I grew up in a very different Christian tradition: a Mennonite church planted in the South and very assimilated to its Southern Baptist neighbors. A feature of most services was the “altar call,” when the wayward sinner or the person in need of prayer was encouraged to come up in front of the entire congregation and pray with the pastor. In theory, it was a moment of support and community.

In practice, it often became a test of wills between the pastor, the number of verses in the accompanying hymn, and someone being willing to “take one for the team” to make it end. Repentance in the early church was also a public act when one had been separated from the body for notorious sins as a liturgical act. It had a structure, and indeed grew and changed with the church, becoming the act of confession before a priest, and in our tradition, also part of our corporate worship, a statement made to another lay person, or just to God.

In our confession we say that “[w]e are truly sorry and we humbly repent.” Too often we think of this as a general feeling of sorriness and contrition, like a child who ate the cookie and is caught red handed. As a recovering academic and classics professor, I always hesitate to reach to the meaning of Greek words used in the New Testament, but it is hard not to think about the components of mετανοέω (metanoeō), the word from the Christian scriptures we translate as “repent.” 

It literally means to “perceive afterwards,” and by extension to change one’s mind. Like other counterparts that gained religious significance, the word’s base meaning is ordinary. Centuries of tradition give it the weight we feel towards the act when we say of the penitential rite that “all may, some should, none must.” 

The etymology points to a deeper point, though. It is not enough to “say sorry,” not even enough to simply avoid the act in the future. We must change our hearts and minds. We must re-evaluate our prejudices and ways of viewing the world that draw us away from God’s love and the love we ought to show to God’s people–to the whole of humanity. The path of Lent reminds us of this as we walk through it, giving up or taking on things that force us to look at the world a bit differently: like Peter, to discover that good news is for those we thought outside it; like Saul, to find a new name and new life among the people whom we have harmed. In other words: to repent and return to the Lord.