J. W. McGarvey: On Repentance

The following is part of an ongoing commentary on J. W. McGarvey's Sermons Delivered in Louisville Kentucky. For an introduction to and table of contents for the series, see Happy Birthday, J. W.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

In all likelihood, the title of McGarvey’s sermon “Conditions of Forgiveness” would have chaffed against many nineteenth century Christians the way that it would grate on modern ears. No one likes the idea, much less the explicit language, of conditional forgiveness. We prefer to think of salvation in terms of “a free gift,” without delving too deeply into how the offering and the reception of that gift might play out practically. In truth, however, McGarvey’s points are not all that radical and are probably less so by modern standards than nineteenth century ones. His three conditions of forgiveness are faith, repentance, and baptism, and he makes very clear that belief that “Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God” is the bedrock on which the other two rest. He makes clear, both in this sermon and the following sermon (“Faith,” which was treated in the previous entry), that he falls well within the bounds of Protestant sole fide dogma.

McGarvey insists, nevertheless, that faith must be an active faith. Just as in faith, Enoch walked with God, Noah built his ark, and Abraham uprooted his family, the faith of the Christian must be productive or else, in the words of James, it is dead. In view of this, he launches proudly into what amounts to a month long defense of his belief that faith must manifest itself in practice. Even to an audience of Disciples who must have largely shared his beliefs about the necessary outgrowths of faith, McGarvey admits that nothing is more difficult than translating that belief into action:

The greatest obstacle to the salvation of men is the obstinacy of the human will. It is not very difficult, in this country particularly, to induce men to believe the Gospel--to plant faith within the soul. Indeed, we may say it is difficult in our blessed land for a man to be an unbeliever. Multitudes of men try to be, and fail; and some women do the same. And even when they think that they have succeeded in persuading themselves that there is no truth in the Gospel or in the Bible, often, when they come to face death, their unbelief vanishes, and they find themselves among the number who believe and tremble. Neither is it very difficult to persuade men to be baptized, when they become penitent believers. I have never yet met with a person, who was a genuine believer and sincerely penitent, that raised any question about being baptized. They are ready to go where they are led.

The difficulty is to induce them to repent. I have often, in my preaching experience, studied and prayed and reflected and read, to find some way by which I could have more power in inducing people to repent. I would rather have that power than all the other powers and gifts that could be bestowed upon me as a preacher. But we modern preachers need not be discouraged, I think, on account of our weakness here, because we find, on reading the Gospels, that our Saviour experienced the same difficulty. When He was bidding farewell, or about to bid farewell, to Galilee, where the most of His mighty works were done, and upbraided the cities whose people had heard Him most, it was not because they did not believe; it was not because they refused to be baptized by John; but it was because they did not repent. With all the tremendous efforts that He had put forth to bring them to repentance, He had failed. Not surprising, then, that there should be found the same difficulty in the way of modern preachers.

The same is obviously true in our own day, and McGarvey’s specific critiques of America still ring true. The profession of belief continues to be widespread, and many would argue (though with diminishing success) that it is difficult to be a genuine atheist in American culture. There is an abundance of faith in the States, at least faith defined as a profession of belief. What Americans lack—and what perhaps all Christians have struggled with—is manifesting that belief in practice. Looking at Jesus’ critique of the unrepentant Galileans, McGarvey imagines that much the same criticism will be made of America. That is why he concludes “that this city, and this State, and this country of ours, are the worst places on this broad earth from which to go to hell…Why? Because, if that which has been done in your midst had been done in Sodom, it would have lived.”

What McGarvey is calling for is not merely proliferation of good works, and any accusation of merit based salvation is either uninformed or malicious. He goes into minute detail, risking the damning accusation of being one who likes “to multiply words,” to explain that good works may be the fruits of repentance and sorrow over sin may be its cause but that the true essence of repentance is a change of disposition. In many ways, his view of repentance mirrors that of his understanding of faith. To come to believe is to shift the mind from confidence in itself about things seen to confidence in God about things unseen. This same transition happens in the will through repentance. It turns from an impulse toward sin to an impulse toward righteousness.

When we take this understanding of repentance as situated less in behavior than in the will, we begin to find grounds on which to approach understanding in Christian ethical discourse. I am by no means one to shy away from the rigorous and frequent examination of moral behavior, and I as often as not disagree stridently with those around who seem to propound a Christian ethos (particularly when it smacks of jingoism, chauvinism, or militarism of any kind). But Christians need to realize that to repent from one’s sins is not to receive an infallible understanding of right and wrong. It is only to commit oneself to pursuing the right instead of the wrong. I will never stop trying to convince my fellow Christians who are politicians or soldiers that their vocations are incompatible with Christian ethics. I will never stop combating the notion that abortion can be morally justified through appeals to exigent circumstances. This is in no sense an appeal for ethical agnosticism. At the same time, we all need to understand that, just as a faith in a common God does not automatically equal a perfect understanding of that one God, our common repentance from evil does not automatically ensure a perfect and common understanding of what the good is to which our will is now directed.

Re-Reading Revelation: Letters (Chs. 2-3)

After promising the readers a prophecy of things to come in the opening lines of his text, John takes a brief aside to record letters to the churches which are less like prophesies and more like sermons. It is perhaps telling that after the first chapter focuses so keenly on the persecution suffered by Jesus, John, and the churches these letters are not primarily calm reassurances of the seven churches but strongly worded indictments. In a reverse of the structure of Amos--who first directs his attentions to God's enemies before turning viciously on God's people--the frightful Jesus of the first chapter, as the author of the letters, takes aim at his own kingdom even though we all know that his sights will ultimately be set on her enemies.

Amid accolades for their staid endurance under hardship, Jesus peppers the letters with biting imprecations. The Ephesians have forgotten their first love, and, if they cannot get their act together, Jesus promises to come and "remove your lampstand from its place." Pergamum and Thyatira are dens of sexual iniquity, with the latter harboring a seductive prophetess. Of the church in Laodicea he writes, "you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked." And if those words to the "lukewarm" Ladocieans are not strong enough, he says of those in Sardis that they are "dead."

The purpose here is obviously not to rain down unqualified condemnation on the churches, and certainly any reader should anticipate--and rightly--that infinitely more forceful judgment is just a page turn away for those who persecute Christ's imperfect churches. The point, then, is to set the right attitude for John's audience. It would be all too easy and altogether inappropriate for the churches to take a divine pledge of fire and brimstone for their enemies and to adopt an air of unjustified self-righteousness. God's judgment is coming not because the churches are perfect but because God is perfect, and Jesus makes clear from the beginning that any hint of self-glory, any impulse to rest on their spiritual laurels would be dangerous.

Instead, he delivers a message of perseverance to the churches which ought to convict contemporary readers as well. Over and over in the letters he repeats his promise to the churches--they will get new names, eat from the tree of life, be spared the second death, sit on a heavenly throne, and more--but he precludes almost every promise with some variation on the phrase "to the one who conquers." It is not enough that Thyatira has endured thus far, that Ephesus once loved God truly, that Pergamum did not deny Jesus' name in the days of Antipas, or that you can remember a time when your faith was strong. In a book which is so often touted as being about "the end," the initial emphasis is not on will happen at the end or when the end will come but on how Christians are to live until the end. The first duty of these suffering Christians, and of all Christians, was not the condemnation of their enemies or dreams of escape into an eternal home but living righteous lives of faith. Jesus forcefully turns the focus of the churches away from his promised justice and onto their own need for personal and corporate repentance. It is almost as if Jesus is playing on his own teaching in Matthew 7, "We're going to deal with the speck in the world's eye, but first let's have a word about the plank in your own."

*****

For a full list of "Re-reading Revelation" posts, see Re-reading Revelation: Statement of Purpose.

The Wisdom of John of Sinai: Repentance

The story of St. Mary of Egypt offers us an exemplar of penitence, and the story of the Passion which we are about to relive is the ultimate call to that repentance. John dedicates an entire chapter, Step 5 of his thirty step ladder, to the subject and he allots it a considerable amount of space to the subject. He defines repentance thus:

Repentance is the renewal of baptism and is a contract with God for a fresh start in life. Repentance goes shopping for humility and is ever distrustful of bodily comfort. Repentance is critical awareness and a sure watch over oneself. Repentance is the daughter of hope and the refusal to despair. (The penitent stands guilty—but undisgraced.) Repentance is reconciliation with the Lord by the performance of good deeds which are the opposites of the sins. It is the purification of conscience and the voluntary endurance of affliction.

Understood in this way, repentance was the continual duty of Christians. It was not the occasional response to noticeable sins but a perpetual disposition born from our persistent sinfulness. He warns:

We ought to be on our guard, in case our conscience has stopped troubling us, not so much because of its being clear but because of its being immersed in sin.

A true reflection on the degree to which we sin ought, according to John, drive repentance. In fact, if we were truly aware of just how grievous our sins (or our sinfulness) was, John insists that we would have no trouble repenting continuously.

He who really keeps track of what he has done will consider as lost every day during which he did not mourn, regardless of whatever good he may happen to have done.

Such an inordinate focus on our sinfulness might ultimately lead to despair, although John has already specifically said that the essence of penance is hope and not despair. To answer this, John offers a story that, while it may not inspire confidence, does model an appropriate attitude of penitence as we seek to approach God. John tells of a group of monks who strove to repent of their sins, tried desperately to conquer the passions, and prayed constantly for forgiveness. Like so many of us, however, they were plagued constantly with doubt. He writes:

With failing confidence, they would often speak to one another as follows: “brothers, are we getting anywhere? Will we be granted what we ask? Will the Lord accept us once more? Will He open up to us? Others would answer: “As our brothers the Ninevites said, ‘Who knows if God will change His mind and deliver us from mighty punishment?’ Let us do what we can. If He opens the door, well and good; if not, then blessed be the Lord God Who in His justice has shut the door on us. At least we should continue to knock at the door as long as we live. Maybe He will open to us on account of our persistence.”

I think there is in this a good, biblical model for repentance: one that acknowledges human depravity, recognizes human ignorance, and throws the soul continually at the feet of a loving God, knowing that it is not our merit but His mercy that makes salvation possible.

Sunday of St. Mary of Egypt

Scripture:


Matthew 20:1-15

For the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard. After agreeing with the laborers for a denarius a day, he sent them into his vineyard.

And going out about the third hour he saw others standing idle in the marketplace, and to them he said, “You go into the vineyard too, and whatever is right I will give you.” So they went.

Going out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour, he did the same.

And about the eleventh hour he went out and found others standing. And he said to them, “Why do you stand here idle all day?” They said to him, “Because no one has hired us.” He said to them, “You go into the vineyard too.”

And when evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, “Call the laborers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last, up to the first.” And when those hired about the eleventh hour came, each of them received a denarius. Now when those hired first came, they thought they would receive more, but each of them also received a denarius. And on receiving it they grumbled at the master of the house, saying, “These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.

But he replied to one of them, “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Did you not agree with me for a denarius? Take what belongs to you and go. I choose to give to this last worker as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or do you begrudge my generosity?”

Proverbs 28:13

Whoever conceals his transgressions will not prosper,
but he who confesses and forsakes them will obtain mercy.

History:

Ambrose, On Repentance, II.1.2,5

For repentance must be taken in hand not only anxiously, but also quickly, lest perchance that father of the house in the Gospel who planted a fig-tree in his vineyard should come and seek fruit on it, and finding none, say to the vine-dresser: “Cut it down, why doth it cumber the ground?”

Let us then not be ashamed to confess our sins unto the Lord. Shame indeed there is when each makes known his sins, but that shame, as it were, ploughs his land, removes the ever-recurring brambles, prunes the thorns, and gives life to the fruits which he believed were dead. Follow him who, by diligently ploughing his field, sought for eternal fruit: “Being reviled we bless, being persecuted we endure, being defamed we entreat, we are made as the offscouring of the world.” If you plough after this fashion you will sow spiritual seed. Plough that you may get rid of sin and gain fruit. He ploughed so as to destroy in himself the last tendency to persecution. What more could Christ give to lead us on to the pursuit of perfection, than to convert and then give us for a teacher one who was a persecutor?

Reflection:

The life of St. Mary of Egypt is the embodiment of the parable told by Jesus in Matthew 20. The story goes that Mary ran away from her parents when she hit puberty in order to pursue a life of decadent sensual pleasure. For seventeen years, she lived as a “prostitute.” I put that in quotes, because she supposedly refused to ask for compensation for her services. She begged to make a living and offered up her body purely for the joy of it. When she encountered a group of pilgrims going to Jerusalem, she joined them on their journey and planned to seduce them for sport. When the group arrived in Jerusalem, an invisible force prevented Mary from following the men into the church. She tried three times, but could not enter the church to venerate the True Cross. This event inspired a profound conversion in her, and she spent the last forty seven years of her life as an ascetic trying to conquer the passions.

Characters like Mary, or like Paul, ought to give us hope. After all, there are few among us so depraved that we can number among our past sins joining a pilgrimage for the purpose of seducing holy men. Fewer still will find any analogy to Paul and his vigorous attempts to exterminate the Christian religion by force. Like workers who have spoiled away most of the day, we can look to these great pillars of faith and know that God is more concerned that we make it to Him than with how long it took to get there.

At the same time, such figures ought to both convict and inspire us. After all, while few of us have been so evil as Mary or Paul, fewer still have been so righteous. We are not great evangelists or great ascetics, and I am not suggesting that we need to be. There are, however, expectations on us as we come to God. If we are called to labor in a vineyard, simply coming will not merit us our wages. We must work in the time that we have. We cannot be, as Ambrose notes, trees which do not bear fruit.

As Lent draws to a close, let us confess and repent of all the times when we have fallen short of the ideals we hoped to exemplify when we set upon this fast so many weeks ago. Then we can find peace in the hope that the loving arms of God are not closed to us, even now.

Prayer:

Our Father, who art in heaven, remit and forgive our debts, for Thou alone art compassionate.
--Orthodox prayer

Gearing up for Lent

I enjoy Lent, an ironic fact that I have agonized over and apologized for in the past. I will not rehash entirely why Lent fills my heart with joy in much the same way that Christmas fills my mouth with bile. Instead, I intend to bask unashamedly in my overwhelming good fortune that, for the second year running now, the Eastern and Western churches will celebrate Easter on the same day.

Why does it matter? Because when we celebrate Easter together, then we observe (for the most part) Lent together. Approximately 1.8 of the 2 billion souls that call on the name of Christ worldwide observe the Lenten season. The rites are different, the mood is different, and certainly the degree of importance is different, but like a giddy child on Christmas morning nothing matters to me except the almost magical wonder of it all. All I see is a time when Christians everywhere cry out in one voice, lamenting their sins and begging for salvation to come. (The best part of all, of course, is that we've all peeked at how the story ends. Salvation comes...spread the word.) The whole body of Christ, the church universal, undergoes a collective cleansing--be it moral, ritual, or merely metaphorical. It is like the Christian version of a New Year's resolution, only instead of resolving to do right for only one day, the Christian struggles with that resolve for forty days participating spiritually in the forty days of struggle that Christ underwent in the wilderness. Even though, as with New Year's resolutions, we know that all our finite efforts will inevitably fail, we know with equal certainty that our union with Christ and his wilderness struggles will unite us mystical to his equally inevitable and gloriously infinite victory. In a single and singular period of mystical penance, we all set our eyes on our inescapable need for redemption, on the certainty of that redemption, and on our own inadequacy in light of that redemption. We shun all frivolity that we have foolishly embraced as joy and elect to sustain ourselves with nothing more than the thirst for the true and pure joy which awaits us as the Son rises on Easter.

If you are not part of a tradition that observes Lent--or if you are and you simply elect not to observe it--I would like to humbly suggest that you find a way to observe it anyway. You may elect to undertake a traditional fast with all its rigorous and "legalistic" requirements. You may embrace the more modern tradition of setting aside for forty days some sin or even some pleasure as an act of devotion to God. You may simply choose to remember the season and the hundreds of millions who will be observing it with you, to intercede for them and for yourself in your prayers. Whatever it is, I have never dedicated anything to God and regretted having given it up. I have only regretted failing to do so or not doing more. "Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up" (Jas 4:10).

However else I choose to observe Lent (and I believe you should "wash your face" when you fast), I will try to make this place a venue for reflection on the season, particularly as it is observed by the Orthodox Church. Beginning tomorrow, I hope to post a quotation from scripture, a quotation from church history, my own reflections, and a prayer on each major holy day in order to give clarity to my own thoughts and hopefully to facilitate the devotions of others.

May God bless you and keep you as you toil for Him, and may He find our living sacrifices pleasing, meager though they are.