The Will to Turn ©
Reverend Janet Parsons
Gloucester UU Church
September 20, 2026
“Now is the time for turning…
…for us, turning does not come so easily.
It takes an act of will for us to make a turn.
It means breaking with old habits.
It means admitting that we have been wrong,
And this is never easy.” (On Turning, Jack Riemer)
Each year, during the Jewish High Holy Days, people are reminded to practice Teshuvah, which in Hebrew means ‘turning back’, or returning. People are asked to examine their hearts and souls, and to turn away from sin, from times when they might have failed in the past year, when they might have missed the mark. It should never be seen as a time to indulge in guilt or simply to feel remorse, but rather to actively return to the core of integrity, the divine spark dwelling inside everyone, the path toward wholeness.
As our reading tells us, this turning is hard work, an act of will. Because it is hard, and because we are so human, Teshuvah, or turning, is practiced every year, to remind people, and to offer yet another chance for change.
Each year at the services marking Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the story of Jonah is told again, with all of its twists and turns. During our Wisdom Moment, I left you at the point in the story when Jonah is regurgitated back onto the shore by the fish. And then what happened?
You may remember that God had called upon Jonah to travel to Nineveh, in Assyria, to warn the people that their wicked ways were going to lead to death and the destruction of their city. Jonah, as we saw, wanted no part of the assignment. But trapped in the belly of the great fish, Jonah understood that God had saved his life, had shown him mercy, and that he must comply with God’s wishes.
When God spoke to Jonah a second time, giving him a second chance, Jonah dutifully set off for Nineveh. It was a large city for the time, and as he walked through it, he would call out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown!” And as his message was repeated across the city, the people believed him.
When the king of Nineveh heard the news, he responded by exchanging his expensive garment for a robe of sackcloth, and went outside and sat in ashes. And the king issued a proclamation that everyone was to dress in sackcloth, and to begin to fast, to repent for the wicked actions of the city. And the city was plunged into a time of repentance.
When God saw the sincere actions of the Ninevites, God relented, and decided to spare the city from destruction.
Now, how do you suppose Jonah reacted to this news? Well, he was outraged. If we put ourselves in Jonah’s sandals for just a minute, we can understand: Jonah had been through rather a lot. Here he was: given an assignment he tried to escape from, was tossed from a boat during a raging storm, descended into the underworld only to be rescued by a giant fish, and finally returned to land. At this point he saw no choice but to obey God’s commands, only to watch as God decided not to carry out the destruction of the city. He was probably feeling, as we might say today, a little bit crispy.
Jonah asked God to take his life, and went back outside the city, built himself a shelter from the hot sun, and essentially sulked for a few days. God took pity on him and called for a huge bush to grow overnight to provide some shade for Jonah. The next day, though, God switched direction again and caused a worm to eat the bush, leaving Jonah unprotected from the sun and the hot wind. Once again, Jonah asked God to let him die.
And finally, God spoke. God reminded Jonah that here he was, sitting in the sun upset that a bush had died, and at the same time angry at God for deciding that a city full of people should be saved.
Jonah wanted justice – justice against the people of Nineveh, but justice for himself. After all, he turned back toward God, and tried to do what God wanted. In return, God provided mercy, second chances, both to Jonah and to the threatened people of Nineveh.
One message in this story for Yom Kippur is that it is never too late to do the right thing. Jonah made many mistakes. God never abandoned him, and gave him many chances to turn and to set himself on the path God wanted.
There is another way of looking at the story of Jonah. Here we have a tale, all the way from the fifth century BCE, of a spiritual journey. The journey began with a summons, a call, from the Holy. Some of us here have experienced a form of that type of call in the course of our lives: I know that I have. It often takes the form of a quiet voice that might begin suggesting a new path; something that you have never considered before. Sometimes it might feel like permission to choose a path you’ve wondered about but lacked confidence to pursue. Sometimes it might feel completely ridiculous. Maybe it could feel so overwhelming that you respond by trying to run away, as Jonah did.
There are two ways of thinking about that. One is negative: that you cannot escape or outrun God, that God could sink your ship, punish you, and force you to respond to your call. For me, this is the kind of thinking that we sometimes hear expressed by the saying, “God is going to get you for that!” It implies punishment, and a harsh form of justice. But the other way of experiencing a call is to feel held by that quiet voice, to come to feel that a loving presence is never far away, that we are never beyond the reach of that love. So, when we think about turning, do we turn away, out of fear, or turn toward love?
Along your spiritual journey, you sometimes find yourself stuck in a dark place. We have many ways of expressing these times in our lives: a dark night of the soul, perhaps, or lost in the wilderness. This can be a time when we feel disconnected from life, unable to feel the pulsing vibrancy that usually surrounds us. We can be there for far longer than three days and nights, and turning back toward life can feel almost impossible. We might forget to look up for the glimpse of blue sky through the whale’s spout, as our poet put it, or look for the dim glow of light. (see: Things to do in the Belly of the Whale, by Dan Albergotti.)
Then, too, along the way, we can also find ourselves terribly let down, disappointed. We can feel betrayed by what felt like a promise: a promise of that loving presence which might no longer appear to be with us, or betrayed by outcomes of our decisions that are not what we hoped for. Where do we turn? Can we find our way back to the journey we believed in, or do we turn in another direction?
The choice to turn, the ability to turn, is key to our spiritual growth. To grow, we must be able to examine ourselves, to look deeply at our thoughts and actions, and our mistakes, to think about how we might have failed others. We must be able to turn inward, and scrutinize ourselves, to think deeply about how we can do better. Jack Riemer, the author of our responsive reading, reminds us:
“Turning means losing face; it means starting all over again,
And this is always painful.
It means saying, ‘I am sorry.’
It means recognizing that we have the ability to change.
These things are hard to do.
But unless we turn, we will be trapped forever in yesterday’s ways.”
The practice of Teshuvah is an important part of any spiritual journey: to turn, turn back, turn inward, and then to return to the proper path stretching before us. For some this could mean returning to a sense of God’s presence, for others, seeking out once again the deep sense of wholeness and integrity that forms the core of our beings. And for all of us, it is an opportunity to look honestly at our mistakes, and search for ways to not repeat them.
There is resolve in this practice: a sense of turning away from past actions that might have hurt another person. In other words, to repent.
Repentance is a sincere effort to keep from causing continued harm. It is more than an apology; even a sincere apology means nothing without truly wishing to turn, to change our behavior. To repent requires some sort of action, beyond simply feeling remorse or regret.
This summer I caused harm to someone. I realized it right away, and I apologized sincerely. But it was an action that I could not fix; other than an apology, I have no opportunity to make it right. The question I asked, then, has been, “How can I repent?”
It might be easiest to simply say “Oh, well. I said I was sorry, but that’s the best I can do.” But is that all? No, it is not. That’s simply an apology without repenting, without thinking about how to change. And so I am working to become more careful in general, to focus more attentively on how I spend my time, to try to be more mindful. And while this might not directly repair the damage I did, it can help remind me to do my work in a way that benefits everyone.
Our human lives are made up of mistakes, changes in direction, growth in understanding, and dark periods when we can feel that we might not emerge into the light. We have a path before us, although we cannot always see where we are going, or what might be in store around the bend. Behind us we can leave hurt, errors in judgment, and relationships. To try to remain on a path that will guide us toward wholeness, toward fulfillment, toward a sense of oneness with life, we must from time to time turn: turn our attention, turn our direction, turn inward as well as outward beyond ourselves.
By not turning, we can, as our author put it, find ourselves ‘trapped forever in yesterday’s ways.’ Trapped like that, metaphorically in the belly of a whale, will keep us from growing and from living into the fullness of our lives.
May we all take time to examine our hearts, to maybe wince at a difficult memory, and to repent.
