Topical Tuesday 05 - Kanye West and Repentance

At the MTV Video Music Awards this past weekend, Taylor Swift won the award for best female video. The most shocking part of the evening, other than MTV programming anything to do with music videos, was Kanye West’s interruption of Swift’s acceptance speech. Kanye took to the stage and said this:

"Taylor, I'm really happy for you. I'll let you finish, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time! One of the best videos of all time!"

It is considered unacceptable behavior to interrupt someone else’s acceptance speech, especially if you’re not even nominated in the same category; Kanye’s gender precluded his nomination for the award. It is also unacceptable to pull someone underneath the bus with you, which, from the look on her face, is how Beyonce felt. After the awards and the following night on the Jay Leno show, Kanye apologized and said that he was sorry for taking away from Taylor Swift’s moment. But how sorry was he?

Kanye has a pattern of taking away from the moments of others. In 2004, he stormed out of the American Music Awards when he lost the best new artist award to Gretchen Wilson. In my opinion, Kanye probably should have won the award; he is tremendously talented. Yet taking away from someone else’s moment because you’re a sore lose is immature and childish. Another time, in 2006 at the MTV Europe Music Awards, Kanye lost an award to Justice and Simian; during their acceptance speech, Kanye interrupted them and told the crowd that he should have won. How sorry can Kanye really be if he continues to act the same way? How sorry can he be if he doesn’t do anything to change?

Truly being sorry for something should lead to repentance. Repentance is a turning away from something and moving in a different direction. Repentance requires more than feeling sorry and momentarily guilty; those feelings need to be coupled with lasting change. Unless our apologies are coupled with actions that show we’ve changed, we’re not really that sorry. Sometimes we keep doing something to hurt a friend, over and over again. We may apologize each time but if we continue to do the same thing, then we’re not really sorry. We can also fall into the same pattern in our lives with God. We can sin over and over again and continually confess that sin to God. But unless we trust in grace to cleanse us and lead us to repentance, we’re really not that sorry and our confession is a little hollow.

Unfortunately, a lot of apologies can simply be lip service. We can say that we’re sorry without ever really changing, without ever truly repenting. We need to not only speak an apology but prove that apology true by changing the way we live, by repenting from and old way and turning to a new one. Obviously, I don’t know Kanye’s heart; I can only perceive his actions. But from his actions, he speaks an apology but he doesn’t live out that apology. When we’re sorry, when we apologize, we need to repent and live out that apology. We need to live out that apology whether it’s to a friend, a family member or our holy God.

How can you live out an apology to someone in your life?