Priests: Don't Pray for Your Parish to Grow, Pray Instead that It Repents

Photo by Joshua Davis on Unsplash.

This post's title might be triggering to some. I have been thinking about this for a bit and wondering if I should write this post or not. It is not my intention to trigger anybody, or worse, offend. My intention is also not to be flippant and purposely controversial. 

I truly mean what I wrote in the title, and I will explain what exactly I mean by it. 

Why Repentance?

I will use our gospel reading for the second Sunday of Advent (Matthew 3: 1-12) to explain what I mean by repentance. The reading briefly describes John the Baptist's ministry, and two things become apparent in our reading of it, as we shall see.

"In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, 'Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.'" 

The first is John's unequivocal call to repentance. He goes straight to the point and doesn't beat around the bushes. God has called John to prepare the way of the Lord's coming, and John makes it clear that repentance is the way to do so. 

Noteworthy is the fact that Jesus also begins His preaching ministry with the same word: repentance (c.f. Matthew 4:17). This fact alone should make us pay special attention to this word. 

The second thing that becomes apparent in our reading of this Sunday's gospel is the immense popularity of John's ministry: 

"Then the people of Jerusalem and all Judea were going out to him, and all the region along the Jordan, and they were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins."

John's ministry was marked by a bold call to repentance, and this call to repentance did not in any way detract from the popularity of his ministry. Repentance, properly understood, is both needed and attractive. 

What is Repentance and Why Does it Get a Bad Rep?

Repentance is doing a 180. It is turning away from where you are going to head in a different direction. It is changing your mind, where before you used to think one way and now you think differently. 

Repentance is not primarily about shaming someone. It is not about changing someone into something they are not. It is simply calling them to God's intended purposes for their lives. 

Repentance gets a bad name, I believe, for a couple of reasons. The first is the abuse by manipulative religious leaders who are bent on shaming their followers for their benefit and power. This is an abuse of power that Jesus encountered in His time and did not mince any words in condemning it:

"They tie up heavy burdens, hard to bear, and lay them on people’s shoulders, but they themselves are not willing to move them with their finger." (Matthew 23:4 ESV). 

Many religious leaders continue this practice, unfortunately. A key sign to identify this abuse is to ask how their ministry is empowering them and benefiting them instead of the people they serve. If they are laying heavy burdens on the people, and not lifting a finger to help them, they are in ministry to take advantage of the folks they are supposed to serve. 

You will tell true repentance by its fruits: when it happens, it gives fruits worthy of repentance (c.f. Matthew 3:8). People change for the better. Communities become healthier. There is a health, a thriving in communities and their people that is hard to miss and impossible to manufacture by manipulation, for proper repentance is the work of the Holy Spirit. 

The second reason repentance gets a bad rep is our pride and comfort. The call for repentance is a disruptive one. It calls us from our comforts and the easy roads smoothed by our habits. It also shows us where we are wrong, and since many of us attach our opinions to our worth, being wrong becomes an existential crisis. A simple discussion on social media can highlight how many of us are unwilling to admit when we are wrong, even when substantial evidence is given against our views! 

What Do We Need to Repent Of? 

In my experience in The Episcopal Church, two areas have become clear that are ripe for repentance. The first is its privilege and the second is its lukewarmness. 

Our Self-Righteous "Virtue Signaling"

It is no secret that The Episcopal Church tends to be more "progressive", as are many of the mainline denominations. The calls for social justice and reform are so ubiquitous that at times, they take so much space that other important calls of the gospel are neglected or forgotten.

I've found too many times, however, that this important call to social justice and reform comes with little sacrifice from the church and its most privileged members. Whenever the call to justice calls on them to give up something that hurts, I have encountered a wall made of "virtue signaling" bricks by many of the church's well-intentioned but comfortable members. 

The Episcopal Church's call and at times fixation on social justice issues come across to many of us as hollow and superficial. That this call takes up so much space at the expense of other gospel essentials only adds salt to injury!

We need to repent of the comfort that our power and privilege bring! We need to move from simple inspiration to the realm of true sacrifice! In other words, we need to do less talking and more taking up of our crosses. 

God through the prophets spoke sternly against such superficial piety that knows nothing of repentance and little of sacrifice. The best example is found in Isaiah:

“Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
    and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
    and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
    and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
    and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?" (Isaiah 58: 5-7).

Notice how God asks us to not abandon fasts (sacrifices) but to replace a superficial and outward sacrifice (fasting, sackcloth on holy days) with true sacrifice: costly actions that truly restore justice. Our virtue signaling has replaced the fasting and sackcloth of holy days long gone, but they are as superficial (or even more superficial!) than the true sacrifice the Lord requires of us. 

We need not look past our Christian tradition to see what kind of sacrifices God asks of those in positions of power and privilege: Kenosis.

Kenosis, or self-emptying, is the example that Christ gave us and demanded of many of His disciples. To the Rich Young Ruler, He asked him to sell all that he had and then follow Him. (c.f. Matthew 19:16-30).

Luke 9 is replete with examples of Jesus calling His disciples to a life of kenosis. To His apostles, He asks them to "take nothing for the journey." To a hungry crowd, He asks His disciples to "give them something to eat" before He performed the miracle of the multiplication, letting them know that this miracle is also going to cost them something. 

After declaring that the Son of Man must suffer at the hands of many, He turns around and demands that those who wish to follow Him must also carry their crosses, and not for a little while, but daily.

And finally, He shows Himself the prime example of this kenosis life, when he tells someone who just promised to follow Him wherever He went: “Foxes have dens and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.” 

If that wasn't enough, we have an ancient Christian hymn quoted by Paul in Philippians:

"Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross." (Philippians 2: 5-8).

But having this mind is painful, and treacherous to our pride and privilege. And so, we remain content with virtue signaling to others and nourishing our own progressive self-righteousness. If you think God will not deal with us justly unless we repent, then perhaps we need to re-read the words of the prophets with fear and trembling for our congregations. 

The Chosen Frozen 

Some years ago, I asked a group of Episcopalian converts after service why they had chosen to become Episcopalians. They said something along these lines, "because this church doesn't demand much from us, like the others. You can come and that's OK, and you can also not come, and that's OK too."

Another time before this, back in my Roman Catholic days, I was involved in teaching RCIA. One of the most unusual converts to Roman Catholicism I encountered there was a lesbian married couple who were coming from the Episcopal Church. They understood full well Rome's position on same-sex marriage, and they still chose the Romans.

When I asked them why they said they were hungering for a deeper commitment to their faith. The Episcopal Church, they offered, gave them little of that. 

I have found this to be true in my experience, with a few notable exceptions. Lukewarmness seems to characterize a lot of our parishes. A Laodicean spirit seems to roam our pews, and our people seem unmoved by the graces and other great benefits the church has to offer to its members in the Sacraments. And we as a church appear content not to demand too much from them.

We are either ignorant or undisturbed by our Lord's warning to the church of Laodicea: "I know your works, that you are neither cold nor hot. I could wish you were cold or hot. So then, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold or hot, I will vomit you out of My mouth. Because you say, 'I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing' - and do not know that you are wretched, miserable, poor, blind, and naked" (Revelations 3: 15-17). 

One wonders whether we believe our Lord's warning, or we are so steeped in our privilege that we think it is not possible to be applicable to us anymore! If what the Lord says is true (and I believe it is) we should again be reading these words as priests with fear and trembling, praying for the conversion of our congregations! 

Perhaps this is the main reason for our recent decline. Perhaps we are witnessing (if you pardon the crudeness but necessity of these words) the vomiting of our church from our Lord's mouth. 

As priests and faith leaders, as ones who made vows to this church, it is our responsibility as the pastors of its congregations to not only call them to repentance from all their sins, particularly those that have caught a special hold on them but to also be on our knees, with fasting and other sacrifices, to ask for our Lord for His forgiveness and to lead us to true and lasting repentance.

This is what I'm planning to do in this new year, and I hope and pray you can join me.