Online Sermons
The Third Sunday in Epiphany: January 25, the Rev. Mark Eccles
Welcome to our website. You are here: The Word --> Online SermonsThis morning I ask you to think with me about our Old Testament lesson from Jonah. One thing though - while the lesson seems clear and simple, it is also sort of like the tip of an iceberg; what we see is important but much more lies below the surface. Under girding today’s lesson are the struggles of Jonah and the patience of God which bring it sense and meaning. The details leading up to our reading have something to say about you and me, and much to say about the boundless mercy of God. With this in mind, and since the book of Jonah is very short, to see our lesson in context let us take a brief walk through Jonah’s story together.
The prophet Jonah is different from other prophets in the Bible. Other prophets were called by God, responded, at least eventually, in faith and conviction, and spoke God’s word to God’s people, Israel. Not so with Jonah. To begin with, God does not send him to Israel. God tells Jonah to go to the city of Nineveh to call them to repentance. Nineveh is portrayed as a wicked city, the capital of the Assyrian empire now known as Iraq, which was as hostile to Israel then as it is now. Jonah doesn’t like the idea. In his thinking, the people of Nineveh are beyond the pale of God’s mercy – they don’t deserve it. Why even bother with them?
So, instead of heading east to Nineveh, Jonah takes a trading ship west, away from Nineveh, and God. Of course, as the saying goes, you can run but you can’t hide, especially from God; Jonah couldn’t, and neither can we – God never lets go of us. We may stumble in our faithfulness to God, but God is always faithful to us. Sometimes God’s presence in our lives is hard to recognize, when tragedy strikes or life seems overwhelmingly hard. Yet God walks with us in all circumstances – whether it may seem like it at the time or not.
And so it is with Jonah. In the story, God sends a storm which threatens the ship. The sailors are terrified and pray to their gods to help, but the storm gets worse. The sailors are sure that the gods are after someone, and that someone is Jonah. Jonah then tells the sailors that his God has things under control, and all will be well if they simply throw him overboard. The sailors end up doing just that, and the sea then becomes calm. They are amazed and praise Jonah’s God. God’s grace was present in the midst of this frightening time; Jonah, even in his unfaithfulness, was a channel for God to bring conversion and a new heart to those who did not know him before. So to with you and me; even when we get off track and fall short in our walk with God, we are still in his hands and can be channels of God’s love for others.
As we know, after Jonah is thrown into the sea he is promptly swallowed by a huge fish. Amazingly, he stays alive and well inside this creature. And while in the fish, Jonah is awakened to God. Somehow this time of captivity helps him see God as a God of rescue and deliverance, and Jonah gives thanks and praise. Finally, after three days, he is spewed out on dry land, safe and sound. What a story! I expect each of us might engage this story in our own way – the Bible often speaks to us in different ways at different times, but I will share with you how the story spoke to me while I was reading it this past week.
While reading this tale it occurred to me that maybe you and I are not strangers to Jonah’s experience. Think about how Jonah must have felt in the belly of this creature, and how you and I sometimes feel. Have you ever felt sort of swallowed up by life’s circumstances, maybe overwhelmed and without much hope, perhaps despaired in the darkness of loss or pain? And yet, through God’s grace, finally found healing and release, saw daylight and new days ahead? Maybe this story doesn’t belong only to Jonah, but to you and me too.
After the fish story we arrive at today’s reading, where Jonah gets another chance. God says: “Get up, go to Nineveh …. and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” Barbara Brown Taylor, in one of her sermons, talks about Jonah at this point. She says the following:
Jonah finally realized he was going to be part of this whether he liked it or not. So
the second time God sent him to Nineveh he went, not because he had a change of
heart but because he knew he had no choice. His only consolation was thinking
how delicious it was going to be, pronouncing judgment on all those Ninevites.
They had devastated Jewish cities and killed Jewish people. They had deported
those who survived and taken them home to be their maids and gardeners. If
Jonah was doomed to become their next victim, he would at least make sure he
got in a few licks of his own before he went down.So, Jonah travels to Nineveh carrying God’s words of judgment: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” That’s all he says! He doesn’t beg them to repent - he doesn’t want them too! He wants them to get what they deserve. A Billy Graham, Jonah is not! But in spite of Jonah’s shortcomings, God’s grace and mercy prevail.
Contrary to what Jonah expects the Ninevites don’t kill him, don’t put him in prison, don’t throw him out of the city; they don’t harm him in any way! Jonah’s words actually reach the king of Nineveh, who then removes his robe and covers himself with sackcloth and sits in ashes as a sign of repentance. And he orders all of Nineveh to fast and to turn from violence and their evil ways, in case God might have mercy and not bring the judgment Jonah had warned them about. And then the last verse of today’s lesson: “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them and did not do it.”
You can read the last chapter of Jonah on your own later, if you want to. Suffice it to say that when the book ends Jonah is not a happy camper. Yet God still does not give up on him but continues to try and get Jonah to come around. End of story.
But what do we take from this story? What message do we carry home? Perhaps the message is two-fold. First, it matters deeply to God that all come to know him, there is no one in the world who does not matter to God; no one is beyond his love. And he uses human beings, with all our faults, to introduce him to others. He used Jonah who, in spite of himself, brought God’s saving grace to others. We didn’t talk about the Gospel lesson today, but if we had, that’s the message there too; Jesus calling his first disciples, plain folks, who would go on to call others to follow Christ.
The second part of the message we can take with us is a sense of God’s abundant mercy. In a commentary on Jonah by Barbara Musselman, she talks about “A Theology of Mercy.” She writes the following:
The (Jonah) narrative illuminates the relationship between judgment and mercy.
Signs of God’s judgment turn out to be expressions of God’s grace…. God’s
dealings with Jonah, Nineveh, and the sailors dispel the notion that anyone ever
merits God’s mercy. Mercy is an utter gift from God…. Those who utterly submit
to God’s authority and seek his mercy are not disappointed.She also writes:
Ultimately, Jonah’s unenthusiastic ministry among the Gentiles transforms many
lives. Tragically, the formation of Jonah himself remains a question to the very
end. But that is not the point of the book; rather, in this narrative we witness the
depth and breadth of God’s forgiving heart as he works in and through even a
a reluctant prophet, offering mercy and grace both to one nearby and to those
far off.A prophet speaks to others the words of God. In this sense, you and I are prophets; each one of us, without exception, is called to share God’s word however we can. The word to be shared is God’s love, forgiveness and mercy found in Jesus. May you and I be blessed to know in our hearts the fullness of God’s love and mercy in Christ, the one to whom we owe everything. May we care enough to show and tell the love and mercy of Jesus to the world around us.
Amen.