I think for many Americans, the word repent1 conjures up images of a wild-eyed, disheveled man yelling and threatening damnation and hellfire. Of course, we don’t have any audio or video from the first century, and John the Baptist certainly comes close to the stereotypical street preacher, but I doubt that the exhortations of John and Jesus to repent were perceived in quite the same way by their audiences. Jesus certainly talked about hell, but the word he used, gehenna, came from the city dump2. Like many city dumps at the time, spontaneous fires would break out and be left to burn themselves out, so it was a place of constant burning where useless things were tossed.
The Greek word translated repent is μετανοέω (metanoeo). It comes from a prefix meta meaning after and noeo meaning to think, to consider. So the main idea is to reconsider, to think better of some belief or course of action. Jesus invited his hearers to reconsider their lives because the kingdom of God was within their grasp. This is a message as timely now as it was when Jesus proclaimed it 2,000 years ago, especially here in Minnesota.
Since the surge in immigration enforcement began last fall, Minnesotans have borne witness to the violence and cruelty that results when an enforcement agency is well-funded, tasked with meeting arrest quotas, and told that they are not accountable to the people they are supposedly protecting. Minnesotans responded with mutual support facilitated by decentralized networks of volunteers who stepped up to meet the needs they saw. They escorted children to and from school. They peacefully protested. They met released detainees with warm coats, hot food, and assistance. They documented instances of excessive force, twice at the cost of their own lives as ICE or CBP agents shot people who posed no threat to them. They formed loose coalitions of neighbors to raise the alarm when ICE was nearby, blowing whistles, honking horns, and shouting.
This is the kind of love Jesus talked about, love as care. It is not about feelings of affection. It is not about desire or attraction. You can care for someone who distresses you. You can care for someone who frightens you. All you have to do is see that someone has a need that they can’t meet for themselves and meet it for them. You might notice that your neighbor hasn’t left their house for a couple of weeks. Go over and ask how you can help. You might notice ICE agents surrounding a vehicle. Get out your phone and start videotaping. ICE agents might come to your door asking which of your neighbors don’t seem American. Tell them all your neighbors seem American to you. Or as Jesus put it, “Give to the one who asks you, and do not turn away from the one who wants to borrow from you.” (Matthew 5:42 NIV). That is how mutual care works.
Jesus addressed his words to oppressed people living under a repressive and autocratic regime. So when he said, “Reconsider how you live because the kingdom of God is within your grasp,” he was holding out hope for a better future and instructing people in how to resist without violence. We resist oppression by loving one another, by making love such a habit that we even show the same care for our enemies, visiting them when they are sick, feeding them when they are hungry, doing what we can to meet the needs they can’t meet themselves.
Some people might think that I am politicizing the gospel, but Jesus’ teaching was inherently political because it challenged the power structures of the world. In his day, Rome dominated the world through violence and cruelty. Jesus undermined Rome with love and kindness. The Jewish leaders were well aware3 of how dangerous his teaching was, and it is the same today. If we really stand together against the forces of violence, greed, and the continual lust for more, then we will dismantle the means by which those in power continue to amass wealth and power by their extractive business models that harm poor people and the environment. They pander to our desires for convenience, pleasure, and significance and make us compete with one another, but if we cooperate instead, they lose their hold on us. That is why they tell divisive lies and try to cause division among us.
The gospel of the kingdom of God has always been a threat to empire. That is why empires throughout history have sought to destroy it. They have persecuted and killed those who have proclaimed the gospel. When that failed, they tried to co-opt the religious institutions that have kept the gospel message alive, sometimes successfully. Yet the words of Jesus continue to inspire people across the centuries, “Reconsider how you live because God’s kingdom of loving care is within your grasp.”
The people of Minneapolis have shown by their actions that they have reconsidered how they live and have resolved to take care of one another. Of course, not everyone has repented. Some still cling to their old ways out of fear or desperation or privilege. Yet enough have decided to love one another to make a difference in how they responded to the cruel surge in immigration enforcement. The united efforts of hundreds, even thousands, of citizens to exemplify loving care for neighbors has forced the exit of both Greg Bovino and Kristi Noem as well as forcing the Trump administration to scale back their efforts to cow Minnesota. These efforts remain ongoing. In fact, from the perspective of Christians praying for the coming kingdom of God, this is just the beginning. We want to see every heart touched with compassion for the suffering of others regardless of its causes or the identities of those who are suffering.
Jesus and his disciples passed a blind beggar, and his disciples questioned him about who was to blame for the man’s blindness4. They sought to situate his suffering in a moral context of law and order, infraction and punishment. This way of seeing the world allows those who are not suffering to see themselves as righteous, like a politician who boldly declares, “I’ve never been convicted of a crime.” Yet Jesus declares that this man’s suffering was not the result of sin. Instead it provided an opportunity for people to see God at work. He then proceeded to heal the blind man. In doing so, he taught his followers to refrain from judgmental questions that project their own righteousness and instead ask, “How can I help?” Alleviating suffering is an important part of the mission of the church, and those who engage in that work are closer to the kingdom of God than the most pious believer who prays daily and keeps all the rules but also condemns those who make bad choices because they “deserve” what happens to them. What makes the gospel good news is that none of us gets what we deserve. God’s grace and mercy are bigger than that.
- See also this prior article on repentance. ↩︎
- I have learned that this claim is probably not true, since it does not appear until an 11th-century commentary on Psalm 27:13 by Rabbi David Kimhi. Thanks to Walker Franke. However, it is also not clear that Jesus referred to hell as a place of eternal conscious torment as many evangelical Christians believe. ↩︎
- See John 11:48. ↩︎
- See John 9:1-7. ↩︎