Jonah 3:1-5,10 | Mark 1:14-20
It’s well know that Jonah was a reluctant prophet, but he was also a prophet whose words didn’t come true. He came with a simple message – “In forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed”. No ifs, no buts, no explanation (unusual in itself – the Old Testament prophets normally seem to spend a great deal of time and energy listing the sins of the nation they are speaking against). Just “in forty days, boom”.

But it didn’t happen.

Because the people of Nineveh took the message seriously. They believed Jonah. And they also believed that they could do something about it. The message from God might not have had any loopholes, any get out clauses, but they were convinced that God might yet be persuaded.

And they gave up their wicked ways, and God saw, and God changed God’s mind.

Whatever else might have been wrong with the people of Nineveh, whatever they might have got up to, there was one thing they clearly understood: that their actions mattered to God. That the way they chose to live their lives had consequences, not just the obvious, day to day, cause and effect sort of consequences, but consequences in the eyes of God.
And so they repented, they gave up their wicked ways. They changed.

And when they changed, so did God.

In fact, the word used to describe the change in the people, and the word used to describe the change in God, is the same. It normally gets translated as ‘repent’. The people repented and gave up their wicked ways, so God repented, and did not destroy Nineveh.

“Repent” is a good old fashioned Bible word that doesn’t get much use any more, and when it is used, it’s probably truer to say it’s misused. But it’s at the heart of both our readings today.
Repentance isn’t about realising you’ve been in the wrong – though it often starts with that. It isn’t about saying you’re sorry – although that’s often part of it. It’s not about wearing sackcloth, or looking miserable.

Repentance is about change. A change of action, a change of mind, a change of heart, a change of attitude, all of these things and more – a change of orientation.

It’s as if you’ve been walking in the bush, and getting confused about where you are, and then suddenly realising you’ve been holding your map the wrong way. When you turn the map around, you start thinking differently, you look at the terrain around you differently, you feel different, if you’ve been misleading a whole group, you probably apologise, and then you start moving again in a new direction. There’s no single part of that change which is analogous to repentance – it’s the whole thing. A change of mind, heart, attitude, relationships, actions – the whole bundle.

I don’t know if you’re into New Year’s Resolutions – in general I’m not, although last year I did resolve to learn to mix a margarita, a resolution in which I was greatly supported and encouraged by my friends – but it’s obviously a well known truism that the vast majority of New Year’s Resolutions are broken before the end of January. And I suspect that part of the reason is that they don’t look enough like repentance; that they lack this sort of holistic attitude, and focus just on one part of the whole. In a very modern, reductionist, kind of way, we tend to just name the action “I will do this” or “I will stop doing this”

The traditional Jewish and Christian concept of sin and repentance, on the other hand, is about the whole. That’s why in the baptismal vows taken today we didn’t hear “Do you repent of your sins, will you stop doing them” but “Do you repent of your sins, do you turn to Christ, do you commit yourself to God.” The focus isn’t on what you do and don’t do, so much as on what direction you choose to face in.

Which isn’t to say actions don’t matter – as the people of Nineveh understood, they really do – but that we won’t ever solve anything if we just focus on external actions.

And so, when Jesus’ started his ministry, it was with these words: “The right time has come, and the Kingdom of God is near! Turn away from your sins and believe the Good News!”. Jesus’ opening words, were a holistic call to repentance. For added convenience, it comes in three parts, all beginning with the same letter. And I am well aware that by saying that, I have now become a caricature of a preacher. But bear with me, you might find it helps. Jesus’ proclamation was an offer of something to belong to – ‘the kingdom of God is near’; it was a message to believe in – “believe the good news’; and it was a call to a change in behaviour – “turn away from your sins”.

Belonging, believing, and behaving.

In our baptism today, we welcomed Arabella as a member of the Christian community – we invited her to belong. And her parents made promises; that they would encourage her to a mature faith – to believe; and by their word and example they would teach her the way – show her how to behave.

But this call, this invitation to the Kingdom, this challenge to repent, is not just something we do once; it’s not just a baptismal thing, or a conversion thing, or a confirmation thing. It’s a call for every day, every part of our lives. And we all resolve, all the time, to be better people. But much of the time our good intentions go the same way as our New Year’s Resolutions, and for much the same reason – because we only look at one part of the problem. We focus on what we are going to do – how we will behave differently – and forget that we, as people, are far more than just our actions.

I wonder if it might help to look at the ways we want to change in the light of the opening words of Jesus’ ministry. The call to belong to the Kingdom, to believe the good news, and to behave in a way, that reflects that believing and belonging.

For example, suppose there is someone else within the St. John’s community that you don’t really get on with (I know, it’s hard to imagine, but stay with me). And you know that God would have you live a life of reconciliation, a life of restored relationships. So what might Jesus’ call to repent look like?

Well, start with belonging. You are called to belong together to a reconciled people. That might mean simply acknowledging that this community doesn’t belong to you, or to them, but to us, together. Or it might mean going out of your way to belong with the person you don’t get on with – to join with them in some mission activity, to sign up to do morning tea with them. In some way, make belonging with them more real.

And then believing. What you really believe about another person has a profound influence in how you react to them. Can you train yourself, whenever you see or think about them, to remind yourself of that core belief of the gospel: he, or she, too, is made in God’s image, loved by God, a valuable part of the body of Christ?

And then behaving. You can resolve to treat someone differently. To do good by them regardless of how you feel they treat you. To refuse to speak ill of them, but to speak only positively of them.

So here’s a challenge to begin the new year, an alternative to your run of the mill resolution. Ask yourself “if Jesus came to me with a call to repent, what would be the first thing he might call on me to change? What relationship would he have me put right, what pattern of living would he want me to break, what injustice do I perpetuate or allow to go unchallenged out of laziness or self interest or fear”. And then, rather than just resolving to change, ask another set of questions of that context: how might I belong more fully to the kingdom? what gospel truth might I believe more truly? how might I behave in a way more pleasing to God.

We are whole people. We are not just the product of the communities to which we belong, we are not just the sum of our beliefs, we are not just the outcomes of our behaviours. It matters where we belong, what we believe, and how we behave. Don’t leave any of them out.

Amen.