Way back in 1980, a British pop band, the Korgis released a single written by its lead singer, James Warren. Lines from its very sparse lyrics read:
Change your heart, look around you
Change your heart, it will astound you.
Warren was really clear: ‘this wasn’t a romantic song at all’, he said ... it was about ‘an individual changing and being a different sort of person, finding the root of their inner confusion, dealing with it and becoming a better person’.
This is the core of our Gospel, the core of both our readings today – because the dominant theme in our Gospel and in our powerful story of Jonah is repentance, a changing of the heart.
Repentance though is often a highly problematic word, infused and confused with an array of related and misleading concepts like sin, shame, regret and wrongdoing. Very often the emotional charge connected with the idea of repenting gets in the way of seeing the beautiful spiritual reality this word is trying to convey.
The word in the Greek is metanoia, which literally means to ‘think after’, or ‘think beyond’, implying to “think differently after …” after, after something … after an encounter with the living God.
And the form of ‘thinking’ referred to in the Greek, the nous, is not simply a logical, intellectual cognitive change. It refers to the central agency, the central sphere of ourselves, that which manages and corrects our direction in life.
And so, metanoia is a complete radical reversal, a change of direction and of our orientation in life. A complete one 180-degree turn. It has nothing to do with feeling bad, being ashamed, atoning by certain actions or confessions or … by giving something up for Lent.
For as soon as we, in the very instant, we turn again to God we encounter Her, because She has always been with us, even if we were not aware. And She is the one who restores us and forgives all our turning away, no matter what misdirection we have taken, no matter how many times we turn away again, our God of infinite love is there, no matter how long it takes, no matter how long we wander.
Sometimes of course, the change is not easy. We can think of metanoia as exercise laps in a swimming pool … EXAMPLE
But this example, though appropriate in some ways in our very individual modern culture, misses the cultural and social metanoia, change of heart, referred to in both our Gospel and our Jonah readings. “This generation”, Christ declaims, “this generation”, the people as a whole, people from the crowds, from Jerusalem, Galilee and all Judea.
In Jonah this group, this collective movement is even clearer: “And the people of Nineveh believed God”. They collectively, not as individuals, proclaim a fast, “everyone, great and small.”
But notice what happens when the King hears of it? He removes his robe, his sign of kingly status and power, lowering himself to be one of the people and joins them in mourning and the symbols of repentance. Now his next act needs to be taken figuratively – proclaiming a fast for the humans and the animals of Nineveh, having them also, the animals, covered in sackcloth.
The point here is the universality of change, a universal change in direction. The inclusion of the animals shows the whole Kingdom, the whole Land is changing heart. And so importantly, the change, the 180 turn, comes from the people below, ‘a ground-up’ swelling of change, but which then is empowered and made more effective by the leaders.
Approaching our text as a living text, as speaking to us now, we may see this as a model for addressing societal and global problems, such as human made climate change or family and domestic violence. Universal change needs to come from the people, but then acted upon and made real by our leaders, who know themselves first and foremost as one of the people.
Perhaps more importantly our living text of Jonah today talks to us about where and from whom we hear the Word of God. From the Ninevite perspective Jonah was a foreigner, a stranger, an enemy away from his Land and his God. He had no status, no home, no family, no place in Ninevah – yet the people still listened.
So maybe, as a world, as a society, as a church, we need to hear from modern prophets without status, without power, without social standing – people such as the young climate activists, like Greta Thunberg, or those without homes, or refugees or people seeking asylum.
But perhaps for us, right here and right now, it is the centrality of group, of communal, of corporate change that is so important to us as we, as individual people, but as members of the Body of Christ, each a member of each other, undertake our Lenten Wilderness journey today and in the weeks ahead.
The presence of others as we sojourn and travel, as we pray and study, as we meet and talk and share, means the presence of the Spirit will be among us. She is with us when two or three gather. It is this presence of the Spirit that helps us turn and change direction.
Because, as we, as any of us know, true change can be very hard: we turn back to God, then turn away, turn back, over and over repeating the same cycle.
But with the presence of the spirit, the divine both among and beyond us, we do not turn completely back to where we were – we are always touched and changed, because our God is a living God and She changes everything She touches.
And so, though we may turn away, shy away from the overwhelming inclusive love of God, we will find we are not back exactly where we started, but we have turned slightly more to face God, orientated ourselves more towards the Divine reality.
And so, little by little, degree by degree we will make our way to the full 180 shift, we will one day completely and fully face God, change our hearts and be open to Her love.
This, our faith, our gracious God who will never cease in love, promises – as the lyrics of the wonderful Korgi song we began with continues:
Everybody's got to learn sometime.
Everybody. Me and you, and all of us; in our Lenten journey now, or later, everybody will learn, will learn who we really are, in the Love of God.
Amen