Repentance: An Act of Community (Sermon)

“Repentance: An Act of Community”

Mt. 3:1-11

Allen Huff

Jonesborough Presbyterian Church

12/10/17 - Advent 2

         Hearing of John the Baptist, both the faithful and the curious creep to the banks of the Jordan River. They stalk the prophet as if he’s some sort of dangerous prey. Not that John would hurt anyone; but people talk. John does cut a fearsome figure. Great mats of camel hair hang about his frame as if his own skin is molting. His beard leaps from his face in a dark, thick spray littered with bits of locust and crystallized honey. And John’s eyes don’t just see the world. They see through it. His gaze is like the burn of the sun on bare skin.

While John can’t be ignored, the Jews, who have not had a truly memorable prophet in many generations, don’t really remember how to watch and listen. And while they love the Law, they don’t appear to expect anything from it. Maybe they don’t want to expect anything from it, at least no more than they think they already know. It’s certainly much less threatening, and much less disappointing not to expect anything new.

         What about us? When we sing “Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus” during Advent, what do we expect? As heirs of a two-thousand-year-old tradition, do any of us honestly expect anything that we proclaim about Jesus? Or do we just expect to “go to heaven when we die,” and in the meantime, rely on our own hard work and good behavior? The difference between the two is the difference between true faith and practical atheism. They can look astonishingly similar.

         John’s dramatic appearance and challenging prophecy call us to Advent. And Advent, being all about preparation, is all about renewed expectation. And for us, that means a call to repentance.

         It seems to me that the Church has often understood repentance in predominantly selfish terms. We declare personal remorse in order to save ourselves. But John calls us to repent not simply of individual sins, but of the condition of separation from God and from one another.

Repentance turns us from old ways of being in relationship with our neighbors and the earth. It heals the whole body so that we may celebrate and participate in the new thing that God is always doing in the world. Through repentance, our eyes may see the same scenery around us. Our ears may hear the same sounds, but we will see, hear, and speak as ones being transformed for the sake of all creation.

At its heart, repentance is an act of community.

         In October of 2016, Eli Saslow published an illuminating article in The Washington Post. The story introduces us to a young man named Derek Black. Derek’s father is a leader of the White Nationalist movement, and his godfather is – or perhaps was – the high-profile racist, David Duke. Derek’s parents taught him “to be suspicious of other races, of the US government, of tap water and of pop culture.”¹ Bright and curious, Derek learned and assimilated all that he was taught. As a youngster, he even started a children’s page on Stormfront, his father’s chillingly-popular, white nationalist website.

         After completing a home-schooled education, and after two years in community college, Derek entered New College in Sarasota, FL to study medieval history. His deeper plan, and that of his parents, was for Derek to be a kind of prophet of white nationalism on campus.

Derek played it cool at first. He didn’t share his ideology with anyone. And being an amiable sort, he quickly made friends.

         In April of 2011, while Derek was studying abroad – in Germany – someone discovered Derek’s truth and posted it on a college message board. Many at New College felt threatened, betrayed, angry. “How should we respond?” they asked.

Initially, the uproar re-energized Derek’s commitment to his racist, separatist agenda. Then, in the midst of all furious judgments, and all the mystified How could yous?, an unidentified student wrote something remarkable. “Ostracizing Derek won’t accomplish anything…We have a chance to be real activists and actually affect one of the leaders of white supremacy in America.”

         Another student seized the opportunity. Matthew Stevenson, the only orthodox Jew at New College, read some of Derek’s posts and listened to some of his radio broadcasts on Stormfront. Eli Saslow writes that “Matthew decided his best chance to affect Derek’s thinking was not to ignore him or confront him, but simply to include him.

“‘Maybe,’ thought Matthew, ‘[Derek had] never spent time with a Jewish person before.’”

Though challenging, such grace compelled Matthew to invite Derek to his campus apartment to join a Shabbat group which included Jews, Christians, atheists, and a variety of skin colors and ethnicities. And a long-term dance began.

After many months of candid conversation and existential struggle, Derek realized that his upbringing had sent him down a path that was not only a dead-end for him, but a path along which he had already done significant harm. So, in a cleansing zeal, the young Derek published these words: “After a great deal of thought, I have resolved that it is in the best interests of everyone involved to be honest about my slow but steady disaffiliation from white nationalism. I can’t support a movement that tells me I can’t be a friend to whomever I wish or that other people’s races require me to think of them in a certain way or be suspicious at their advancements. The things I have said as well as my actions have been harmful to people of color, people of Jewish descent, [and] activists striving for opportunity and fairness for all. I am sorry for the damage done.”

Matthew Stevenson had to act alone at first, a voice in the wilderness calling everyone to repentance, to a new way of living. Along the way, others found the same courage and joined him in reaching out to Derek Black. And their courageous, patient, prophetic compassion bore the fruit of Derek’s community-restoring repentance.

         Whatever John may have had in mind about “the wrath to come,” must be understood in light of all that Jesus says and does, because Jesus is now our prophet and priest. When the church proclaims a wrathful message of Repent or go to hell, we do nothing more than to prepare people to be dead.

         Hear the Good News: Neither John nor Jesus is in the business of preparing us to be dead. They are preparing us, and all creation to be alive! Right here and now with one another.

Thanks be to God!

¹All references in this sermon to Derek Black, Don Black, David Duke, and Matthew Stevenson were excerpted from Eli Saslow’s article: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/the-white-flight-of-derek-black/2016/10/15/ed5f906a-8f3b-11e6-a6a3-d50061aa9fae_story.html?utm_term=.55c4775142b2