Repenting in the Wilderness
December 9, 2007
Jeremy Bergen
Text:
Isaiah 11:1-10
Matthew 3:1-12
John Chivington grew up on an Ohio farm in the early 19th century, and in his 20s heard a call to become a minister. He was ordained by the Methodist church, and sent west, to serve in the frontier towns of Missouri. This was prior to the American Civil War, and slavery was still a reality in many states. Chivington was opposed to slavery, and used his pulpit to say so. This earned him some enemies, and one Sunday a group of men planned to drag him from the pulpit and tar and feather him. Chivington mounted the pulpit with a Bible and two guns, and said “By the grace of God and these two revolvers, I am going to preach here today.” Soon after, he was sent further west, to minister in Nebraska and Colorado. Perhaps because of his inclination to fight, when the Civil War broke out, Chivington was commissioned as a colonial and led the Union army to a famous victory in New Mexico.
After the war, he became involved in Colorado’s bid to become a state; but there was a problem: ongoing tensions between the white population, and the Aboriginal communities, especially the Cheyenne. His combative nature took on a new tone. He said: “It simply is not possible for Indians to obey or even understand any treaty. I am fully satisfied, gentlemen, that to kill them is the only way we will ever have peace and quiet in Colorado.” Shortly after this, Chivington led a militia who attacked the Cheyenne’s Sand Creek reservation. The Federal army had promised not to attack this reservation, which was giving shelter to an important Cheyenne leader negotiating with the government. Sand Creek reservation was flying the American flag and a white flag of truce. Nevertheless, the Methodist minister John Chivington and his men attacked and massacred the village, killing over 200 men, women and children. Though the massacre was denounced by the army, Chivington did not face any disciplinary action or charges. He remained a Methodist minister.
132 years later, in 1996, the United Methodist church held its large convention in Colorado, and used that occasion to consider how to respond to the legacy of the Sand Creek Massacre. They adopted a resolution of apology that outlined a short version of the story I have just told to you. It acknowledged the horror and injustice of Chivington’s action, compounded by the fact that he was a prominent Methodist leader. The Conference officially extended a hand of reconciliation to the Cheyenne, acknowledged racism as a sin, asked forgiveness for the death of over 200 persons, and promised to hold a healing service of reconciliation.
In the past 50 years or so, churches both Protestant and Catholic, have begun to engage in a particular kind of reflection on their own past. They have asked themselves how their own actions have been contrary to the gospel. In the case of John Chivington, it might seem that he was a single bad apple, and furthermore did not represent or act on behalf of the Methodist church. But the Methodist church acknowledged that the sin of racism is one that infected the whole church, and continues to infect it. It acknowledged that, like it or not, Chivington’s action compromised the witness of church—by linking the church with the genocidal policy toward the First Nations as white settlers moved west.
However, we are now 10 years after that apology, and the promised service of repentance and reconciliation has not yet happened. There is a disagreement between Native American Methodist leaders and the main church office about who should plan the service, and what is should consist of. The Native leaders say that it is not their job to lead the rest of the church in repentance. As far as I can tell, there are hard feelings about this process, and the way forward isn’t entirely clear. This is to say: repentance is not a process that can be under our control nor can the outcome be predicted. It is a beginning, not an end. And yet, to me there is something profoundly right about a church recognizing that it too lives by God’s grace and forgiveness; a forgiveness which is needed because the church often fails to point to Jesus Christ in its words and actions.
John the Baptist’s dramatic call for repentance was much more striking and unusual than we may realize. Of course, the image of John that we have in our minds attracts our attention: the wild-eyed prophet in the desert, a tunic made of camel’s hair, a diet of locusts and honey. But even more unusual than that, John preached a baptism for repentance. At that time, water baptism appears to be have part of the ritual for converts to the faith of Israel. It was a ritual reenactment of the Exodus from Egypt through the Red See, and thereby included those who had not been born Jews into the story of God’s covenant with the Jews. But John’s preaching is directed to the people of Israel, the insiders, not to outsiders. This is most evident in the fact that he addressed both Pharisees and Sadducees—groups that represented different ways of living out the Jewish faith.
John was saying that even if you are a child of Abraham, that is, a member of God’s covenant with Israel, there are still barriers in your own life to righteousness. Don’t assume that just because you are Israel, the People of God, that you are immune to God’s judgment. Is John saying, to us: Don’t assume that just because you are the church, that you are immune to God’s judgment.
About a year ago, just prior to the 200th anniversary of the abolition of slavery in England, the Church of England debated how it would mark this event. Some wanted to join campaigns against contemporary forms of slavery, such as trafficking for the sex trade. This kind of approach would be prophetic and be forward looking. It would continue the legacy of the abolitionists. After all, many of the key people who worked for the abolition of slavery in England were members of the Church of England, and were instrumental in the pressing for the landmark decision of the British Parliament to outlaw slavery and the slave trade in 1807.
Others agreed that joining these campaigns was a good plan of action, but argued for a penitent tone to the 200th anniversary events. They argued that to simply portray the Church as the prophetic voice for justice, then, and now, is to miss out on the fact that God’s judgment extends to the church. They pointed out that many Anglican bishops defended slavery; some bishops in the House of Lords quoted the Bible as the reason they voted to retain slavery. After slavery was abolished, several bishops were compensated by the church for losing their own personal slaves. And, perhaps most shocking of all: the church itself owned slaves. The mission station in Barbados included a plantation, whose slavery were legally the property of the Church of England.
As the Church of England debated what to do, there came an intervention from the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams. And I think it’s worth hearing some of this in his own words: “The Body of Christ is not just a body that exists at any one time: it exists across history. We therefore share the shame and the sinfulness of our predecessors, and part of what we can do with them and for them in the Body of Christ is prayerful acknowledgement of the failure that is part of us, not just of some distant ‘them’.
We have to say that the Body of Christ has been and is in slavery, but also that the Body of Christ has been involved in slave owning. Apology is about that. It is not about political correctness; it is not about trying to gratify some sense of wanting to wipe the record clean. On the contrary, it is part of what we are as a Christian community – the corporate acknowledgement of repentance, which, like every such acknowledgement, ought to stimulate us to action, which is why it is costly.”
Archbishop Williams continued: “In the world around us we see countless examples of how an unacknowledged and unhealed past imprisons us in the present and for the future. We see it in international, interethnic and interfaith tensions. If there is one thing that the Gospel of Christ says to us, it is that, in acknowledging the past, it is possible to open it to the healing power of Christ.”
After adopting a statement of repentance for slavery, the Church of England led a very public Walk of Witness through London which is many ways was an act of humility on the part of the church. This action was a public acknowledgment that the church must continue to work against racism and the objectification of people in all form. But it is also a profound opening up of the church to God’s judgment, and, in prayer, to God’s mercy. It is not about being in control, and not primarily about having a plan of action, but acknowledging that too often sin has control of us. Even in the life of the church.
John the Baptist’s ministry was in the wilderness, and that is significant. The wilderness is a place that can barely support life. The precariousness of life is dramatically evident in the wilderness. After their rescue from Egypt, the People of God wandered for 40 years in the wilderness before entering the Promised Land. In that period, the people’s faith in God was sorely tested, and often found wanting. The wilderness is a time of trouble, of testing, a temporary time that anticipates either entry into a land of blessing, or death. In the Bible, wilderness is linked with judgment because wilderness is at the boundary of life and death. People are reminded that they have done something to separate themselves from God, even though God is the source of blessings and life. God is the way out of the wilderness. God is the stream that flows through the wilderness, bringing dry dust to life. And so, it is to the wilderness that John draws people and demands they make a radical turn-around, repenting of their sins, and preparing the way for the one that his coming after him.
John invokes the image of a tree and an ax. The tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. This is literally a fiery judgment. Hell-fire if not brimstone. John tells us that unless we repent, and bear the fruits of repentance—and I want to talk about these fruits in a minute—then we will be cut down. Being children of Abraham, or members of the church, is no insurance against this judgment.
We are rightly uncomfortable with the idea of judgment. I know that I am. We ought to be uncomfortable because we know that John’s call is addressed to us. We each know that we are weak, that we give in to sin, and that we cause suffering to others. We also know that judgment is not the last word, since God is a God of mercy. But God despises many of the things we do.
We are also rightly uncomfortable with the idea of judgment because God’s judgment and human judgment are often not the same thing. As I look back over instances in which a church has repented for its actions in the past—and this is part of the research I’m doing as a student of theology—I find that often the church realizes that it is called to repent for a time when it presumed to know just what God’s judgment required. In the final two instances I want to talk about, I think this was the case.
In the Reformation, our Anabaptist forebears pointed out many errors and abuses they saw in the church of the day. For example, the Anabaptists believed that only those who made a mature decision to follow Christ, could be expected to embrace costly discipleship, therefore baptism should be for adults, not for infants. They called for a separation of church and state, in part because demands of the gospel are frequently in conflict with the demands of the state. The Anabaptists did not believe that religious convictions ought to be enforced by coercion. But many who were likewise critical of the Catholic church, the followers of Zwingli and Calvin, for example, believed that the Anabaptists were wrong. They said the Anabaptists went too far, that they misread their Bibles, and that their false teachings might cause eternal harm to those who were convinced by them. Many Anabaptists were arrested, put into prison, and some put to death. We should not simply think of those who did these things as bad or evil people, but as people who in many cases sincerely believed that such harsh forms of judgment against the Anabaptists reflected God’s own judgment against sin and error.
In 2004, the Reformed Church in the city of Zurich invited representatives of Mennonites, Amish and Hutterites to Switzerland for a service of repentance. These Reformers, the spiritual children of those who put many Anabaptists to death, confessed that their forebears betrayed the gospel when they persecuted Anabaptists. They acknowledged that Anabaptists were faithful Christians, whose witness was valid then and is valid today. Most remarkably, they said “It is time to accept the history of the Anabaptist movement as part of our own, to learn from the Anabaptist tradition and to strengthen our mutual testimony through dialogue” –the fruits of repentance.
The conference of Swiss Mennonites responded with a word of forgiveness
. But even beyond that, they said that the experience of hearing the repentance of the Reformed Church of Zurich, even 500 years after the fact, was so profound, that it caused the Mennonites to reexamine themselves. They said “The fact that you recognize the difficult points of your history in relation to ours helps us to see ourselves and to meet you differently.” What does this difference mean? I don’t know. It’s just a start. The Mennonites confessed that they have often kept their witness to themselves, become insular and demonized those Christians who differed with them. Both sides pledged to be more intentional in mutual dialogue, to really listen to the convictions of the other, and to hear the word of God through the witness of the other. And in fact, this example of mutual forgiveness is a powerful witness to a watching world. To me, what happened in Zurich in 2004 was an openness to the future—an expectation of something new, of something that comes after judgment and repentance. It is openness to the one who comes after John the Baptist.
Closer to home, there are some in this congregation who remember vividly a day 1986 in Waterloo when the Mennonite Brethren Conference unexpectedly asked forgiveness from General Conference Mennonites in Canada for those cases when Mennonite Brethren pastors excommunicated their members who married General Conference members. These actions of excommunication expressed the belief that the other side lacked true gospel faith and practice. This kind of animosity was very real, in different ways, on both sides. It was very divisive in local communities that had Mennonite Brethren and General Conference members, and was painful in many families. What is the power of repentance, for healing, and for openness to the future? Those who witnessed this request for forgiveness were struck that it seemed profoundly genuine, it was made by some of the very Mennonite Brethren leaders who had disciplined members on account of who those members chose to marry, and it was done in the presence of those who had been excommunicated. The General Conference Mennonites responded with a request to be forgiven for times when they contributed to misunderstandings or animosity. Some say it was a turning point in relations between estranged parts of the wider Mennonite family. One letter-writer to what was then the Mennonite Reporter said that he saw Jesus in the actions of the Mennonite Brethren leaders who repented on behalf of their church.
After repentance, we are turned toward God as if our lives depended on it. We are turned to God to lead us out of the wilderness. Repentance implies action—for the Church of England it required active involvement in campaigns to end modern forms of slavery. But I think just as centrally, repentance calls us into a posture of expectant waiting, and listening. Just what does it mean for the United Methodist church to repent of its past with First Nations? They are still seeking an answer, a direction. There’s no set checklist or formula. Just what does it mean for the Reformed and the Mennonites to learn from each other’s history, to hear God’s word through the witness of the other? We must actively wait.
Repentance names what has prevented us from hearing the word of God: perhaps a sense of entitlement, or racism. Perhaps an all too human confidence that we know exactly what God requires of us. In repentance, we name these barriers, and their power over us begins to diminish. As our history shows us, we must do not only as individuals, but as a community.
For John the Baptist, the image of judgment is the ax reducing the tree to a stump. Isaiah also speaks of a tree reduced to stump caused by judgment. That was just before the passage that we heard read. And in the passage we did hear read Isaiah—like John—knows that judgment and repentance are not the final words, but prepare us for what is to come. Continuing the image of the tree, Isaiah speaks of a shoot growing up from the stump—a shoot from the stump of Jessie. The world is about to turn, from barren wilderness to abundant new life. In repentance, with Isaiah we wait for the one who is to come, who will possess wisdom and understanding, counsel and might, knowledge and fear of the Lord. Isaiah’s expectation is for the one whose very being is reconciliation. The wolf shall live with lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and fatling together, and a little child shall lead them. This is our hope, our Advent. Amen.