Earlier this week…

at a reception at Buckingham Palace honouring those working to end violence against women… 

which was hosted by Camilla, the Queen Consort;

Ngozi Fulani––

who was attending…

on behalf of her domestic abuse support group for women of African and Caribbean heritage––

was approached by a senior royal aide a short time after she arrived:

Lady Susan Hussey…

who is one of Camilla’s ‘Ladies of the Household’… 

and a godmother to Prince William.

Without asking, Lady Hussey physically moved Ngozi’s hair braids so that she could read her name tag…

then proceeded to ask her, ‘where are you from?’

Ngozi’s first response was to name her organisation.

The question was repeated ‘No, where are you from?’.

‘Hackney’, she replied.

The question was repeated.

Eventually she was asked what part of Africa she came from.

She replied that, ‘I am born here and am British’.

Lady Hussey responded, ‘No, but where do you really come from? Where do your people come from?’

From there, apparently, it only got worse.

After the event…

when reports of the incident came to light…

Ngozi said that she was shocked and felt very uncomfortable––

like she was being interrogated;

but, if she had said anything or complained…

then she would have simply been labelled as ‘an angry black woman’;

and she was worried that it would have reflected negatively on her organisation.

But she felt like she was being told that coloured people couldn’t really be British;

and that she didn’t really belong.

In the wake of the reports in the media… 

the Palace issued a statement expressing Lady Hussey’s “profound apologies for the hurt caused”…

and announcing that she had “resigned from her honorary role with immediate effect”.

Some of those who had witnessed the incident suggested that…

rather than Lady Hussey being forced to resign…

it would have been better for the Palace to undertake more cultural and sensitivity training.

 

What does it mean to “repent”?

 

Certainly, as children, we’re taught to say “sorry” when we hurt someone…

or do something wrong.

And, in popular thought…

repentance is usually understood as an admission of sorrow, remorse, and even guilt;

but, more than that…

it also means demonstrating, by your demeanour, that you really mean it.

And that’s certainly how we normally understand repentance in a religious sense.

It’s thought to be a feeling of guilt and remorse…

regarding things that we have done or said… 

about which, we presume, God is angry…

and, hence, things for which we need to be forgiven.

Above all else, repentance is seen as an emotional response:

not just confessing that I have done something wrong…

but feeling it––

knowing it existentially––

deep down in the core of my being.

 

And yet… 

that’s not how repentance is understood in the New Testament.

Indeed, the word in Greek that’s usually translated as ‘repentance’ means…

quite literally…

“to change one’s mind”.

However, within their culture and worldview…

they understood ‘the mind’ differently from us.

For them, the mind wasn’t the seat of logical or rational thought.

Rather, the mind was what controlled the human will.

In other words, ‘repentance’ for them––

a change of ‘mind’––

was not, in essence, a feeling at all…

let alone a feeling of remorse.

Rather, repentance involved a fundamental change in someone’s will––

a change in someone’s motivation or priority.

But, following on from that… 

a change in motivation and priorities ought to be manifest…

as a fundamental change in someone’s behaviour;

and a fundamental change in someone’s way of life.

It wasn’t fundamentally an emotional response––

let alone a verbal mea culpa––

it was something much more comprehensive.

To ‘repent’ meant to change the way that you perceived and what you valued… 

and, flowing from that…

a change in the way that you acted…

and a change in the way that you lived your life.

That is what’s meant by ‘repentance’ in our story this morning from Matthew’s Gospel.

Here, John the Baptist exhorts his hearers… 

“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”.

Change the way that you perceive, and value, and live…

because God’s kingdom has come near to us…

because God’s coming reign of justice, peace, and liberation…

has broken into our world;

and, if you don’t change the way that you perceive, value, and live…

then you won’t be a part of it––

you will find yourself on the wrong side of history.

That call to repentance is, fundamentally, a call to embrace the values of God’s kingdom––

fully and completely.

It’s a call to embrace those values not just in terms of how we see the world;

not just in terms of what we believe;

not just in terms of what we value or aspire to;

but in terms of how we act and live––

in meaningful, practical, and concrete ways.

 

But, let’s be honest, most of us struggle with that, don’t we?

 

For most of us, religion remains a fairly cognitive exercise.

Sure, it influences our thinking and our beliefs.

It influences some of our habits and practices.

It may even influence our values.

But so often, it doesn’t fundamentally shape the way that we act or the way that we live––

not in a real sense;

not in practical, concrete ways.

Let’s be honest…

in the church, we can talk a lot about love and forgiveness…

but we find it hard to love and forgive in practice…

especially in the case of people who aren’t particularly loveable or forgivable;

and so often we simply don’t even try.

We can talk a lot about justice…

but we seldom roll up our sleeves and get our hands dirty…

fighting to change the system that causes it…

or going out of our way to help the down-and-out stranger…

or those who are marginalised.

We all enjoy our safe, comfortable, and privileged lives…

and we work very hard to keep them that way––

especially as we get older––

rather than stepping out of our comfort zone…

and taking a stand.

 

As I mentioned last week…

from early times, the church has remembered Advent as a penitential season––

not to the same extent as Lent, of course––

but we are told that, in Advent, we ought to be reflective and repentant…

as well as expectant.

Usually, however, that’s been translated into pondering our ‘sinfulness’––

a sinfulness that forced God to send Jesus to us… 

to be born at Bethlehem and to die at Calvary…

without which we couldn’t be forgiven.

But, as the theologian Marcus Borg points out: 

“That’s a serious impoverishment of Christianity and Advent”.

Instead, he suggests, Advent is… 

“a season of anticipation, yearning and longing for a different kind of life and a different kind of world”.

As such, Advent does, indeed, call us to repentance.

It calls us to reflect upon the state of our world…

and the state of our lives…

and the degree to which we are embodying and living out the values of God’s kingdom.

Advent challenges us…

genuinely… 

to “bear fruit worthy of repentance”;

to live in such a way, that the fulfilment of God’s purposes for creation––

revealed to us in the coming of Jesus––

edge ever more closely…

and become ever more a lived reality.