The Teachings of Jesus in Luke: Repentance

The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here! No one after lighting a lamp puts it in the cellar, but on the lamp stand so that those who enter may see the light. ~ Luke 11:32-33
God does not demand that every (one) attain to what is theoretically highest and best. It is better to be a good street sweeper than a bad writer, better to be a good bartender than a bad doctor, and the repentant thief who died with Jesus on Calvary was far more perfect than the holy ones who had Him nailed to the cross. And yet, abstractly speaking, what is more holy than the priesthood and less holy than the state of a criminal? The dying thief had, perhaps, disobeyed the will of God in many things: but in the most important event of his life he listened and obeyed. The Pharisees had kept the law to the letter and had spent their lives in the pursuit of a most scrupulous perfection. But they were so intent upon perfection as an abstraction that when God manifested His will and His perfection in a concrete and definite way they had no choice but to reject it. ~ Thomas Merton

Ninevah was one of the most important cities in the ancient empire of Assyria (it was where present day Mosul in Iraq lies). As part of Assyria, it was an enemy city.

 It was as bad a place as you could get. It was a bad as, say, a thief would be in comparison to a priest.

 Jesus wasn't really interested in peoples' backstories. He was interested in the here and now.

 Who were they now? How did they treat their neighbor now? 

 How did they follow God now?

 How did they love now?

 How did they light the way on Jesus' path now?

 Did they miss the forest for the trees because they were so intent on being right; being important; being rich; being law-abiding; being patriotic; being 'perfect?'

 Or at least being told they were?

 Were they driven by repentance or by a lack of penitence?

 Did they know that to repent meant to turn around: to go onto a new path?

 Jesus seemed to find that it was easier for those who were told they were on the wrong side of things to see the right side clearly when it came in focus. For those of us who have been told we are in the right too much, it can be really difficult to know when it is time to turn around.
Prayer: Holy One, help me to turn around and see your perfect truth rather than my own imagined perfection. Amen






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