Repentance and Metanoia: A Lenten Reflection

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind.”

– Romans 12:2

As we moved into the season of Lent this year, I also found myself in the midst of a physical move – packing up boxes of books and clothing, taking donations to Goodwill, going through the things that I own and trying to decide what needed to come with me and what didn’t. It’s had me thinking a fair bit about the things we carry with us through life, about how life changes (or doesn’t change) over time, about our relationship to the past and the stories we tell ourselves about our own lives, and about how all of this relates to the present and future.

Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always loved the line from Romans quoted above. The full verse, in the New Revised Standard Version, reads: “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God – what is good and acceptable and perfect.” The transformation mentioned here, in Greek, is a literal “metamorphosis,” and the word for “mind” comes directly from the Greek word nous, the same root we see at play as the second component of the word metanoia.

Now the Greek word metanoia in the New Testament is almost always rendered into English as “repentance,” along with at least one other Greek word, metamelomai. But while metamelomai has a stronger sense of implying regret or remorse after the fact, metanoia, in addition to its sense of “after-thought” (or reflection after the fact), also conveys, in a beautiful way, the sense of moving “beyond” mind – or of moving to a place where we can actually experience a change of mind, a change of heart – a place where we can actually begin to understand and see the world in a new way.

“No one who puts a hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God.”

While the commonly held concept of repentance nowadays does encompass something of the idea of transformation – or at the very least some kind of moral reformation – it doesn’t seem to convey it with quite the same mystical sense of wonder, at least to my ear, as the word metanoia. Repentance all too often gets boiled down to basic notions of transgression and sin and guilt, and – unless understood more fully – it can leave us mired in the past rather than focused on what’s happening now, or on what could happen next.

Reflection on the past can be helpful, to be sure, but there’s a real danger when we let repentance become a burden we carry rather than an opportunity for liberation and transformation. If we let it become a weight, holding us down and holding us back, we miss the chance to start something new in our lives. We start to build an identity for ourselves around our brokenness and our weakness, and that idea of who we are – the story we’re constantly telling ourselves about ourselves – becomes one more weight bowing us down, making it difficult for us to look up and see the pivotal moment where we’re standing – right here, right now.

Later in Romans 12, we read, “If it be possible, as much as lieth in you, live peaceably with all men” (Romans 12:18). I guess the argument I’m making here – or maybe just the observation – is that, at some point, “all men” has to include ourselves, too. We have to find a way, as much as we can, to live peaceably with ourselves. And that means learning to let go of the weight of the past.

It even means learning to let go, at some point, of the weight of our own repentance.

Repentance and New Life

Sometimes the whole idea of repentance can get so bogged down in concepts like sin and guilt that it becomes, rather than true metanoia, just another excuse for clinging and grasping to the false self. We can get so attached to obsessing over yesterday’s faults and failings that we no longer have the energy – the vitality – we need to do something new, or to “manifest your life in a new way,” as Dainin Katagiri puts it. Our repentance then loses the necessary aspects of grace and forgiveness, and we get stuck in the past, mired in mind and reflection when we could be moving on and moving forward.

In an essay on sin and punishment, the Orthodox priest and theologian Fr. John Breck puts it like this:

“The Way into the Kingdom of Heaven is not through punishment, through suffering imposed by a wrathful God whose justice outweighs His mercy. It is through love: the boundless, self-giving love God has for us, to which, in an attitude of ongoing repentance, we respond with love for Him and for one another.”

Moving Beyond Fear

Boxing up everything you own, carrying it all – piece by piece, armload by armload – in and out of doorways and moving vans, up and down sidewalks and staircases, provides an interesting opportunity to reflect on all the stuff of our lives, both physical and otherwise. We carry an awful lot with us through this life – the physical stuff we keep and haul around, memories of the past, hopes for the future, loves and hates, joys and regrets. Sometimes these things serve us, but it also sometimes happens that we get entangled and become their servants instead. They become traps and snares holding us down, keeping us from moving on and embracing all that life has to offer.

I’m still figuring it all out, with at least a healthy dose of “fear and trembling” (Philippians 2:12). But I also think there’s more out there, out beyond our fears and doubts. Just as “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Proverbs 9:10), confession and self-examination might be the best place to start on any journey of repentance. Just as in a physical move, we have to start by taking stock of what we have and where we’re at.

But when we begin to further understand that “Perfect love casts out fear” (1 John 4:18), maybe we can also understand grace as something like the dawning of a new day, like a light to lighten every darkness and delusion, filling the present moment with possibility. As the verse in 1 John goes on to say, “whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.”

Understood this way, repentance and metanoia together can help us open our eyes; drop the old, crushing weight of our guilt and shame; and unlock the doorway to freedom, trust, love, and a new way of living.