First Sunday in Lent – February 22, 2015

This is the first Sunday in Lent. We think of Lent as a time for self-examination and penitence for our sins. Some form of fasting is common. It is difficult to connect any of the passages assigned for today with these themes.

We might consider that the Genesis passage expresses God’s repentance. There seems to be a divine “metanoia, ” a change of mind and direction. God declares that never again will God wipe out most of life in a global flood. God gives divine assurance in the form of a covenant with all living things. This is immensely important, but nothing is said of human responsibility. The need for human penitence is remote.

The Psalmist emphasizes that it is the humble who learn the way. He asks God to forget his youthful sins. We might conjecture that the humble acknowledge their sinfulness, but this is not the point of these texts. We can assume that the psalmist no longer continues his youthful sins. But there is no reference to penitence. Our reading stops with verse 10. Verse 11 seems much more suitable for Lent as we usually understand it. It reads: “For thy name’s sake, O Lord, pardon my guilt, for it is great. In any case that is not part of today’s selections.

The passage in Peter is concerned with how Jesus saves us from sin. But it is silent about our repentance of our sin or any need to examine ourselves or discipline ourselves through sacrificial action. To go from this passage to any support for typical Lenten practices is quite a stretch.

Finally in the last verse of the Marcan passage we do get a call to repent. But let us look carefully at the text. Jesus’ message was: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Repent and believe the gospel.” This seems more promising, but notice that whereas Lent is observed by Christians, Jesus’ message is directed to those who do not yet believe.

We could, of course, blame those who selected these passages for failing to select others that would be appropriate for Lent. But I think that would miss the point. What we can learn, instead, is that the penitential piety that has been so widespread in Christianity in the past thousand years was not part of early Christianity or its Hebrew scriptures.

That the penitential piety that comes to expression so strongly in Lent is a later development does not invalidate it. Its evaluation is a different matter. But because so many have learned that it is the heart of Christian spirituality, it is important to recognize that it is the heart only of more recent forms of Christian spirituality. It is at least worthwhile to ask: what was the form of spirituality advocated by Jesus, Paul, and other early Christians?

Consider again the Genesis passage. It does not talk about human acts or attitudes or beliefs. But it emphatically asserts good news. The good news is that God will not repeat the near destruction of life on the planet involved in the flood. This is presented not as new information about God through some third party. God is quoted, and God repeats the message for emphasis. God will be reminded of God’s promise whenever the rainbow appears.

Nothing is said here even of the importance of believing this message. The fact is that God won’t do it again. People can go about their lives without worrying about this. We could say that the resulting spirituality is life lived with assurance that an otherwise dreaded catastrophe will not take place.

Peter is also stating good news. Jesus died once and for all for human sins and then rose and went to heaven. “Baptism … now saves you …. as an appeal to God for a clear conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ.” The believer does not seek a clear conscience through confession and penance or other penitential means. The clear conscience is a gift connected with baptism, which in turn gains its efficacy from Jesus’ resurrection.

Clearly Peter is interested in strengthening the faith of those to whom he writes. The good news is that they are saved. Believing that they are saved is the heart of Christian spirituality.

What about Jesus’ call to repentance? It is at least virtually a call to believe the gospel. The gospel is that the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of heaven is at hand. To believe this is the metanoia for which Jesus calls. It is to be part of the kingdom of heaven that is at hand.

To put matters bluntly, it seems that in early Christianity, spirituality consisted in belief, and that belief was such that the penitential piety of later centuries would have seemed entirely inappropriate. One believed that one was saved, and that meant free from sin. Struggling to overcome sin would have expressed lack of faith that the task had been done for one.

One problem in holding on to this original Christian spirituality was that the Greek word pistis lost some of its force when translated “belief.” Simply to believe something can mean positively entertaining an opinion. The epistle of James already protests against such a flat understanding of belief.

Pistis has as much to do with trusting as with holding opinions. Furthermore, in some contexts, pistis is better translated as faithfulness. Paul thought of Jesus’ faithfulness even to death as what saves us, and we participate in Jesus’ faithfulness by our pistis, our trustful enactment of our belief that his faithfulness has already freed us from law and sin and guilt.

The habit of self-examination and self-denial has much to commend it. To set aside some part of the year to emphasize these practices can play a positive role in Christian life. But it is well to ask whether it sometimes expresses a loss of the faith that originally gave such joy and such power to the community of believers.