Metanoia

Below are a few excerpts from a sermon I preached this past Sunday at the Arlington Presbyterian Church:

Do you believe that people really can change? As Christians, we say we value love, forgiveness, and reconciliation in the abstract. But we often shudder and turn away when the opportunity to live out our values is staring us in the face. If only we had some ancient book full of stories of people changing to be our guide…

Of course the story of Paul on the road to Damascus may come to mind first. Saul, the persecutor of Christians, encountered Jesus and was changed. He was transformed! He then spent his life nurturing and growing the very church that he tried to destroy. 

I ran in evangelical circles in high school and college. We loved conversion stories! We were encouraged to tell our testimonies—our stories of conversion—to bring others to Christ. Our stories of transformation were seen as powerful tools modeled by the stories in scripture used by the early church to change hearts and minds. We talked a lot about metanoia, which we were told was the Greek word for repentance. 

The tradition of sharing testimonies involves a story of life in the “before times” filled with open sin of one kind or another, and then a profound personal encounter with God, the repentance for one’s previous sinfulness, and a change of heart with a commitment to live differently for Christ.

Metanoia—repentance—happened one time, in a pinnacle moment, or maybe a rock bottom.

What I think the evangelical tradition of sharing testimonies misses is the understanding that transformation is more than just one moment, but it is ongoing. There is an ongoing human propensity for transformation. It can occur in all areas of life for all people at all times. Giving your life to Christ, being baptized, having a conversion or change of heart moment is simply the beginning of a life that embraces and accepts as fundamentally true, the human capacity to decide to be different and live differently. 

So, metanoia is more than just repentance. “Meta” is the Greek prefix meaning “after” or “beyond.” The word “noia” means “thought” or “to think.” “Paranoia” and “notion” come from the same root. Metanoia is a profound transformation. “Beyond the mind”, “beyond thinking.”

Josephus, the ancient writer who lived around the same time as Jesus, used the word metanoia to explain the change of mind of those who have begun to “abhor their errors and misdeeds and have determined to enter a better course of life.” Metanoia is a recognition of sin, followed by sorrow, and hearty amendment. Metanoia is taking stock of one’s life, perhaps based on new information or insight, and deciding to be and do better.

The call to transformation that I suggest we all embrace is by no means a call to perfection. Of course, we all fall short of transforming into who we hope to be and what God hopes for us to be. What I’m calling you to embrace is an openness to the reality that metanoia is possible for all people at all times. 

This is a fundamental posture of my faith. No one is condemned indefinitely, no one is too far gone, no one gets thrown away in the beloved community. 

When we throw trash into our cans at home we may think it goes away, but it doesn’t! It goes to rot in a landfill and becomes an issue for other people far from our view. The same happens when people are “thrown away” in society. We cannot actually “throw people away,” we merely sentence them to long sentences in prisons far from our communities to live in subhuman conditions without really reckoning with harm and violence in our communities. We plow down tents communities without any plans to house the people who live there. We shuffle problems from our sight to out of our sight. The beloved community cannot afford to do that.

Richard Rohr, one of my favorite Christian thinkers wrote: “We think fear, anger, divine intimidation, threat, and punishment are going to lead people to love. Show me where that has worked. You cannot lead people to the highest level of motivation by teaching them the lowest.” To lead people to transformation we must love them. In community. Face-to-face. Draw them in, not throw them out. This may seem crazy, but it is the path of the Christian calling.

You may be lifelong Christians, perhaps you’ve never had a clear moment of faith transformation. You can sort of understand what this may be like but you haven’t felt it first-hand. Maybe feeling like the son who stayed in the story of the Prodigal Son, you wonder why there’s such an emphasis on transformation and conversion. 

I love stories of transformation because they highlight the amazing malleability of the human spirit. God is always trying to make Godself known to us. God is always trying to guide us to live more fully in The Way—to live in harmony with each other. You may not have a Damascus Road moment of faith transformation, but I bet you have had ideological shifts. Something you thought was true turned out to not be true. You changed your thinking on race, or poverty, or gender, or privilege. You may have inherited a bias that you worked hard to unlearn. This is metanoia. Who walked alongside you through these changes? For me, every story of personal transformation has been co-written by a kind friend who walked with me through the change. I’d be happy to give you some examples from my own life over coffee—there are some good ones!

This is the core of Christ’s story. Christ walked alongside broken people and showed them how to live more fully in love. Christ loved people where they were, and walked with them into new life. Christ walked with and through their transformations. Christ is forever creating opportunities for us to love him and others more fully by showing his unending love for us.

Now, I must make an important caveat. Some people refuse to change! For metanoia to happen, one must be willing to take accountability and commit to a new life. This isn’t always possible. But I choose to believe that it is possible far more often than not. And if someone is open to experiencing a transformation, God’s call is for us to encourage them and walk alongside them. My work in the criminal justice system, my ministry, is to create opportunities for metanoia for people who have caused serious harm and need a chance to live new lives.

How can we embrace that metanoia is possible in our lives, and in the lives of all people we meet?

Text copyright © 2024 Grace Woodward. All rights reserved.