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There's a story about a convention of psychiatrists who had gathered in a large auditorium near Grand Central Station in New York City. Somehow, a pigeon got in the room and was swooping back and forth above the gathered men and women. However, no one mentioned the bird. It seemed no one wanted to be the first to ask if anyone else saw a pigeon. I mention this to remind us that we each have an inward life of thoughts and perceptions about which no one else knows. It's a private world where we pretend, where we fantasize and engage in the sometimes difficult work of building up a satisfying self image, often wrestling with emotional demons in the process. It involves a certain amount of denial, frequently concealing much about ourselves, not only from others but even at times from ourselves. Yet when we speak about repentance, which is what this Old Testament story is really about, it's that inward life which is involved.

Let's return to the Bible story. As so often happened then as now, the people had slipped away from any deep sense of commitment to their faith. The prophet was disturbed by this and resorted to some rather picturesque language to get his people's attention. "Let all the inhabitants É tremble," he said. "Blackness is spread upon the mountain." Then, "return to the Lord for he is gracious and merciful É abounding in steadfast love." Here we get a foretaste of New Testament teaching. So often the emphasis in the Old Testament is on the power and majesty of God, with love as an occasional undercurrent. Joel though, while trying to get people's attention, made it clear that those who see the error of their ways and are ready to "return to the Lord" will find a forgiving and loving God.

That's a word we all need to hear these days. Without engaging in a diatribe about the current moral situation, suffice it to say the one hope we all have for a solution to America's current unhappy state as regards our myriad social problems is a change in our inward values -- not those to which we pay lip service, but the deeply held belief systems which determine our feelings and conduct day by day.

Although Joel didn't use the word "repent," it's a word that expresses what he was asking his people to do. It's to be found often in the New Testament and, frankly, isn't a very popular word in mainstream theology today. I suppose we've seen too many magazine cartoons showing some disreputable person carrying a placard with a motto that starts with the word REPENT in capital letters, then leads into a comic punch line. Certainly, a scolding approach to the faith these days fails to work for many of us. Yet, if there isn't a fundamental change in the moral climate of our nation in the near future, there's reason to believe tragedy lies ahead for us. Isn't that what Ash Wednesday is all about? An honest inward examination with a willingness to search our hearts with unaccustomed honesty?

The process of repentance begins with sorrow. In other words, there's real discomfort in true repentance. A number of years ago, the movie Love Story contained a line which I thought trivial then and still do. The much-quoted line was, "Love means never having to say you're sorry." On the contrary, love means being able to say, "I'm sorry." Healthy-minded people must have self-critical faculties in good working order which enable us to reflect on some things we've said and done (or failed to do) and experience regret. Maturity means being able to express that sentiment appropriately. We are all occasionally guilty of saying or doing things we later wish we hadn't. Of course, it's possible to overdo this point. I'm not recommending that we go into a major guilt trip every time we slip a little. But at the same time, I'd guess we all know people who seem capable of hurtful conduct, yet it doesn't seem to trouble them. The person who doesn't occasionally say, "Boy, that was a stupid thing I did," or "I can't believe I said something that silly," or who never goes to a friend and says, "Can you forgive me?" is likely to be someone with very few friends. "I'm sorry" can do wonders for relationships.

I love Bruce Larsen's story about the time some friends were visiting, and as they were preparing to leave, they had trouble getting everything in their car. So Bruce offered to give them a car luggage rack he had in his garage. The friends were expressing their gratitude and Bruce admits he was magnanimously accepting their appreciation when his wife walked in and said, "Bruce, you're not giving them that old rack, are you? You know it never worked right." He was, of course, quite embarassed and apologetic. He's to be admired for sharing that very human story with the rest of us. That's honesty. Repentance starts there, the inward look which leads us to genuinely catch ourselves in the things we do or say which are petty or selfish or hurtful.

Repentance, though, must go beyond sorrow. We all know people who act in petty or hurtful ways, who apologize with seeming sincerity, yet who repeat their conduct before long. Their sorrow hasn't really changed them. Repentance requires an inner determination to be different. Jesus said, "Turn away from your sins." In other words, we are to become different people.

I recently did something I wasn't very proud about. I was driving downtown and, being late for a meeting and in something of a hurry, found myself driving behind a driver in a gleaming BMW who was doing exactly the speed limit. In an effort to hurry him along a little bit, I pulled up too close to him (I hate it when someone tail-gates me), and before long he speeded up a bit. Since that was working, I got even closer, he increased his speed even more, at which point a police car pulled out of a side street, lights flashing. I immediately slowed down and the officer pulled alongside me. I looked over and flashed my most disarming smile. He nodded, speeded up, and pulled the other poor guy over. As I passed, doing a sedate 55 miles an hour, I looked in my rearview mirror and saw the officer getting ready to write a speeding ticket for the man I knew full well had speeded up to get out of my way. We had just entered a main highway and there was no way I could return to the scene of my crime, since one doesn't back up on a high speed highway while a police officer is watching. The only good thing I can say about that is that I felt badly enough that I have honestly tried not to do that sort of thing again. The harm was done, but I didn't like myself very well.

To put this yet another way: to repent, as Joel here is calling his people to do, means bringing our conduct under the scrutiny of our faith in such a way as we honestly see ourselves for what we are, and when that conduct has hurt someone or in any way taken something away from our own character, we dislike what we see to the point it makes us want to be different.

There's a third stage to true repentance: inward change. Joel said, "Rend your hearts, not your garments." He was calling for genuine inward confrontation with one's own lesser self. Only when we have done more than simply feel remorse for wrongdoing, a feeling which tends to lessen with time, more than a determination to be better which so easily falls short under the pressures of later moments, only when we have undergone a genuine inner transformation can the process really be complete. That explains why, with all the impressive urging of the prophets of the ancient times, Jesus Christ and his suffering was necessary.

There's a remarkable story in one of the grand old Methodist preacher Leslie Weatherhead's books which helps make this point. He tells of a little boy who was a terrible misconduct problem for his parents. The child seemed to lack a normal sense of accountability for his naughtiness. The parents tried everything. Going from one counsellor to another, they tried strictness, permissiveness, and various forms of punishment. Nothing worked. It appeared the child could easily become an adult sociopath. But one day this little boy was in his backyard trying to teach some tricks to a puppy his parents had bought for him. Of course, the puppy, though trying to cooperate, had no real idea what was wanted of him, and the boy soon became so frustrated he kicked his dog with all of his might. The dog fell, injured. As the boy stood there, uncertain, the little dog struggled to its feet, a trace of blood on its mouth, and crept over to the boy. When he reached out to the dog, the puppy licked the boy's hand as a sign of continuing love and affection. This was too much. The little fellow began to cry, dashed into the house, threw his arms around his mother and sobbed out his shame. What discipline and punishment and scolding had failed to do, his own realization of a hurt inflicted on one who had continued to love him had done. According to the article which reported this true story in a psychology book, the healing of this little boy's personality had at last begun.

In that story lies the dynamic which makes Christianity a life-changing power. If a dog's suffering love could produce such a change, how much more so when a man who, for all we know, could have brought to bear the power of God to punish, chose instead to put himself at our mercy in a grand effort to break through to us in the deepest part of our being. There is the true meaning of Ash Wednesday. When our faith becomes more than an intellectual acceptance of a set of religious teachings, more than the embracing of a set of moral principles which make so much sense to be sure -- all of which are important -- and becomes an inner realization of the unfailing and undying love of a God who never gives up on us, transformation takes place. When I realize that Jesus died, not just for "the world" or "all humanity," but for me personally, and when I understand there's a sense in which his spirit lives in the people around me so that hurts I may inflict on others also, in a sense, compound his suffering as well, it makes me realize I don't want to be that way. Then change takes place, not because we are told we should, but because now we can never go back to being what we were.

May I conclude by sharing something about a man of whom I know? He was a basically good person, but in his college years he was irresponsible. He barely made his way through with low grades, often copying someone else's work, spending most of his time playing at sports or attending fraternity parties. He got his degree but he didn't learn much. In the next few years he began to pay the price for this with two or three futureless jobs. One day, word came that his father had died of a heart attack. Of course, he went to be with his mother who asked her son to help her look after the family affairs: insurance, living expenses, and the like. So this young man sat at his father's desk one day, going through the records of a family lifetime. What he found changed his life. He found receipts for their only son's college expenses, together with evidence of the difficulty his dad had experienced paying past due bills, the small amount spent on mother's clothing, the absence of all but the barest vacation expenses. All so their son could go to college, a blessing he had all but wasted. There it was. The evidence of the parents' sacrifice for which they had asked nothing in return. Gifts given in selfless love. That boy decided right then he could never go on being the kind of person he had been. He managed, with some difficulty, to become enrolled in a Presbyterian seminary. His family had always attended church and he still retained the sentiments of that faith. Today, as a Presbyterian clergyman, his name ranks among the list of distinguished graduates of that school.

That's repentance. To look inward with the kind of courageous honesty that enables us to see ourselves for what we are, to deal with the sorrow, accept the need for a new way to live, and to discover that we do this, not because someone tells us we should, but because we wouldn't have it any other way. That's why Jesus died, to take such a place in our hearts as to make all this possible. When it happens, we always find that life is healthier, and happier É and our world is better.