Repentance: What a concept. Year One, Proper 19, Tuesday

I've been reading the Iliad. Homer's Greeks and The Trojans often regretted, and they continually petitioned the Gods.

But did they repent? Not really.

The notion of repentance is, at least in the West, a uniquely judeo-christian contribution. Today's reading from the Old Testament illustrates one of the most important characteristics of repentance as it is typically portrayed in the Bible (and experienced in life): it is born of humility.

In the reading, Elijah visits and points out what one might have thought was obvious, namely, that King Ahab is awful. And, further, Elijah prophesies that Ahab will meet an awful end.

And, unlike a character in a greek tragedy or epic, Ahab actually listens to Elijah, even though Ahab is far the more powerful man.

Then, Ahab repents--he not only regrets his past, but turns from his ways while filled with a sense of remorse that occupies his present. God relents, at least temporarily, from most of the doom that Ahab foretold.

It is a theme that appears again and again. Throughout the Bible, weak people, people who otherwise lack authority, bear the truth that demonstrates the error of those in power. While scripture is filled with many examples of powerful persons who refuse to repent despite encounters with the truth, there are not a few examples of people who do, in fact, repent.

The New Testament reading today comes from a letter written by St. Paul, who was very much one of those powerful people before his conversion. He was well educated, he cooperated with authorities, he was entrusted with a mission to ferret out what was commonly considered a heresy: his conversion on the road to Damascus literally knocked him down and rendered him helpless. He found relief only from one of the otherwise powerless people he sought to persecute with his power.

It is scene impossible to imagine in Homer.

Why is it that, in judaism and christianity, there is this continual theme of the truth coming out of weakness? I find it impossible to say. It is, in every sense of the word, a mystery. And yet it is one that we must embrace, and one that requires faith to embrace, if we are to enjoy spiritual progress.