Repentance has no terminus signpost. It is refining our interior disposition to choose to relate to God ever more intentionally and amend our engagement with others and creation ever more justly. The cities of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum would have dismantled the repentance signpost in their opulent days. But today they remain in ruins because they misjudged the message of Jesus. They openly refused to recognize God's favour which was offered to them and so rejected visits of the Messiah. John the Baptist, Jesus and His Apostles came preaching about repentance - a change of heart which ultimately was a new way of relating - but they relied on their opulent prejudices and God was kept in abeyance.

Not even Jesus' miracles could impress them to heed the repentance message. With sadness, Jesus had to say to the cities of Chorazin and Bethsaida, "if the miracles that had occurred in Tyre and Sidon occurred in you, you would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes" (v21). When unrepentance becomes a norm, morality declines and so God is distanced.

Jesus presented to the inhabitants of these towns opportunities of God's favours to save them from slavery to their own laws. However, it is the non-Jews, the second-class citizens who were more ready to receive Jesus' teaching and hence were given a lease of opportunities to enter the Kingdom of God.