Each Moment a Decision – sermon on January 25, 2015
Jonah 3: 1-5, 10 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
Mark 1: 14-20 After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
As Jesus walked beside the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the lake, for they were fishermen. “Come, follow me,” Jesus said, “and I will send you out to fish for people.” At once they left their nets and followed him. When he had gone a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John in a boat, preparing their nets. Without delay he called them, and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men and followed him.
Each Moment a Decision – sermon on January 25, 2015 by Rev. Doreen Oughton
Show of hands, please… who here likes to be told what to do? Depends, right, on the circumstances – maybe on who is doing the telling? Bob was telling the pick up choir this morning what to do, and I’m guessing everyone was grateful. When someone needs help but we are not sure what would be most helpful, we are glad for them to tell us. Trying to figure out ways to make our spouse happy, maybe we are glad to be told what to do. But often, we have our own ideas about what to do, and while we may appreciate a little advice on how best to do that, we don’t necessarily want unsolicited input on how to run our lives. “You should get a job where you make more money. You should buy a house before you get married / have a child, etc.” – let alone take orders. We outgrew that when we left our parents’ home, right?
As I read the passages from the book of Jonah and the Gospel of Mark, the word obedience kept running through my mind. What are your thoughts about obedience – moral or immoral? A virtue, or a sign of weak-mindedness?
What we have here are two call stories. Jonah is called by God to go to Ninevah and tell them to repent or face God’s wrath. Andrew and Simon, John and James are called by Jesus to follow him. Not as specific as God’s call to Jonah, but they took it quite literally and walked behind him. In bible study this week, I was asked to share the story of my call to ministry, and I got to share that it started internally – it was my heart opening, it was what I wanted. I like to think of calls as invitations, which can be refused, rather than commands, which, when coming from God, cannot. I have heard many call stories in seminary, and for some it was like mine, something blooming from within, and for others, it seemed to be outside of them, something they did not necessarily want but felt powerless, over time, to refuse.
This is what happened to Jonah. As far as we know, he was not praying to God about how he could be of service. The story says only that the Word of God came to Jonah, saying “Go to Ninevah.” Jonah was not interested. You may have noticed that this morning’s passage says the Word of God came to Jonah a second time, and that is because the first time, Jonah fled, ran in the exact opposite direction that God had told him to go. And God was not having it. Instead of moving on to a more willing prophet, God stormed the waters upon which Jonah had set sail, and had him swallowed up by a giant fished and “tossed” ashore. So now Jonah knows he must obey, and he is not happy about it. He barely covers any ground at all in Ninevah, but, however reluctantly, delivers God’s message.
In the call of the disciples by Jesus, it does feel more like an invitation. And though the fishermen respond immediately and decisively, we are told nothing of their emotional state. Are they excited, scared, happy, reluctant? Could their actions be understood as obedience, or is it the chance to do something they’ve always longed to do? Whatever their emotions, their actions couldn’t differ more from those of Jonah. And yet I have to wonder whether it really went down like that. Mark’s whole Gospel is written with a sense of urgency. The word translated as “immediately” is used 59 times total in the 4 Gospels, and 42 of those occurrences are in Mark. So maybe we can allow for the possibility that they followed him into town that day, had lunch and made plans, then went home to pack a few things, explain to their families, make arrangements for help for Zebedee. They must have let slip into their minds, voiced aloud or not, the question of whether what they were doing was wise or foolish. This question, I think, is so human. We are rarely, if ever, convinced once and for all that a course of action, a choice, was a great one. We might, like Jonah, be convinced that something is a waste of time, foolhardy, or just wrong, wrong, wrong. But if we let go of our stubbornness and negativity, we will instead be faced with uncertainty and second guessing.
And if it didn’t come right away, if they did truly get so caught up in the call that they left “immediately,” well, even scripture tells us that doubts did arise. Think how they wondered about their reward for following Jesus when Jesus told the rich man how hard it was to get into heaven, how they and even their mothers asked for special privileges, about how they abandoned Jesus after his arrest, holed up in Jerusalem, then returned to fishing. And I don’t know about you, but it helps me to remember that. In fact, I love both these stories for the same reason – that a divine call is less about me and my response than it is about the divine pursuit of us to be part of the divine plan.
I mean think about it. Jonah ran away, Jonah put in the bare minimum required of him by God, and yet the result was amazing – a whole city repenting, a king in sackcloth and ashes, a city of sin turning to God. And the apostles – even after their betrayals and abandonment of Jesus, still he comes back to them, breathes his spirit into them, and they go on and do, as Jesus said they would, even greater works than his. These stories are not so much about what Jonah does, or what the disciples do, but what God has done and is doing.
I was really excited to have stories of call on the day we were scheduled to meet with our church consultant, to have the opportunity to wonder together about our call as followers of Christ, individually and as a faith community. Isn’t one of the questions we want to ponder is to what and where is God calling the FCC of Leicester? And I’m so relieved that we have hired someone, because the idea that I was supposed to have an answer was quite intimidating. But of course Betsy won’t have the answer either. Even the Spirit moving through us as we work together won’t likely give us this great answer that inspires us to “immediately” follow. So we have these stories to remind us that it is all right, that God is at work, that it is Christ calling, and will continue to call, maybe commanding, maybe inviting, but calling over and over to be part of something divine. Our questions, our doubts, our reluctance, well, that is how hope walks around in this world. We can flee, we can jump at the opportunity only to question it later, and still God calls, Christ calls. We might not understand or appreciate the fruit born, like Jonah, or we might be amazed at the great things we are part of, like Simon and Andrew, John and James. But the holy Trinity is ahead of us, behind us, beside us and within us. How can we go wrong. Before we sing our closing hymn, I have two lovely poems to share, one inspired by Jonah’s story, and one inspired by Mark’s.
Jonah’s Blessing, by Jan Richardson It comes as small surprise that you would turn your back on this blessing, that you would run far from the direction in which it calls, that you would try to put an ocean between yourself and what it asks. Something in you knows this blessing could swallow you whole no matter which way you turn. Hard to believe, then, that every line of this blessing swims in grace – grace that, in the end, even you will find hard to fathom so swiftly does it come and with such completeness,
encompassing all it finds. What to do, then, with such a blessing that depends so little on us and yet asks of us everything? What to do with a blessing that comes with such strange provision, every inch of it looking like something that will draw us into our dying?
Trust me when I say all it wants is for you to fall in, to let yourself find yourself engulfed within the curious refuge that it hold,s and then to go in the direction it propels you, following its flow, that will bear you where you desired not, where you dreamed not, yet none but you could land.
Mending their Nets, by Andrew King It is a day that could be like any other. The water is calm in the morning light as the gulls thread the air with their singing. The sun is warm on the backs of their necks as the fishermen bend to their mending. The blunted points of their wooden needles float in, float out of the webbing – create a loop, pinch with finger and thumb, thread the needle through and then around again, tighten the knot, pick up the next mesh – callused hands repeating the operation that has been handed down, fathers to sons, from generation to generation.
The net’s hole rapidly closes. Conversation weaves in, weaves out while they’re working, returning often to talk of a preacher whose words have set their hopes rising, the hopes handed down like the knowledge in their hands, woven into the fabric of living. The wind is warm on the cheeks of his face as the preacher comes near with his message.
The world is torn, there is brokenness of heart, there are wounds everywhere in creation. But the preacher has news, good news of change: that God’s healing love is accessible, and he knows this good news can mend the torn world, can be threaded into every heart’s beating.
Now the preacher is calling them, calling their names, calling them to take up new labor, calling them to see, with the vision of hope, people gathered in newness of community, one they will help build, like a great catch of fish, abundant with fresh possibility. The water is calm in the morning light and the gulls continue their singing. The sun is warm on the backs of their necks as the fishermen join Christ in his mending. It is a day that is not – and yet could be – like any other . . .
