, our own careless ignorance.  It’s a way of saying,“Hey, self, you need some attention. Let’s give you some help becoming the kind of person you want to be.” (p59)

Repentance is a form of self-care.  

Second, true repentance brings joy.  Consider the parable of the lost sheep: “’Rejoice with me, for I have found my lost sheep…’ Just so, I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine people who need no repentance” (Lk15:6-7).  Or consider the parable of the lost coin:  “‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the coin that I had lost.’  Just so, I tell you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”  True repentance brings joy.  

Lastly, repentance helps us to become the people God created us to be.  Again, Rabbi Ruttenberg:

[Repentance…] is the work of being open to seeing ourselves as we really are... It’s the work of facing down false stories and engaging with… reality… It’s about ownership – owning who we have been and what we have done,and also owning the person we are capable of becoming.  (Ibid., p 43)

May God give us the grace to observe a holy Lent, that we might with honesty examine our lives and, where needed, do the work of repentance.  Doing the work of repentance is a form of self-care; true repentance brings joy; and repentance helps us to return home, to come back where we are supposed to be, to the person we know we’re capable of being.