Self-Examination and Repentance

Rebecca Sheridan
Sunday, February 25, 2024
Mark 8:31-38

For Sundays in Lent this year, I am walking us through faith practices we can do any time of year, but especially during the forty days of Lent.  Last week, we talked about fasting – not just giving up food for a few days, although that is something worth trying if you never have before and it is healthy and safe for you to do so, but trying to go without something you love.  As I shared last week, giving up anything you really love like chocolate or your smartphone for forty days can help reorient our attitudes toward that thing to put our love for God ahead of whatever else we love.  Today, we have another reorientation faith practice that can sound very intimidating and “churchy:” Self-examination and repentance.
Repentance conjures up perhaps a street corner preacher threateningly challenging us to repent, but remember that “repentance” simply means turning around and going in a different direction.  In our gospel for this morning, Jesus confronts Peter in a powerful and perhaps uncomfortable way, “Get behind me, Satan!” he says. “You are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.”  Peter and the other disciples’ understanding of the coming of the Son of Man, the Messiah, does not include suffering and death.  Here Jesus has been asking them to keep quiet about so many miracles that Jesus has performed, the power he has to heal and restore people to their right minds – all of these good things Jesus wants to keep only within his inner circle for now.  On the other hand, Jesus quite openly wants to tell everyone that he is going to suffer, be rejected, and killed.  Peter doesn’t understand it from his human point of view.  Jesus wants to help him and others understand what God is doing through Jesus the Christ from a different perspective.
Throughout Lent, especially in our worship time, you will hear God’s call to turn back to God to trust God in divine things, rather than focusing on human things.  Jesus helps us see things in a new way, from another perspective – a divine perspective—when we take the time to examine ourselves in relationship to God.  In Jesus’ rebuke of Peter, I have a different image in my head this year.  Not only of a firm and commanding Jesus confronting the forces of evil that try to defy God and tempt us away from God in Satan, which certainly can be a powerful and comforting image.  In addition, I see Jesus getting in front of Peter to symbolically put Satan behind himself as a shield and protector. In this way, Jesus is constantly trying to get in front of us so that we see him and focus on him rather than on the things that distract and pull us in the opposite direction from God.  In this way, Jesus is our protector, shielding us from Satan’s harm.  And facing Jesus, we turn to follow him once again, even if we don’t fully understand, just as Peter and the other disciples certainly didn’t fully understand what Jesus was telling them in this moment.
In a practical way, then, how can we “try out” the spiritual practice of self-examination and repentance?  How do we try turning our focus away from human things and instead set our mind on divine things?  Well, you can try this idea in the coming week in your daily prayers: try journaling or intentionally reflecting on where you felt close to God or blessed by God in your day and where you felt pulled away from God.  I like to do this right before I go to bed at night, but if you are a morning person you can also do this when you wake up, thinking back to the day before.  In the 16th century, Ignatius of Loyola developed this prayer practice called “the Examen,” and I am giving you a very simplified version of it.  Where do you want to see Jesus in front of you, and what can you put behind you that is unhelpful or distracting?  My hope would be that in this simple prayer practice, we see how Jesus is a more powerful force in our lives than any trouble or evil that comes our way.
I’m sharing this in my March newsletter article as well that the simple thing I’m trying to do for the forty days of Lent this year is to “be more present.”  As a busy working mom I find I am often pulled in many directions at the same time, but there are still opportunities for me to be still and know that God is God, and God is faithful!  My goal is to be more present throughout the day to God and to others right in front of me.  Waiting at the bus stop.  Driving in the car with everything off (no radio, podcast, etc.) so that I can talk to God if I’m by myself or to my kids and husband if they’re with me.  Folding laundry or cooking dinner.  There is a component of fasting in my striving to be more present, mainly trying to intentionally limit my phone and other screen use.  Self-examination and repentance starts with simply trying to be present to where we are, who we are, and what we are doing – to pay attention to where God is and turning toward wherever that is and away from the things that tempt us that are ungodly.  In this practice we become less self-focused so that we learn better how to follow Jesus’ lead, keeping him in front, moving forward in faith!
In our scriptures for this morning, we have this good news in Abraham’s story that God is faithful.  No matter how great our sin, now matter how often we turn away, God persists in turning us back again and again to him.  Abraham encourages us that God is faithful and worth following!  Peter is another good example in our gospel for today; certainly he was not perfect.  He sinks in the water walking to Jesus.  He doesn’t understand Jesus’ mission on the cross.  We know he will deny Jesus before his crucifixion.  And yet God uses him in amazing ways to lead the first twelve disciples and grow the early church anyway.  May Jesus stand in front of us and help us reorient to God again and again, to put our faith and trust in his steadfast, abounding love.  Amen.