FRUIT WORTHY OF REPENTANCE

There are times when I hear a song and I can’t get it out of my head. The words just won’t go away. They eventually do, of course, but you know what I mean. Well, there is a verse from Scripture that just won’t go away. It’s been rattling around in my head for over a month: since the second Sunday of Advent. Don’t ask me why, but it has.

I didn’t preach on it because I wasn’t in church as we were travelling that day. But when we arrived home, I looked up the Scripture assigned for that Sunday and read these words from John the Baptist in Matthew’s Gospel: “Bear fruit worthy of repentance.” (Matthew 3:8) Yes, they were addressed primarily to the Pharisees and Sadducees who came out as curiosity seekers to see what this crazy preacher who was attracting so many listeners was all about.

The truth, of course, is that we all are to be repentant sinners: no exceptions. If those who had gathered at the Jordan River to hear John had any thoughts that the only people John was addressing were the Pharisees and Sadducees, they had another thought coming. He was talking to everyone including me 2000 years later. I know I have to repent of my sins. The question is whether or not my repentance is bearing fruit worthy of repentance. Am I doing enough?

That’s the question and that is why those words of John still won’t go away. The problem is this: are my repentant words and actions worthy enough or am I just cutting myself some slack and assume that they are? Whose to judge? In society we tell a convicted felon that if he has paid a certain fine and/or certain penalty, he has, in fact, born the fruit worthy of repentance.

The problem, of course, for any sin that we commit, no matter small or how grievous, we cannot un-commit it. We can’t take back the words or actions. And so in order to repent, we must say or do something that is worthy enough in the eyes of the one or ones we hurt to make up for our sinful actions. Again, we cannot undo them. We can only make up for them by an acceptable form of repentance.

The sad part is twofold: on the one hand we may think we do not need to repent because we don’t think we have done anything wrong. The other is that those whom we have hurt and whom we know we have hurt may never forgive us no matter what we do or how great an act of repentance we perform. We cannot do anything about the latter but we can about the former.

John’s message, which keeps ringing in my ears, is a reminder that I have to take seriously the sins I have committed and the people I have hurt over the years and ask myself if I have borne fruit worthy of true repentance. If I have, thank God. If I have not, what am I now going to do about it for it’s about time that I do, isn’t it?