THE ANSWER MATTERS

January 22, 2012
Epiphany 3
Jonah 3:1-5,10
Mark 1:14-20

(prayer)

Many people, even those with little experience with the Bible, have heard of the prophet Jonah. At the very least, many people know that it has something to do with him being swallowed by a whale. Although, if we are honest, we might have to admit that we could be getting Jonah and Disney’s Pinocchio mixed up.

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The book of Jonah is unique among the prophetic books of the Hebrew Bible (the Old Testament). Rather than being a collection of the prophet’s messages and speeches, it is a narrative story about the prophet.

The reading for today comes from Jonah chapter three: near the end of the story. I want to lay the groundwork for what we heard a few minutes ago, by summarizing the first part of the book of Jonah.

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Jonah lived in the early eighth century before Jesus: during the time of the Assyrian Empire which grew out of the region centred in the upstream areas of the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers. The main central city of the empire was Nineveh: on the Tigris River, about 1000km upstream from the Persian Gulf. The ruins-mound of ancient Nineveh is located near the modern city of Mosul in northern Iraq.

The story of Jonah starts with Yahweh (i.e God: translated as “the LORD” in most English versions of the Bible) telling Jonah that Nineveh’s wickedness has become too much for God and God wants to confront the Assyrians: Jonah is to be God’s messenger.

Without explanation, the story tells us that Jonah went the exact opposite way to what God had said. Jonah was in Joppa which is in western Israel on the shore of the Mediterranean Sea. The path to Nineveh was over land to the northeast. Jonah bought a ticket on a boat going to Tarshish - to Spain.

I would interpret that to be Jonah saying a big fat ‘NO’ to God’s request.

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Once on its way laterally across the Mediterranean Sea, the ship barring Jonah ran into some very rough weather. It was so bad that the captain knew that his sailing skills alone would not save them. He asked all of the crew and passengers to pray for the safety of the ship. There were people from many places aboard and the captain told them each to pray to their own gods – covering all of the bases – maybe one of the deities would spare them.

Among the people on the ship there was a sense that someone’s god was the cause of their calamity. They questioned each other: ‘What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?’

Jonah was honest about the fact that he was fleeing from his god. That was enough for everyone else: Jonah was the cause of their troubles. Before they forced the issue, Jonah offered to leave the ship. And he was prepared to go before they arrived at the next port. They didn’t want to kill Jonah – they tried to row and sail toward shore, but the winds made that impossible. Jonah begged them to throw him into the sea.

They did ... and the storm quickly abated.

I imagine the other sailors waving thankfully and sadly to a bobbing Jonah as they sailed away, knowing that he was sacrificing himself for them.

The truth is that Jonah’s motivation was not martyrdom. Jonah clearly knew that God was prepared to kill him, if he didn’t go to Nineveh, so Jonah decided to do it himself, he would willingly drown in the middle of the sea rather than go to Nineveh.

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[ Why was Jonah so set against going to Niveveh? Well we don’t learn that until the end of the story, but I’ll spoil the ending for you. Jonah absolutely hated the Assyrians; he did not want them to even be given the opportunity to repent of their wicked ways. Jonah believed strongly enough in God’s mercy that he knew that if the Assyrians repented God would forgive them and they would live. That’s the last thing Jonah wanted. Jonah couldn’t take that chance – he wanted God to remain angry at the Assyrians and take out a strict vengeance on them. Jonah wanted no part in any possibility of forgiveness. ]

So, Jonah allows the Sea to take him rather than answer God’s call.

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{now, we come to the familiar part of the story}

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Instead of quietly leaving this life as he slipped under the water, Jonah was jolted and sloshed around. When he got his bearings, he realized that he was inside of a massive fish. The bible never actually says that it is a whale that swallowed Jonah, but a “large fish”. Don’t get lost in the details of stories like this – the wider message is always far more important than the way the story is told!

Three days, Jonah was in the fish. During that time, Jonah prayed a prayer of overwhelming gratitude for God’s salvation. He re-professed his faithfulness to God. After three days, the fish reached the eastern shore of the Sea and Jonah was released on to the dry land (‘spewed out’ is the way the NRSV describes it).

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As we read this morning, God (again) called on Jonah to go preach to the Ninevites. This time, he went.

Jonah called on the Assyrians to turn away from their wicked ways.

As Jonah feared, the people of the great city acted on his words and worshipped Jonah’s God. They even followed the Hebrew rites of repentance – tearing their clothing, wearing sackcloth. Even worse, as Jonah feared, God forgave. Nineveh was saved.

The story ends with Jonah climbing up a hill to sulk under the shade of a ‘caster bean tree’. In the end, Jonah maintains a strong faith in God (he knew all along that God was ‘gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, ready to [forgive] – Jonah 4:2), but Jonah can’t reconcile his hard-earned distain for the Assyrians with God’s natural compassion.

Jonah knew that God was great, but still didn’t like how God expressed that greatness.

It’s a strange story.

God forgives Jonah’s running away; God forgives the people of Nineveh; but Jonah cannot forgive God for these acts of divine mercy.

It is a reminder that, once hate and anger grip deep within a person, it can be hard to let go of their impact.

Jonah’s is a story, not so much about being called by God, but about the impact of answering that call.

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As we return to the book of Mark today (most of our gospel readings between now and the end of November will come from Mark), we also heard about people being called.

A couple of weeks ago (if you were in church) you might recall that we read the story about Jesus being baptized by John-the-Baptist. Mark (like Matthew and Luke) follows up the baptism of Jesus by telling us that Jesus went into the wilderness for a forty day fast. During that fasting time, Jesus wrestled with tempting possibilities of how to live out his ministry.

Our reading today is the very next part of the narrative. Jesus began to preach: “The kingdom of God has come near.” Mark says that Jesus began doing this right after John-the-Baptist was arrested.

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It is interesting to note that all three of the first gospels say that John preached a message of repentance. Matthew’s gospel puts a bit more clarity on John’s reasoning. Chapter three of Matthew’s gospel begins: In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.’ That’s the same message that Mark says Jesus preached – “the Kingdom of God has come near”.

It’s not too much of a stretch to put the pieces together and conclude that when Jesus ended his wilderness fast and heard that John had been arrested, that Jesus decided to carry on the work that John had begun.

Modern theologian, John Dominic Crossan, has noted that Jesus did learn a significant lesson from John’s experience. John was what we might call ‘a settled preacher’ – he stayed in the Jordan River valley and people came to him. When the authorities grew suspicious of his activities, John must have been easy to find and arrest.

Jesus seems to have decided not to repeat that final experience, so he proclaimed the same message about the nearness of the kingdom of God, but he did it as ‘a travelling preacher’. He would take that Near-Kingdom-Message out to the people.

John’s style was to welcome in;

Jesus’ style was to reach out.

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So, Jesus did not stay in Nazareth (where he spent most of his first thirty years), instead he moved over to the Sea of Galilee, to the fishing villages near Capernaum.

No doubt, people of the region heard his message while he preached there: ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’

How long Jesus had been in the area before he offered Simon, Andrew, James and John (a different John from ‘The Baptist’) the opportunity to join him is not clear. But the impact of Jesus’ presence had to have become deep enough within each of these fishermen that when Jesus called, they responded right away. Mark gives us the impression that there was no need for these four people to think about the offer. “Immediately” they left their nets and followed. John and James were in the middle of mending nets with their father, they ‘immediately’ left the family business and went with Jesus. Andrew and Simon’s response was even more dramatic. They were out on the water in the midst of fishing. When Jesus called, they ‘immediately’ left their nets. I like to imagine them just dropping their nets and running straight out of the water and following Jesus, still soaking wet. [We can only hope that there were others with them, so that all their wares didn’t drift just away.]

Like Jonah, with the fishermen in Galilee, it is not so much about being called, but about the impact of answering that call.

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I really don’t know too many people who have a ton of extra time on their hands. I think it is a fair assumption to say that many of us have FULL lives – and there are, no doubt, those among us who are ‘beyond busy’ with all of the responsibilities and desires of this life.

When we feel called to be part of something important, we have to consider the complex impact of this call. When life is full, you can’t just keep adding things to the pile. Didn’t someone once talk about a camel’s back and straw?

Answering a call almost always involves giving up something else in that pile that is our life.

Sometimes it could be something very tangible and immediately life-affecting like it was for Simon, John, Andrew and James – they made the choice to change vocations.

Jonah’s experience was different – he was being asked to change his attitude – his way of thinking about what was important to him.

It’s interesting (the contrast between these two stories): for the fishermen, the decision to change jobs seems to have come fairly easily, whereas Jonah’s decision to make an internal change was vehemently resisted ... until it was obvious that resistance was futile. And in the end Jonah had not yet fully embraced the change.

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Ironically, for those of us in the modern world, the decision to be a follower of Jesus tends to be more like Jonah’s than Simon’s.

Most of us are in the midst of sorting out a call to internal adjustments. I believe that this kind of calling is brought in to more focus now in 2012 that it was for people who felt the call to be part of the Jesus Movement 50 or 60 years ago.

The rise of the secular society has taught us that ‘living without a religious allegiance’ is not frowned up on. How one expresses their faith and spirituality is no longer assumed or presumed. Our human advances in communication and travel have widened our eyes to the diversity of the world. This knowledge gives us a better sense of how and where we might fit in to the bigger picture of things. Although this may have made each of us feel a bit smaller or isolated in our lifestyle and faith – knowing the reality of our existence has to be a good thing.

So, in this day and age, making any effort to explore one’s spiritual side is going against the grain and must be honoured as incredibly important and valuable.

So, thank ‘you’ for seeking value in this time together today.

Somehow in a world that lauds the majesty of the reaches of human experience and knowledge, you still find yourself asking “is there more?”

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If you look at our church’s website or our ad in the local paper, you will find the call to ‘boost your spirit’.

That phrase is intentionally multi-faceted.

I am hoping people hear that as:

1) an invitation to feel better about this time in their life; and

2) to explore their spirituality.

These two meanings are not necessarily unrelated. I believe that there can be a real connection between an openness to spirit and a sense of contentment with life.

As we delve into what it might mean (for each of us) to be invited to ‘boost our spirits’, we will naturally engage ourselves into a conversations about the priorities and directions of our lives. We will examine what is truly important to us.

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As far as this spiritual exploration relates to Jesus and his mission and message, we can find ourselves challenged to follow in the way of Jesus. Jesus wanted people to turn their lives toward God – to honour a faith in the belief that ‘we are not alone, that we live in God’s world’. The way that Jesus lived out this belief was to draw people together in an open atmosphere of love and mercy – compassion and forgiveness. To Jesus, there is room for all in the shelter of God’s wings.

Contrary to the actions and statements of some people calling themselves Christian, to be a follower of Jesus is to see that this near-kingdom experience must be one of inclusion of the stranger, even the enemy.

A week or so ago, I posted (on the church’s facebook page) a video clip from comedian (and proud atheist) Bill Maher where he mocks people who call themselves “Christian” and yet seem to exude an attitude quite different than the way Jesus focused his message. I’m not going to play the clip for you as part of this spoken sermon as it does have a swear or two in it and I don't want some people to be offended because of the language and miss the point of what is being said, but I will summarize things by saying that how we live out our faith is more important than the labels we put on it. Maher aptly points out that “if you ignore every single thing that Jesus commanded you to do ... you’re not Christ’s followers, you’re just fans.” Here's a link for the web sermon.

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The story of one’s spiritual journey is not limited to our sense of feeling called. It is really about the impact of how we choose to re-orient our lives in the wake of our answer to that call.

In rare cases, people can make a remarkably quick adjustment, echoing the immediacy of the fishermen: feelin born again in an instant. But there is good news in what Jonah believed. God is deeply patient. God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, ready to welcome over and over again.

All the best to each of us on where this journey is taking us.

Thanks be to God. Let us pray:

Holy Mystery,

We are grateful for your divine patience. Support us as we explore the depth of our spirits. Be with us all the way, God. Amen.

#563VU “Jesus, you have come to the lakeshore”