3rd Sunday After Epiphany - Year B January 24, 2021 Jonah 3:1-5, 10 Mark 1:14-20 Panzer Liturgical Service
One of my favorite things about living in Europe is visiting churches and cathedrals. I love the architecture, the carvings from different media, the stained glass, the feeling of connectedness as I imagine the many others who have worshiped before me. In medieval times, the people, for the most part did not read. They attended the mass to hear the priest read the scripture, preach on it, and pray the liturgy. But beginning in the 11th century, churches brought artisans in to translate the words of the bible, allowing those stories to surround the congregation with the beauty of stained glass and sometimes lifelike representations of its characters.
Ken Follett, best known for suspense novels of international intrigue about WW2, has also penned several series of novels about the growth of civilization, beginning in the Middle Ages. The Kingsbridge series begins in the early 11th century as the idea for cathedral construction is born in England. In his novel, The Pillars of the Earth, he weaves together the lives of builders, carpenters, stone masons, church leaders, nobility and commoners. Not only do we see how the building of this place of worship enhances their understanding of God, but we also get an understanding of how these people see this undertaking as their call – the place and actions where they can serve God best. (This novel is rated PG13 at best, and weighs in at an astonishing 900+ pages, so reading it is not a task for the faint of heart.)
Like many of us, these characters each encounter God in unexpected ways. We wish that we could limit God to meeting us in our desired time and place, but God is relentless in the pursuit of us and meets us in unlikely times and places. Like Jonah, we rebel against God’s call. We run in the opposite direction, hoping to be free from the voice of God inside us, to someplace safe. For us, like Jonah, that doesn’t always work out so well.
Can you think of a moment when God became very real to you? Was it in a time of happiness… or maybe in disappointment or anger? For each of us, there is some moment in time when, without a question or doubt, or maybe with lots of questions and doubts, we believe. It often happens when we least expect it. For some, it is a blinding flash of truth – for others, it’s been there all along.
I’m not sure if you’ve noticed or not, but Epiphany – Year B is all about CALL. This week we continue that theme with a few different takes on not only how people get called, but also, what happens next. Today we will look at two other stories about call – one from Old Testament wisdom literature and one from the gospel of Mark.
Poor Jonah… his worst nightmare has come true. He has gone to give a word of gloom and doom to the people of Nineveh and they have believed all that he has said. The people have done exactly what Jesus also instructed the people to do… they repented and believed in God. What a miracle for God… so why is Jonah so mad? Let’s start at the beginning.
In the first chapter of the book of Jonah, we see Jonah being called – called by God to proclaim to the people of Ninevah the need for repentance. But for whatever reasons – fear stubbornness, or lack of faith, Jonah ran away. And when he ran away, he ran away big. “I’ll go to the other side of the world – to Tarshish – to Spain. Yahweh will never find me there. ”But just as his journey was beginning, a violent storm shook the ship carrying the runaway cargo of God. And the further out to sea the boat went, the more violent the storm became. Soon sailors were throwing cargo overboard to try to save the ship. When that didn’t help, they started searching for the one who had angered the gods so badly. Jonah, asleep in the hold of the ship, was found and ultimately admitted that he was probably the guilty party. “Please throw me off the ship and you will be saved. ”And as a last resort, they obliged him. So, there was Jonah, sinking fast in a restless, turbulent sea.
But that’s not the end of the story. Jonah was worth saving. He just needed to learn an important lesson or two. So, the story tells us Jonah was swallowed by a very large fish, where he lived for three days, talking to himself and praying to God. And when God thought that Jonah could be reasoned with again, the fish set Jonah free, throwing him up on a deserted beach.
Here’s where today’s reading starts. “I got it,” Jonah told the Lord. “You want me to go to Nineveh. I’m on my way. ”Three days later Jonah began what he thought would be a 40-day campaign to the destruction of Ninevah. On the first day, Jonah began to preach. The crux of the sermon was this… “Forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown by Yahweh, the God of the Israelites. ”No word of grace… no promise for the future. No “what if”… no “but on the other hand. ” Jonah felt his responsibility was to warn these worldly, evil people of their destruction at the hand of God. But two things happened, which I think was probably the reason that Jonah didn’t want to go in the first place. The people believed… and God changed his mind.
The people of Ninevah experienced knowledge of God in an unusual way, for as Jonah was preaching his word of death and destruction, they heard God’s word of hope and possibility. Deep inside God’s message was a churning word of hope. “Maybe it’s not too late. Why would God warn us if no possibility existed for us to change the outcome?” And in verses 8-9, the king speaks for and to the people of Ninevah, saying “All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” The people of Ninevah repent, not because of the promise of salvation, but on the possibility that it just might happen.
Now let’s turn to Mark. It’s a bare-bones story compared to other gospel accounts. I have no hymn for this story, but I do have questions. What did the families of these people think? Did they even know who Jesus was? Or what in store for them? And if they did, would they do it again? The bible doesn’t answer any of those questions. But we do know this: It was a turning point – a totally life-changing event. It was Robert Frost’s “The Road Not Taken.” It was the event where we begin to understand that no one’s life is ever the same after they followed Jesus.
There are very special “God moments” in each of our lives. Sometimes they are very subtle, and unless we tune into them, we may not remember them. Others are like huge flags waving in our faces, saying “This is it. God is here.” And, while these experiences may take up very little chronological time, they occupy a large part of our memory and faith experience. They engage us in such ways that they change us and often steer us on paths we never imagined. Or they confirm to us that we are headed in the right direction, even when others question the choices we make.
The Greeks talked about time in two ways, by giving us two words. The passage of time in seconds, minutes, hours and days, is called Kronos, giving us the word, “chronological.” In kronos time, things move in an orderly fashion, dependable and never-changing. It’s military time – where there are 24 hours, or 1440 minutes, or 86400 seconds in a day. It’s what keeps school and work schedules running smoothly, and it’s what keeps us on track to be productive members of society.
But there is another kind of time called Kairos. The word is used in the sense of “a time set by God.” Kairos time seeks to define time as it functions outside the bounds of our orderly imaginations. It is a God-given moment and when it is used by the New Testament writers it always describes an opportunity for conversion and hope.
Jonah expected the people of Nineveh to ignore his words, to go on about their evil little lives. I think he may have even wanted that, at least a little bit. Instead, Jonah’s words changed their lives forever. Instead of thinking, “whatever…,” Jonah’s words were heard as an opportunity for the people and the community to change. It’s actually pretty amazing… without any hope of God’s repentance, without a clue of God’s turning around, the people of Ninevah believed, and because of that belief, their lives would never be the same.
For Simon and Andrew, James and John, this kairos moment meant leaving behind the only work they had ever known. It was the work that fed their families. They contributed to the local economy. They woke early, then caught the fish, and then sold them at the market. Being a fisherman was hard work, but offered them a good life.
But Jesus asked them another unknown path, one of liberation. There was excitement in that – the possibility to break the chains of social oppression, to form a different kind of community. And there was a cost to it. The price of admission was no less than their lives, or at least their lives as they knew them.
When he called for these fishermen to follow him, Jesus changed more than their individual lives; he unveiled new identities for them to the world. As they followed Jesus, their perspective of the world changed. The way they lived changed. The way they saw themselves changed. And the same can be true for us. In giving up preconceived notions about how we’re supposed to live and what we are “required” to do, we surrender ourselves to God and Christ. This is scary, because there is comfort and familiarity in who we think we are. But in shedding the world’s labels, we also have the opportunity to release the fear and shame that often accompany them. [i]
For over 40 years I have been reading Guidepost magazine. Before the internet, I kept the magazines in small notebooks with tabs to help me find the stories that were especially meaningful to me. I loved the story of Gloria Busch and Robert Funk from 1997. A black woman and white man from the rural South, each had harbored long years of resentment along racial lines. Robert learned his bigotry and racism as he served as a local policeman during desegregation. Employers and fellow police officers convinced him that his anger and feeling of superiority were justified. Gloria’s anger was aimed at just that kind of treatment, being passed over at work because of her race, in not being about to find suitable housing or transportation or bathroom facilities.
But through the years, each of them had small moments of understanding that erased that hate, leaving room for something else to grow. They met in 1992 as they gathered with mutual friends for a healing prayer service at the local Baptist church. It was an unlikely and uneasy friendship. But as it grew, they each experienced emotional and physical healing. As they worked through the pain of the past, they acknowledged that this kind of love and friendship is God intended for us. For Robert, the moment he felt closest to God, was when he realized that he no longer saw Gloria as a black woman sharing a meal with his family, but simply saw his good friend. [ii]
Hopefully, when we hear the story of Jonah, or the stories of the disciples leaving their old ways of life to follow Jesus, we realize that there are many ways to be in God’s presence. These kairos moments change our lives, shift our perceptions of what is important and help redirect our efforts and experiences. And like the Ninevites and the disciples, we are asked to repent, turn to God, and to believe in the good news of Christ. When we do this, our lives are never the same.
Following Jesus means freedom, but it’s not just the freedom to live unchained from expectation. On this journey, we discover what it means to be loved by God, and what it means to live in community, depending on one another. On this journey, we are drawn to the lives of others – their joys, their pains, their tragedies, their hopes. In time, we realize that the world doesn’t revolve around us. God has created us to worship him, not the other way around. Ours is a journey of identity in which we move from living to care only to fulfill our needs to claiming the heart which God has given us to love Christ and the world.
God said to Jonah, go – and
after some serious negotiation – Jonah went and proclaimed a word for God. And despite
Jonah’s intentions for God, a people were saved. Jesus said, “Follow me.” And
even though they didn’t always get it right, the disciples experienced God’s
grace in a way that was totally new. Through them, the church was born. And the
good news for today is this: we, too, are characters in that same. Let us hear
the call of God and believe – and when we believe, let us follow.
[ii] “Beyond
the Protests,” Guideposts, February
1997, pp. 9-14.
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