Meditation for October 1, 2008

From The Rev. Peter A. Munson

Luke 5:27-32

 

27 After healing the paralytic Jesus went out, and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, "Follow me."  28 And he got up, left everything, and followed him.  29 Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others reclining at the table with them.  30 The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?"  31 Jesus answered, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; 32 I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance."

 

Opportunities for Lasting Change

 

Jesus says that he has come to call sinners to repentance.  Many in our day hear the word repentance and we think: "feeling sorry for our sins".  That doesn't get to the depth of what the word is about.  It comes from the Greek word, metanoia, and it's about making radical changes.  To repent is to realize that you have been walking away from God, first of all.  You then come to your senses - there is an "aha" moment. 

 

"Ooh, me collecting taxes for the Romans and skimming some off the top for myself is not something that I feel good about doing."

"Ooh, me not standing up to that person I need to stand up to, and then complaining about him or her to someone else, is not the way that I should be dealing with this relationship."

"Ooh, when I get stressed out at work and then yell at my kids for some very minor thing - that is not good!"

 

We come to our senses, and in doing so we begin to turn back to God.  We confess to God, "Lord, I have really messed this up."  That is the feeling sorry for our sins part of the repentance process.  But then we invite/allow God to bring radical change into our lives.  "Lord, I need to do this differently.  I need your help.  Help me to do what I know I need to do."

 

Levi got up, left everything at the tax booth, followed Jesus, and immediately went to work putting together a great banquet for Jesus at his house.  They didn't sit down until he had invited his friends, who were just as lost as he was.  To repent means to do a 180-degree turn back to God.  It involves changing our behaviors and, probably even more significantly, asking God to change our hearts.  We ask for God to transform our heart of stone into a heart of flesh.  (see Ezekiel 36:26)  I don't know about you, but I notice that my heart needs to be transformed on a regular basis.  It is too easy to be critical of others, too easy to get cynical, too easy to overlook the poor and the marginalized, too easy to just get caught up in my own little world.

 

The Christian life is about being transformed in all of our relationships - with God AND with all the people that come in and out of our lives.  The Christian life is about you and me being transformed in our hearts and in our spirits and in our souls.  It is about our faith communities being transformed.  It is about our world being transformed.

 

We are misguided if we think that we are the righteous who have no need of a physician, and that "everyone else needs help."  If that is our view, then that is the first attitude we need to repent of.

 

We are no different than Levi or Mary Magdalene or Paul or Andrew or Judas or any other disciple that you care to name.

 

God calls all of us to repentance.  God calls all of us to radical change.  God calls us of us to be transformed (see Romans 12:2 - "be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God - what is good and acceptable and perfect.")  And we are not just supposed to discern the will of God.  After discerning it, we are supposed to do it.

 

There has been a lot of talk about change in the current presidential campaign.  But for those of us who are Christians, the idea of change is nothing new.  We can look at our world and look at our own lives, and nod, and say, "Yes, something needs to be changed here."  For indeed, God calls us to radical change - all the time.

 

How is God calling you to be transformed this day?  How is God calling you to turn back to him, and be saved - for your own good, and for the good of the world?  To put it in another way, how is God calling you to repent this day?

 

God's call for our repentance is not a bad thing. It is the good news!  God gives us a gift; God gives us opportunities to change, so that our lives and our relationships can be transformed, and turned upside down for the better.  Will we make the most of those opportunities, or just see God as hounding us, in some way that we don't want to be hounded?