Colonoscopies, Fried Chicken and Repentance

Most men are pressured to get their first colonoscopy around age 50. I had the pleasure of receiving mine about 7 years ago at age 29.

It all started one week when I had some of the best fried chicken and fried okra from a great barbecue joint down the street. The next day I ate a large pepperoni pizza from Little Caesars, and the constipation had taken full effect. This story is already gross, I know, but it gets worse. I bled every time I went #2 that week.

But instead of telling Stephanie, I just kept on doing what I was doing. And the second week was quite similar to the first. Tasty, yet excruciatingly painful. Eventually, though, I let her in on my struggles and she gave me a thorough tongue-lashing. It was well deserved.

According to medical professionals, you shouldn’t bleed every time you poop. It is probably a sign of some bad plumbing.

So I went to the doctor and got set up for a colonoscopy, which freaked me out. But, of course, the actual procedure was not anywhere as frustrating as the colonblow. You know, the preparatory drink they give you to cleanse your system that keeps you up all night? It’s the worst.

My problem, evidently, was that I consumed way too much fried food, pizza and soft drinks, and not enough fiber and water. That, and I had developed a case of diverticulosis, where small pouches had formed in the wall of my colon.

The doctor basically gently rebuked me for about 10 minutes about my poor eating habits and need for greater self-control. At first I felt myself getting defensive, but then I realized that this man was trying to save me. He wasn’t against me, he was for me. But in order to be for me, he had to call me to repentance.

Repentance? From what sin? James 4:17 says, “Therefore, to one who knows the right thing to do and does not do it, to him it is sin.” I knew I shouldn’t have been eating that way, and yet I kept on doing it for so long. Living in a self-destructive way, all because it made me feel… good?

I was being a bad steward of the body God gave me and I needed to repent.

2^nd Century writing the Shepherd of Hermas says this about repentance:

Repentance is great wisdom. For he who has sinned understands that he acted wickedly in the sight of the Lord. He remembers the actions he has done, and he repents. He no longer acts wickedly, but he does good generously. He humbles… his soul because he has sinned. – Hermas 150CE, Volume 2, p. 22

For some reason, our culture has turned repentance into a negative word. Even large circles of Christianity have cleverly maneuvered their way around scripture to develop systems of theology that insinuate that repentance is no longer necessary because of the cross.

Let me assure you that’s not what the earliest Christians believed. And that’s not what the Bible teaches. Repentance brings life, heath, peace and reconciliation. So may you experience the wisdom of repentance today! 

Shepherd of Hermas on Marriage and Adultery in 150CE

“I charge you,” he said, “to guard your chastity, and let no thought enter your heart of another man’s wife, or of fornication, or of similar iniquities; for by doing this you commit a great sin. But if you always remember your own wife, you will never sin. For if this thought enters your heart, then you will sin; and if, in like manner, you think other wicked thoughts, you commit sin. For this thought is a great sin in a servant of God. But if any one commits this wicked deed, he works death for himself. Attend, therefore, and refrain from this thought; for where purity dwells, there iniquity ought not to enter the heart of a righteous man.”

I said to him, “Sir, permit me to ask you a few questions.” “Go on,” he said. And I said to him, “Sir, if any one has a wife who trusts in the Lord, and if he detects adultery in her, does the man sin if he continues to live with her?” And he said to me, “As long as he remains ignorant of her sin, the husband commits no transgression in living with her. But if the husband knows that his wife has gone astray, and if the woman does not repent, but persists in her fornication, and yet the husband continues to live with her, he also is guilty of her crime, and a sharer in her adultery.”

And I said to him, “What then, sir, is the husband to do, if his wife continues in her vicious practices?” And he said, “The husband should put her away, and remain by himself. But if he puts his wife away and marries another, he also commits adultery.” And I said to him, “What if the woman put away should repent, and wish to return to her husband: shall she not be taken back by her husband?” And he said to me, “Assuredly. If the husband does not take her back, he sins, and brings a great sin upon himself; for he ought to take back the sinner who has repented. But not frequently. For there is but one repentance to the servants of God.

In case, therefore, that the divorced wife may repent, the husband ought not to marry another, when his wife has been put away. In this matter man and woman are to be treated exactly in the same way. Moreover, adultery is committed not only by those who pollute their flesh, but by those who imitate the heathen in their actions. Therefore if any one persists in such deeds, and does not repent, withdraw from him, and cease to live with him, otherwise you are a sharer in his sin.

Therefore the injunction has been laid on you, that you should remain by yourselves, both man and woman, for in such persons repentance can take place. But I do not,” said he, “give opportunity for the doing of these deeds, but that he who has sinned may sin no more. But with regard to his previous transgressions, there is One who is able to provide a cure; for it is He, indeed, who has power over all.”