The Wonder of Repentance

            I had my gall bladder removed last week.  It was a fairly easy procedure; I have only three incisions, which have now healed.  There were complications with it, though and I know that your prayers helped.  I got cards from some of you and I know that you were with me when all of this happened.  I thank God that the skills of the surgeon were so apparent in what he was able to do.  My gall bladder was full of stones and they had to get out the stones before they could remove the bladder itself.  It was an artful process that I was ignorant of because I was asleep with the anesthetic.  I have had very little pain with it, and have been getting back to normal with the help of my wife and my kids.  Our daughter Melanie is a nurse practitioner and her skills were needed when I was recovering.  I am a man who is richly blessed.

            We have left the season of Epiphany and have had Shrove Tuesday and Ash Wednesday and are now at the beginning of the blessed season of Lent.  These are the forty days preceding our celebration of our Lord’s resurrection on Easter.  But I don’t want to think about that right now.  I want to focus on the season before us.  Lent is a time of repentance.  I think that is a word that is very much misunderstood by most of us.  We always associate it with sin and think that repentance is a process of admitting our guilt and receiving forgiveness for the bad things that we have done.  Certainly, we all need to be forgiven for those times that we have failed and gotten it wrong; but I think that the word repentance means a lot more.  It is a word that means changing direction.  To turn around and to see again where we are heading and what our goals are.  It isn’t simply about our failures.  It is a time to point to our success.  There is a beautiful verse in the Psalm that we read today.  Verses five and six of Psalm 25: 

Remember, O LORD, your compassion and love, *
for they are from everlasting.

Remember not the sins of my youth and my transgressions; *
remember me according to your love
and for the sake of your goodness, O LORD.

            I certainly remember the sins of my youth and my transgressions.  Youth is a time of growing up.  We aren’t mature when we are young and some of us take longer than others to understand what is required of us as humans in this world.  When I went to college, I hardly understood what I wanted to be when I grew up.  I didn’t do very well at Penn State, when I first went there, and only stayed for a couple of years.  I went to a radio announcer class in Pittsburgh after that and began a wonderful twenty-some year career in radio and television before the television station that I was working for collapsed and I was out of work.  When I was a kid, I spent a lot of time in my church.  I was brought up at St. Paul’s in Mount Lebanon, sang in the choir and even in the Cathedral choir for a couple of years.  I remember that we were paid about thirty-five cents a week to do that, which was enough for the carfare that got me to the rehearsals and to the services.  I also served on the vestry of some of the churches that Rosie and I attended while we moved around the country in my profession.  After the station collapsed, I called my rector and told him that I had been thinking about becoming an Episcopal priest.  He encouraged me, we saw the bishop and that fall, I started my seminary training at Virginia Theological Seminary in Alexandria, Virginia, one of the best seminaries in the church. 

            When I look back on what I have done, I was certainly blessed in my life.  The foolishness of my childhood and my youth was converted in to a wonderful career for me, not by my own doing, but obviously by the Hand of God.  I was fortunate to serve two churches in this diocese after I was ordained, St. Philip’s in Moon Township and Christ Church, North Hills.  After I retired in 1999, we went to West Virginia, where I was the interim rector of three churches and helped them in their continued worship.  I was fortunate indeed to be guided and helped out of my eager foolishness into something that I know was helpful to others. 

            Repentance is not an act that we can do by ourselves.  It requires people who are willing to put the past aside and embark on something new.  I know that is what God means by repentance in the season of Lent.  There is much goodness that needs to be done, and the church is God’s agency to bring it about.  Our churches are more than simply places to worship and feel good.  They are also the center of change for our communities.  I know that there is incredible need in this world, and we are in a place to help to fulfill that need.  Care of the poor and those who need healing are why we are here.  Whatever we can do to bring about hope and use the compassion that our God has bestowed on us is our mission.