How to Speak: A Lesson for Myself

How To Speak: A Lesson for Myself

A Sermon on Jonah 3:10- 4:11

By Griff Martin

For the Beloveds of First Austin: a baptist community of faith

September 24, 2017

Incarnate God, we ask that you once again take the Word and transform it into a living and breathing Resurrected reality we can all together experience. Be present here in this space and in these words God for if you are present here then nothing else will matter, but if you are not present here then nothing else will matter. In the name of the Creator, the Risen Christ and the Comforter.  Amen.

This is the part of the story we don’t read all that often. The first part of the story we love because it makes for such a great children’s Sunday School lesson because what is more exciting than the booming voice of God, a huge storm at sea and a giant whale swallowing you up whole….

And of course the truth is that the whale is really just a minor part of the story, which should give us a warning when being swallowed by a whale is not the big event. And this is a story we should not write off as a children’s story only.

It starts with Jonah getting a call to prophesy to Nineveh. It’s not a call to be a prophet, it would appear that Jonah already has that call. Jonah is already one who represents God. Jonah is one who speaks for God. Jonah is a God-follower. Jonah is one who says I will speak on behalf of God and act on behalf of God. This call is very specific: “Go to Nineveh, the great city.”

I think Jonah must laugh at first, surely this is a joke… Nineveh, a great city? For Jonah Nineveh is out of the question. It’s one of the largest cities of the time, located in what is today Northern Iraq on the eastern border of the Tigris River. It’s the capital of the Neo-Assyrian Empire. For Jonah, these are the people who have conquered and killed so many of his people, they have ruined great cities, they have killed his people and they have made his people slaves. They are enemies, these are a people and a city worthy of biblical destruction. And Jonah is not alone in his thinking, Nahum and Zephaniah echo this in their books as well just in case it’s been a while since you spent time with either of their voices.

And so Jonah packs his bags ever so quickly and heads in the opposite direction. I can just picture him running to his house and throwing things in a bag frantically and when I picture it I hear the soundtrack for his packing  and leaving in my head: it starts with the Dixie Chick’s “Not Ready to Make Nice” and that perfect chorus, followed by “Do You Hear the People Sing” from Les Mis and then Simon and Garfunkel’s “The Sound of Silence” and Arcade Fire “I Give You Power” (which tells you everything you need to know about my iPod). And with those songs playing Jonah packs his bags and heads in the opposite direction of Nineveh. If Nineveh is North, he heads South.

So when Jonah is told to go preach in Nineveh, he high tails it on a boat the opposite way. He is done with God, but God is not done with Jonah.

A huge storm happens while Jonah is traveling, it’s a storm strong enough to scare the sailors into confessing… which must be some storm and must be some type of confession. And then Jonah steps into the middle of the sailors, “Guys this might be me. You see God told me to do something and I said no and I think God might be just a bit angry with me.” And the sailors are quick to throw him overboard.

And Scripture: “But the Lord provided a big fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly for three days and three nights.”

And we will just let that verse stand alone. It’s worthy of it, unpack it later.

Eventually while in the belly of the fish, Jonah prays a prayer of confession, a hail Mary pass. The Lord hears Jonah’s prayer and the Lord commands this fish to spit Jonah up onto the shore. It’s interesting that in this text- a fish, the wind and the waves, the sailors- they can all obey God, but it’s the one who literally speaks for God who can’t obey.

And Jonah is spit up onto the dry land near Nineveh. And once he’s there he finally answers God’s call and he preaches the worst sermon I have ever before heard: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Don’t ever say there is no such thing as a bad sermon, there it is. And here is the hardest part of the story, the most unbelievable element in a tale that is already far fetched, after that 8 word sermon- a sermon that does not even mention God or grace or love or beauty or Jesus- a sermon that is not even really a complete sentence or thought- a sermon that is more a threat than anything else- after that sermon the entire city of Nineveh repents. They fast, they believe in God and they repent.

And that takes us to where our text picks up today. Starting with what must be the scariest verse in all of Scripture in Jonah 3:10: “and God changed God’s mind.”

And maybe that verse as well should be a stand alone… to think of everything we think we know about God and all we have ever been taught about God and the tension created with this verse, with just 5 words, “and God changed God’s mind.” It ought to make us tremble.

The city of Nineveh is not destroyed, which to me seems pretty true to the character of God… so maybe there is the tension, God changed God’s mind, not God’s character. Or maybe that is just trying to let me sleep better at night.  Whatever- whichever it is, God does not destroy Nineveh. In fact I think God actually rejoices, I can hear this echo of another famous moment “this city which was dead has come to life, that which was lost has now been found.” I think that is God’s favorite line in our whole book.

But it’s not Jonah’s. Jonah wants none of it. Nineveh was supposed to be destroyed, what is going on?

And Jonah utters this confession: “I knew you were a gracious God, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, ready to relent from punishing… and who really wants that God? What good is that God? So kill me now….” It’s quite a prayer

It’s interesting that Jonah would rather be dead than admit he might be wrong in what he thought these people deserved, that it seems God can lower God’s standards quicker than Jonah can, that he would rather be dead than experience grace, that he seems to prefer a God whose verbs are smite and destroy and not love.

Jonah is living proof of Anne Lamott’s great line: “You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you hate.”

And First Austin, if God is not stepping on our toes just yet than a lot of us are not listening. So let’s talk straight, let’s put it out there on the table: politics in the church. I know this is a conversation that is going on and has been for a few months here. And I have been exploring this conversation in small groups and over coffee and over beer and at dining room tables in our church over the last few months and here is what I have learned.

First it’s not really about politics. We are all aware that we live in an age where everything we say, on both political sides, is taken with a political bend and everyone hears everything with a particular lens and we are all about a breath away from fighting all the time, we are living in a time of intense reaction and response, our bodies at a constant state of flight or fight, which is not healthy and we are tired, we are so tired.

And it’s not really about issues either. Most of us know that this church has a beautiful mosaic of different opinions, for many of us that is something we love here. We love that we worship with folks who don’t feel the same way on all things, that makes us, us and we should celebrate our diversity.

Here is what it’s about: how we treat one another. As a friend said it best to me: “I did not vote the way I assume you voted and I don’t feel as strongly as you do on certain issues and I think I am probably in the minority here at First Austin and I am okay with that, I am learning and even changing my mind some… but here is where I struggle and it’s not the pulpit or the politics or the theology right now, it’s the community- it’s how we are responding to one another on Facebook, it’s the snide comments in Sunday School, it’s everything said in such an argumentative tone, it’s the looks that I get from some members and what this makes me think is that I don’t belong here.”

Sit with that. God help us, we are Jonah.

And listen to me on this one: this does not mean that we are going to stop talking about the hard stuff, the difficult issues of the day, even the political issues of the day because that would be a false reading of this text..  I mean listen to Jonah’s message: “Nineveh change your ways or God is going to destroy you.” That is not moderate Hallmark let’s all get along message.

So we will continue to talk about the things that matter- race, war, immigration and poverty because those are the things God talked about and theses are things in our world today which we as messengers of God better be ready to stand up and say: We have to change our ways or we will be destroyed. However we better find a way to deliver that message with this foundational message that God is gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.

And there are a lot of speaking today, myself very much included and maybe we need to pause and check to see if what we are saying and how we are saying it meets that criteria, if it sounds like that…. is it truth spoken in love or is it truth spoken to get Facebook likes, or truth spoken to get a political jab in, or truth to score a point, or truth to point a finger, or truth spoken in pride, or truth spoken in arrogance, or truth spoken in envy or truth spoken in piousness…. Because that must end.

“If I speak but have not love I am a nosy gong or a clanging symbol.”

Back to Jonah… Jonah utters this truly awful prayer and then he goes off to sulk (which I just love… I love an Old Testament character who does not get his way so he sulks, he has a pity party, he has a fuss…. This is so me) . And in God’s grace, God gives him a shade tree and then in God’s grace God takes it away. You see if Jonah is going to act like a child then God is going to teach Jonah like a child, with an object illustration, a children’s sermon.

Jonah is angry once the shade is gone and the sun is beating down on him. Again “just let me die…”

And then God delivers what might be the best last line of any book of Scripture: “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

Do you hear it, that is the sound of mercy, it always has been and always will be….

And it’s mercy for all people, all people, all people.

In the words of Anne Lamott: “Mercy is radical kindness. Mercy means offering or being offered aid in desperate straits. Mercy is not deserved It involves absolving the unabsolvable, forgiving the unforgivable. Mercy brings us to the miracle of apology, given and accepted, to unashamed humility when we have erred or forgotten….It’s hallelujah in spite of it all, there is love, there is singing, nature, laughing, mercy. Mercy means that we soften ever so slightly, so that we don’t have to condemn others for being total jerks, although that may be. When we manage a flash of mercy for someone we don’t like, especially a truly awful person, including ourselves, we experience a great spiritual moment, a new point of view that can make us gasp.”

Let that wash over you.

So what is your Nineveh? Because the hard news this morning is that you are very much being called to that place and that issue. You have a truth that you must go and speak there. You are being called to go and to speak dangerous truths in great love.

And that my beloveds, that is the tension: dangerous truths spoken in great love.

To speak of that which is causing destruction and will result in destruction, but to speak that truth in the light and love of a gracious God, a merciful God, a slow to anger God, an abiding in steadfast love God…

And that church is no easy task. Just look at the Jesus story: learning to do this and actually doing it will get you killed, it will result in a cross and death because our world and the powers that be in our world have always and always will hate dangerous truths spoken in great love…. Or as we in the church call it: the Gospel.

But it is our task.

In the words of our baptist William Sloane Coffin: “The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.”

Amen and Amen.

*artwork: Jonah and the Gourd Vine, by Jack Baumgartner, theschoolofthetransferofenergy.com