February 17: “Repent”
WEEK ONE
TITLE: “REPENT, BELIEVE, FOLLOW”
February 17 - February 20
Christ began his public ministry (as recorded in the Gospel of Mark) by proclaiming, “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news! Come, follow me.” Repent, believe, and follow. That’s the simple essence of Christ’s call to his disciples over two thousand years ago, as well as it is today. Three commandments that result in forgiveness, faith, and walking with Christ through thick and thin.
In Repentance we turn from our sins in sorrow and humility. We contemplate our condition and ruminate on our spiritual state. We acknowledge that we have sinned in thought, word, and deed--in those things we have willfully done amiss as well as in those good things that we have failed to do. For the follower of Christ, confession and a laying aside of “the weights and sins that so easily encumber us” is a life-long process. In this process there should be an ongoing change of thinking and doing, that results in an ever expanding transformation as we become ever more like Christ.
When Jesus says, “Believe in the gospel,” he calls us to trust him completely. He longs for us to acknowledge him as our only hope and to fully rely on him for both those things we need to help us get through this earthly life but also for eternal life in the world to come. Pastor Charles Henrickson writes, “Trust in Christ your Savior. Take refuge in him. He will save you. He will save you from your sins. He will save you from death and eternal damnation. He will save you by the power of his resurrection unto eternal life, so that you will share in his resurrection on the last day. This is the content of our faith.”
“Follow me,” Christ commanded John, Andrew, Peter, Phillip, and Nathaniel to “leave your nets” with the promise that he would make them “fishers of men.” Sitting at Jesus’ feet, the twelve slowly learned the ins and outs of true discipleship. Christ’s was a boot camp both personal and practical. At every turn the disciples were astonished at the words and works of Jesus as they “grew in the grace and knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.” Thus, we begin our Lenten journey together by meditating on this clarion call --”Repent, Believe, Follow.”
Day 1 - Wednesday, February 17
ASH WEDNESDAY
Title: “REPENT”
Scripture: Matthew 4:17
From that time Jesus began to preach and say, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Poetry:
Prayer in Autumn
by Alicia Ostriker
As to the deep ineradicable flaws
in the workmanship
anger and envy
anger and envy
stemming from the overenthusiasm
that rises like a water lily from mud
and the stone
of self, of ego
that insists on its imperial monologue
that strangles its audience
I would like to repent but I cannot
I am ridden like a horse
~
What does the contriver have in mind
the contrivance wants to know
because otherwise what is the point
of all this moaning
pretending to be sorry for everything
groveling like a chained-up snake
crawling over a stone book
in the rain of words
for which someone is responsible
until at times the food devours the eater
the pot wishes to speak to the potter
the clay chooses the hands
~
We are not competent to make our vows
we are truly sorry
we pull you down from a cloud
or bend our knees to you like sideshow dogs
death breathing invisibly next to us on the bus
in the office in the kitchen on the park bench
we promise to love only you
faithful, faithful, we promise
we lie, we are not competent
still we implore you
please look at us and take us in your arms
not like a master, like a mother
REPENT
Repentance is hard! Let’s be honest, we do the things we do (or, at least, most of the things we do) because we either have to (e.g., go to work) or because we like (even love) to do them (e.g., eat too much ice cream or lust after someone’s else spouse). Sin is a little of both, I think. That is, I “have” to sin because I was born with a sinful, fallen nature that is unable not to sin but at the same time I sin because I like or love the sin itself. Most of us do not want to admit it but it’s true.
The answer to this problem is simple in theory but difficult in practice – repent and sin no more! Though artist Andy Warhol’s life was anything but exemplary in the “sin no more” category, his admonishment to us, echoing Jesus’ own words in Matt. 4:17, is spot on for this first day of Lent. Again, simple in theory (repent) but difficult in practice (sin no more). With Alicia Ostriker most of us would say, “I would like to repent but I cannot.” It is not that we cannot repent but that we do not repent; or, we repent but so quickly fall back into our sinful patterns that we assume our repentance was false – “pretending to be sorry for everything.” It would be easier to give up, to sin with a willfulness that knows no bounds. We should continue in sin so that grace may abound, right?
God forbid! Rather, we need to throw ourselves on the mercy of God and, in the words of The Many, come blindly before the Lord even though we don’t know what to do. Though we may not know what to do to break out of our sin patterns, we do know what to do when we sin: Repent and sin no more! God stands ready to hear our heart-felt repentance and to grant us forgiveness should we truly intend amendment of life. For even if “We don’t know how to pray here” we should “stay here” for our “hope is [God’s] here.”
So, let us humbly confess our sins against God and our neighbor:
Prayer:
Almighty and most merciful Father,
we have erred and strayed from your ways like lost
sheep.
We have followed too much the devices and desires
of our own hearts.
We have offended against your holy laws.
We have left undone those things which we ought to have done,
and we have done those things which we ought not
to have done;
and apart from your grace, there is no health in us.
O Lord, have mercy upon us.
Spare all those who confess their faults.
Restore all those who are penitent, according to your promises
declared to all people in Christ Jesus our Lord.
And grant, O most merciful Father, for his sake,
that we may now live a godly, righteous, and sober
life,
to the glory of your holy Name.
Amen.
Dr. Greg Peters
Professor of Medieval and Spiritual Theology
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Artwork:
Repent and Sin No More
Andy Warhol
1985–1986
Acrylic paint and silkscreen on two canvases
Support: 2034 × 1781 × 33 mm
Displayed: 2034 × 3615 × 33 mm
Tate and National Galleries of Scotland
During the mid-1980s Warhol returned to the newspaper adverts that had informed his paintings in the early 1960s. He created a group of works called Ads and Illustrations that differed from his photographic screen prints and highly stylized images of celebrities. These images are mostly black and white and were created by tracing the original adverts by hand, which created a looser, graphic quality. Within the context of the Cold War, three themes emerged in his paintings during this period: war, death, and religion. Many today are still shocked to discover that Andy Warhol was, as Art Newspaper dubbed him in 2018, a “lifelong, closeted Catholic,” as the artist was primarily associated with less virtuous elements of secular culture. One of the most famous bohemian artists of the twentieth century was a devout Eastern-rite Catholic who attended Mass several times a week.
About the Artist:
Andy Warhol (1928–1987) was an American artist, film director, and producer who was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as Pop Art. His works explore the relationship between artistic expression, advertising, and the celebrity culture that flourished by the 1960s, and span a variety of media, including painting, silk-screening, photography, film, and sculpture. Some of his best-known works include the silkscreen paintings Campbell’s Soup Cans and Marilyn Diptych. Warhol initially pursued a career as a commercial illustrator but after exhibiting his work in several galleries, he began to receive recognition as an influential and controversial artist. His New York studio, The Factory, became a well-known gathering place that brought together intellectuals, playwrights, bohemian street people, Hollywood celebrities, and wealthy patrons.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Warhol
https://www.benedictinstitute.org/2019/08/andy-warhol/
https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/warhol-repent-and-sin-no-more-ar00234
About the Poet:
Alicia Ostriker (b. 1937) is an American poet, critic, and scholar who writes Jewish feminist poetry. She has been called “America’s most fiercely honest poet.” Known for her intelligence and passionate appraisal of women’s place in literature, Ostriker’s poetry and criticism investigates themes of family, social justice, Jewish identity, and personal growth. Of her place in American letters, the writer Joyce Carol Oates noted, “Alicia Ostriker has become one of those brilliantly provocative and imaginatively gifted contemporaries whose iconoclastic expression, whether in prose or poetry, is essential to our understanding of our American selves.” Ostriker has received awards and fellowships from the NEA, the Guggenheim and Rockefeller Foundations, the Poetry Society of America, and the San Francisco State Poetry Center, among others. In 2015 she was elected Chancellor of the Academy of American Poets, and in 2018 she was named the New York State Poet Laureate. She has taught in the low-residency Poetry MFA Program of Drew University and New England College. She lives in Princeton, NJ, and is Professor Emerita of English at Rutgers University.
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/alicia-ostriker
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alicia_Ostriker
About the Devotion Author:
Dr. Greg Peters
Professor of Medieval and Spiritual Theology
Torrey Honors College
Biola University
Rector of the Anglican Church of the Epiphany
La Mirada, California
Dr. Greg Peters is Professor of Medieval and Spiritual Theology in the Torrey Honors College at Biola University. He is also Rector of the Anglican Church of the Epiphany in La Mirada and author of The Monkhood of All Believers: The Monastic Foundation of Christian Spirituality.