All of the characters we have just met from the show Desperate Housewives have their secrets. Some of them are more damaging than others, all of them are quite dangerous to the well ordered lives they live.
We see our collection of Desperate Housewives and at first glance they have everything. They live in Wisteria Lane - a beautiful middle class American suburb which could easily be a gated community where the unworthy are kept locked out. We met Bree who is the Martha Stuart character, her home is immaculate, her cooking wonderful, she has a successful husband, and two adorable children. Yet Bree, deep down, realises her marriage is in trouble, and her son later on tells her he is gay - these are things that the deeply conservative Bree cannot deal with . Her secret is that her world is falling about; to cope she has to become very controlling over the things she can control in the hope that the things she can't will sort themselves out.
We met Lynette who gave up a powerful career in order to have children - three of them! The children are clearly a handful and whilst everything looks ok on the outside, underneath Lynette is not really coping with her children nor is she adjusting to life outside work. Her secret is that she is desperate to get back to work but she feels guilty about the fact that this would mean leaving the kids in a nursery. So for now she goes along with the decision she made to stay at home; a decision which is slowly driving her mad.
Then there is Gabrielle a beautiful model who thought that money would make her happy; so she married a good looking, and rich, husband Carlos. However, married life has not suited Gabrielle. She realises that Carlos is a bully, and wants to control her. She is bored with a life of nothing to do so starts an affaire, for fun, with John the teenage lad who does the gardening. Gabrielle's life is now spent spending money, having fun with John and keeping the secret of her affaire from her husband and her mother in law.
And finally there is Susan - perhaps the character without the secrets but with the neurosis. She has divorced from her husband and spends most of the series agonising about whether to go out with Mike - the hunk who lives across the street. Perhaps her secret is that she really doesn't know how to love again because of her wounds from her first marriage.
All these women, and their men, seem very successful and happy on the surface, yet lying beneath are problems and secrets which they struggle to deal with.
Few, if any of these residents of Wisteria Lane are living in reality. They are all living a lie, or putting on a nice middle-class show for the neighbours and even their own families because they can't bear to deal with the truth, or worse let the neighbours know that their lives are based on falsehoods.
We laugh at the programme, and the messes they all get into to stop people finding out what lies beneath the ordered surface of their lives. But often we too live in such a way. It is easy to kid ourselves that we are happy with different aspects of our lives when actually we are not. We often kid ourselves that all is well, when often there is much to change and turn around.
For all of us there are times when things in our lives need changing. Some of the changes we may need to make could be quite difficult. It may be we are not happy with our bodies and need to diet or exercise more, it may be that our job is slowly killing us and we need to find a better job where our skills and gifts are used and appreciated. It may be that our lover is not good for us and we are living with the lie that any lover is better than no lover. It may be that our friends or relationships with our family is bad for us as they drag us down instead of nurture us. It may be that we need to change these things yet there is nothing, in themselves, wrong with the job, the lover, the friend or the family - just that the way these relationships are structured now are not good for us. Often when we have these things which we know, deep down, need to change we are too terrified of the change process to do anything about it.
In our reading today we hear Jesus calling us to "Repent, for the Kingdom of God is near". We are called to "repent and believe the Good News". So, what has this got to do with the themes we have been looking at so far? What does repentance have to do with our friends in Wisteria Lane and our own lives often in need of change.
The key is in the word the gospels use for "repent". The Greek word is metanoia which means "turn around". It can, and does, mean repent, but we often misunderstand what repentance means. We think that to be repentant is to be sorry for our sins - that is a start, but it is contrition not repentance. I can be very sorry that I glued the keys on Philip's keyboard, or poked fun at Neil's lovely hairstyle - but that isn't repentance. Repentance is about turning away from our behaviours and resolving not to behave in such a way again. Contrition - or sorrow - is the first step, the important step is to turn away from that pattern of behaviour. Repentance involves our lives being turned around.
So what would repentance mean for our friends in Wisteria Lane? What is the Good News for our Desperate Housewives?
For Susan, repentance would be about turning away from her behaviour which doubts her self and her capacity to love. The Good News is that she is loved and can love again. Gabrielle needs to repent of the double life she is leading. It may mean having to repent of her marriage to Carlos - greed is not a good foundation for married life! The Good News for her will mean realising that life is worth more than money and material possessions. In finding this she will find happiness. Lynette needs to repent of the choice she made about giving up work and how her marriage has been structured. The Good News for her is about finding out that her calling to be a mother is not worth less than her calling to a job and finding a way where her gifts and skills can be used in both home and work - though this may not initially be good news for her husband! Bree needs to repent of her need to control everything. The Good News for Bree is around realising that her feelings are important and need to be recognised and acted upon.
Of course repentance can only come from sorrow for the patterns of behaviour which drag us down and only when we realise that we can be changed. The "Good News" that we can change and be changed, will only come from a life-giving encounter with Jesus. Jesus gives us the power to change. Jesus gives us the power to move on from addictive patterns of behaviour which drag us down and which bind us to things which are bad for us.
So, enough of our friends from Wisteria Lane. What does repentance mean for us? What is the Good News for us in our particular contexts? What would be the result of this power to change for us? What do we need to change?
Well the answer will be different for each of us. Perhaps the we can only work out those answers in relation to a set of questions.
The Good News is that Jesus gives us the power to change and the calling to repent. But we can only change in and through Jesus' own power; AA recognised a long time ago that we do not have the power to break our own bonds of addiction.
Prayer
Loving God,
We give to you all the aspects of our lives,
The things others see,
and the things they don't.
We give to you the things we are proud of,
and the things we are ashamed of.
We know you can break the bonds of addiction,
Help us to see what needs to change in our lives,
So that we can be free to worship and serve you
With all our hearts
All our minds
And all our souls.
All this we ask through Jesus, Our Lord,
Amen.
This sermon was first preached in the Metropolitan Community Church of Manchester. Click here for further information.