“4John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins.”
Mark 1:4-5 (NRSV)
In the lectionary year of Mark’s Gospel, we have two Sundays in Advent that center on John the Baptizer. Two weeks to ponder the prophet whose garb and voice echo Elijah and the prophets of Judean history.
The second week takes us to the beginning of Mark’s story of Jesus. Not to a birth narrative. Not to Mary. Not to Joseph. No mangers in sight. Nothing even close to Christmas pageant material. Mark opens with an announcement that “This is the Good News of Jesus Christ…,” a few intentional words from the latter Hebrew Prophets, and then boom…
John at the river calling for repentance.
John is situated at the hinge of Biblical time. He’s got one foot in the old and one foot in the unfolding. John leads a movement at the Jordan River, in the wilderness that alludes to both the Exodus and the exiles returning from Babylon. John is embodying his people’s history of liberation from empire (oppression) and ushering them into the next phase of God’s unfolding reality (incarnation and healing).
John calls for an act “of repentance for the forgiveness of sins,” adapting a known cleansing practice and situating it alongside those stories of liberation that God authored in history, at the Jordan. God’s acts of release and liberation must be remembered and understood, so that what’s to come can be birthed into existence.
Repentance means to turn around. It’s not a mindset, it’s practice. Repentance is the radical shift from what is no longer life giving to what can embody healing and wholeness. And it’s for all the people. There no rugged individualism in John’s baptismal practice. The ways things are for everyone, business as usual, is not working. This is true for both the powerful and the marginalized. The ongoing act of repentance addresses this reality.
“The biblical theology of repentance, then, gives people permission to acknowledge that they are captive to demons of self destruction, that their historical project has arrived at a dead end, that their myths of entitlement are the problem, and that they can, and must, change directions in order to continue (Myers, Who Will Roll Away the Stone?, 172).”
Forgiveness means release. This baptism of radical turning leads into a way of life that releases one from the brokenness brought on by the struggle to live by the constructs of the dominant order. Sin in this movement can be thought of as anything that creates a rupture in our relationship with God and with one another. Sin is the violence we do to one another for the sake of preserving resources, status, or wealth. “Sin is not the some total of all the bad things we do. Sin is a real power that oppresses,” Dr. Ray Pickett. The sin John is addressing is corporate in nature. Things have to change!
I appreciate the insight of Ched Myers in his book Who Will Roll Away the Stone? - Discipleship Queries for First World Christians. Repentance is akin to the process of recovery. Particularly the well-known process of the Twelve Steps, in any of the particular ____ Anonymous groups.
“The Twelve Step process assumes that because the dysfunctional system cannot be reformed, it must be disengaged. It is ‘apocalyptic’; that is, it recognizes fundamental contradictions in the addictive system, and concedes that the power to change must come from the ‘outside’ (Myers, Who Will Roll Away the Stone?, 173).”
Twelve Step groups start with the problem, then address what happened, and move to what’s happening now. It is both an individual, and collective process. The individual struggles with the particular issue, but the community as a whole can relate to the brokenness, and through open, honest sharing, and human solidarity, together work to overcome the struggle. But one first has to name it, which is both the hardest, and most liberative part.
Step 1: I am powerless (insert substance/practice/ideology) over and my life has become unmanageable.
“Step one, as essential as it is uncomfortable, is the acknowledgment that the addictive system that controls me is destructive to me and all those around me. If I want to be liberated from the nihilistic logic of that system I must..
Appeal to an alternative reality (steps two and three);
Except my culpability in that system, and ‘confess’ it to others (steps four and five);
Seek to ‘repent’ of those practices (steps six and seven);
Make reparation to those I have wronged (steps eight and nine).”
(Myers, Who Will Roll Away the Stone?, 173).”
Steps ten through twelve are about the daily practice of confronting the truth and living into a new, sober reality. This process truly brings about change. Real change. Those in the rooms speak about miracles way more passionately than most church-folk I have encountered. For those in recovery, it’s about life and death, and the ongoing practice of the Twelve Steps brings new life.
For a community founded on and through resurrection, of Christ and ourselves (Romans 6), we ought to pay attention with open eyes and ears (Mark 4).
For Christian communities and churches, we need to begin by naming what we need to repent from - practices, ideologies, idols - so that they no longer have power over us. By naming them, we bring them into the light so that they can be dealt with accordingly. By naming them we begin to reclaim our own humanity and identity. By naming them, we are honest with ourselves and can drawn on the accountability we get from community. It’s messy, but I know it works.
This is part of a longer conversation and practice that I think we ought to experiment with as a church, both big “C” church, and within our own congregations - made of up individuals who have unique gifts and struggles and lives that would benefit from all of Jesus’ practical statements about how to live life in God’s unfolding Kingdom.
We've named some big issues that need to be worked on - racism, sexism, homophobia, Christian nationalism, etc. - just to name a few. Perhaps we are somewhere in the midst of steps two through twelve on some of them, but the work is far from over.
More from Ched: “Perhaps instead we should experiment with a theology that merges prophetic and pastoral insights: understanding repentance as a strategy of intervention and conversion as a strategy of recovery (Myers, Who Will Roll Away the Stone?, 172).”
Repentance as a strategy of Recovery. Recovery for the sake of Healing - ourselves, our communities, and our world. Healing for the sake of Wholeness - wholeness with our creation, the created, and the ongoing creativeness of this relationship.
That sounds like an aspect of Advent and of God’s kingdom to me.
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