![Picture](/uploads/5/3/1/4/53145165/published/act0121-medium.jpg?1516708225)
Peter JB Carman
Emmanuel Friedens Church
Schenectady New York
January 21, 2018
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Mark 1:14-20
I.
The history of humanity is full of stories of villains—folk whose incomprehensible capacity for evil seems incapable of being overcome. And yet there are many more stories of those of us who have had really bad ideas, and done things to hurt people without measuring the cost. People capable of both evil and good. And scattered among these stories there are true stories of the people who were capable of good but somehow didn’t get it, or if we did, just chose to go another way.
But...and yet...however! There are quite a few examples of those of us who somehow turned around, changed course. These are the stories of those of us who have been seized by grace, launched on an unpredictable new adventure of justice and love. These are the stories that you and I know in our own lives—the stories of hearts that have been turned.
Repentance is not a word that trips lightly off our tongues. It is not a word that many progressive Americans are quick to use. We associate it with a traditional evangelicalism, even fundamentalism, that sees sin as purely personal. When it comes to progress, and social change, we prefer language like “change”, not repentance. And yet when things get bad enough, or when the needed change is deep enough, the term repentance needs to be reclaimed.
Yesterday, for the second time in thirteen months, many of the women of this land took to the streets, to call for a national change in direction and a change of heart. In between these gatherings, voices have been raised with great strength and integrity, calling out the abuse of power by powerful men: confronting not simply discrimination, but sexual misconduct and abuse.
In Albany, in Seneca Falls, in New York City, indeed in cities throughout the nation, they/some of you gathered yesterday once more to raise voices, and call for national repentance. White women, Black women, Muslim, Christian and Jewish and Hindu women—to name a few-- and those are just the ones I know.
Some would argue that the timing is bad: this is not a teachable moment in the life of our people. Others might say it is up to us to create the teachable moments. Those of us who have lived long and grown weary might poo-poo all demonstrations, saying that no one is listening. Or we might even suggest that it won’t do any good.
Cynicism is not our friend.
They were talking the same way in the time when the book of Jonah was written, perhaps the world’s oldest book of satire. They were talking the same way when Jesus of Nazareth showed up, after John the Baptist was executed for calling the people to turn their hearts and lives and their world around.
I suggest we pay attention. Because we live in a time when maybe, just maybe, someone might listen, against all our expectations.
II.
Our two bible passages are both stories about the unexpected turnaround, possible through God’s abundant grace.
The story of Jonah is not like any other book in the bible, certainly not like any other book about a prophet. It is really a series of harsh jokes, a fabulous yarn about the reluctant sad-sack prophet. It is also the original ancient big fish story. If you haven’t read the whole thing lately, you might want to do so this afternoon: a short book; a quick read; an unlikely tale.
Jonah doesn’t mind being the prophet of doom and gloom. What he can’t stand is the idea that even through his prophecy, his warnings of dire destruction, God might salvage the people of Nineveh.
In the time when the book of Jonah originated, all the Jewish listeners would have understood that Nineveh was the heart of the Assyrian empire, source of great suffering for their nation. So, it’s not unreasonable that Jonah wants God to be as angry as he is. Righteous indignation. Jonah hates the Ninevites. Jonah doesn’t want God to be capable of repenting of that kind of anger on behalf of the chosen people, doesn’t want God to be setting an example of a turning of the heart.
The first time he gets called to go to Nineveh, Jonah runs in the opposite direction—not out of fear but out of unwillingness to give the Ninevites even a tiny chance. Jonah doesn’t get too far! You remember the story of the big fish. So, the second time, he gives up, and goes off to deliver bad news to the bad people. And here’s the joke—the twist. They listen. The king listens, the people listen. Even the cattle have a change of heart and repent. I mean what does that look like, when cows repent of their wicked ways?? That’s the part in the verses we neglected in our selection this morning: “6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither human nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let human and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from their evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” (ESV)
If I were Jonah, I might have put it like this to God. “You’re supposed to be consistent, unchanging, a fair judge, God. These people are terrible. This—Nineveh-- is an awful country. If you start forgiving people like this, what is the world going to come to? No, God, give them what they deserve—give them what they’re worth.”
Problem is, people work that way, even good people, But God doesn’t work that way. The Ninevites do the last thing they’re supposed to do, from Jonah’s angle. They listen to him. And they turn around. They start over. They make a fresh beginning. And then, incomprehensibly, so does God. So does God. God changes God’s mind! Grace beyond the limitations of our human sense of judgment. Grace beyond our limited imaginations of what human beings may accomplish. Grace beyond reckoning. A changing of the divine heart.
III.
A few hundred years closer to our own time, in roughly the same part of the world, in the land of Palestine in the time of the Romans, a people is living in captivity. Like many a captive people, they have lost their way. Many of them, to stay alive, feel forced to lie, steal, cheat, cooperate with the Romans. A few have become rebel-bandits, are waging small scale guerilla war. Some have come to believe in the necessity of the Pax Romana…the peace of Rome, and have ascended to positions of privilege and power. In this time, a mysterious figure, John the Baptist, has begun calling them out, calling them back, calling them to a vision of themselves and of their future fueled by an unreasonable hope. He is summoning them to redemption, challenging them with the possibility of personal and social liberation. This strange figure, clothed in camel’s hair, is asserting the possibility of turning around personally, seeing the world in a whole new way, being embraced by God, calling ordinary people to a path of justice and light.
Then John is arrested, and taken away to be imprisoned, soon to be beheaded. All hope would seem to be lost. And yet, no sooner has John been disappeared, another mysterious figure arises, someone from the town of Nazareth, someone called Jesus. Around him is a new little group of followers, a few fishermen, and some women of various backgrounds. He is, like John before him, calling out: “The time is fulfilled, and the reign of God has come near! Turn around, transform your minds! And believe the good news.”
You and I may look back with the long view that is the result of retrospective and layers of tradition, and see a kind of regal divine Jesus. But the folk who first hear him do not have the thick layered theologically shaded view. They just see a new person—one of the baptized-- stepping in where the baptizing prophetic John has left off. Some are elated, some are worried. He is calling the people to a fresh start. He is calling ordinary people to come away from their nets, come away from their day to day occupations and preoccupations. He is calling for a new kind of justice that starts at home, but is big enough to encompass the nations. And immediately, without waiting, they respond.
The God of Jonah, the God of the Ninevites, the God of every invisible woman or man or child or beast, will not be tied down to our sense of the possible, will not be limited to our limited optimism or our flagging convictions. God will not hold the peoples hostage to the failings of their leaders. This God is better than that.
IV.
I confess that on my worse days, I may have some of Jonah’s tendencies. And I know some of you a little, so I can safely say: so do you. We have trouble believing that those who seem to us so much in need of transformation are even capable of such a thing, and we have trouble even wanting it to happen because, frankly, after a while resentment, suspicion and defeat have a lovely flavor all their own.
Nonetheless, we cannot afford to give up the conviction that hearts can be changed, and lives turned around and a new pilgrimage to justice and mercy begun.
Does anyone here remember when legalized apartheid in South Africa came to an end? We were surprised, to say the least. The world was in shock when they let Nelson Mandela out. Does anyone remember the day they began to bulldoze the Berlin wall? We had thought such a thing impossible.
And perhaps in your personal life you have some memory of some day when you yourself were changed—or someone you knew, when a heart turned, a hatred snapped, or a repeating pattern of violence was finally rejected-- if not by the perpetrator then by the one who refused to be the victim anymore.
It starts with us—it starts small, it involves some pain and struggle, and potentially a great deal of joy. Christ is still calling: “The time is fulfilled, and the reign of God has come near! Turn around, transform your minds! And believe the good news.”
Graphic art: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606-1669. Prophet Jonah Before the Walls of Nineveh, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56387
Emmanuel Friedens Church
Schenectady New York
January 21, 2018
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Mark 1:14-20
I.
The history of humanity is full of stories of villains—folk whose incomprehensible capacity for evil seems incapable of being overcome. And yet there are many more stories of those of us who have had really bad ideas, and done things to hurt people without measuring the cost. People capable of both evil and good. And scattered among these stories there are true stories of the people who were capable of good but somehow didn’t get it, or if we did, just chose to go another way.
But...and yet...however! There are quite a few examples of those of us who somehow turned around, changed course. These are the stories of those of us who have been seized by grace, launched on an unpredictable new adventure of justice and love. These are the stories that you and I know in our own lives—the stories of hearts that have been turned.
Repentance is not a word that trips lightly off our tongues. It is not a word that many progressive Americans are quick to use. We associate it with a traditional evangelicalism, even fundamentalism, that sees sin as purely personal. When it comes to progress, and social change, we prefer language like “change”, not repentance. And yet when things get bad enough, or when the needed change is deep enough, the term repentance needs to be reclaimed.
Yesterday, for the second time in thirteen months, many of the women of this land took to the streets, to call for a national change in direction and a change of heart. In between these gatherings, voices have been raised with great strength and integrity, calling out the abuse of power by powerful men: confronting not simply discrimination, but sexual misconduct and abuse.
In Albany, in Seneca Falls, in New York City, indeed in cities throughout the nation, they/some of you gathered yesterday once more to raise voices, and call for national repentance. White women, Black women, Muslim, Christian and Jewish and Hindu women—to name a few-- and those are just the ones I know.
Some would argue that the timing is bad: this is not a teachable moment in the life of our people. Others might say it is up to us to create the teachable moments. Those of us who have lived long and grown weary might poo-poo all demonstrations, saying that no one is listening. Or we might even suggest that it won’t do any good.
Cynicism is not our friend.
They were talking the same way in the time when the book of Jonah was written, perhaps the world’s oldest book of satire. They were talking the same way when Jesus of Nazareth showed up, after John the Baptist was executed for calling the people to turn their hearts and lives and their world around.
I suggest we pay attention. Because we live in a time when maybe, just maybe, someone might listen, against all our expectations.
II.
Our two bible passages are both stories about the unexpected turnaround, possible through God’s abundant grace.
The story of Jonah is not like any other book in the bible, certainly not like any other book about a prophet. It is really a series of harsh jokes, a fabulous yarn about the reluctant sad-sack prophet. It is also the original ancient big fish story. If you haven’t read the whole thing lately, you might want to do so this afternoon: a short book; a quick read; an unlikely tale.
Jonah doesn’t mind being the prophet of doom and gloom. What he can’t stand is the idea that even through his prophecy, his warnings of dire destruction, God might salvage the people of Nineveh.
In the time when the book of Jonah originated, all the Jewish listeners would have understood that Nineveh was the heart of the Assyrian empire, source of great suffering for their nation. So, it’s not unreasonable that Jonah wants God to be as angry as he is. Righteous indignation. Jonah hates the Ninevites. Jonah doesn’t want God to be capable of repenting of that kind of anger on behalf of the chosen people, doesn’t want God to be setting an example of a turning of the heart.
The first time he gets called to go to Nineveh, Jonah runs in the opposite direction—not out of fear but out of unwillingness to give the Ninevites even a tiny chance. Jonah doesn’t get too far! You remember the story of the big fish. So, the second time, he gives up, and goes off to deliver bad news to the bad people. And here’s the joke—the twist. They listen. The king listens, the people listen. Even the cattle have a change of heart and repent. I mean what does that look like, when cows repent of their wicked ways?? That’s the part in the verses we neglected in our selection this morning: “6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither human nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water, 8 but let human and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from their evil way and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” (ESV)
If I were Jonah, I might have put it like this to God. “You’re supposed to be consistent, unchanging, a fair judge, God. These people are terrible. This—Nineveh-- is an awful country. If you start forgiving people like this, what is the world going to come to? No, God, give them what they deserve—give them what they’re worth.”
Problem is, people work that way, even good people, But God doesn’t work that way. The Ninevites do the last thing they’re supposed to do, from Jonah’s angle. They listen to him. And they turn around. They start over. They make a fresh beginning. And then, incomprehensibly, so does God. So does God. God changes God’s mind! Grace beyond the limitations of our human sense of judgment. Grace beyond our limited imaginations of what human beings may accomplish. Grace beyond reckoning. A changing of the divine heart.
III.
A few hundred years closer to our own time, in roughly the same part of the world, in the land of Palestine in the time of the Romans, a people is living in captivity. Like many a captive people, they have lost their way. Many of them, to stay alive, feel forced to lie, steal, cheat, cooperate with the Romans. A few have become rebel-bandits, are waging small scale guerilla war. Some have come to believe in the necessity of the Pax Romana…the peace of Rome, and have ascended to positions of privilege and power. In this time, a mysterious figure, John the Baptist, has begun calling them out, calling them back, calling them to a vision of themselves and of their future fueled by an unreasonable hope. He is summoning them to redemption, challenging them with the possibility of personal and social liberation. This strange figure, clothed in camel’s hair, is asserting the possibility of turning around personally, seeing the world in a whole new way, being embraced by God, calling ordinary people to a path of justice and light.
Then John is arrested, and taken away to be imprisoned, soon to be beheaded. All hope would seem to be lost. And yet, no sooner has John been disappeared, another mysterious figure arises, someone from the town of Nazareth, someone called Jesus. Around him is a new little group of followers, a few fishermen, and some women of various backgrounds. He is, like John before him, calling out: “The time is fulfilled, and the reign of God has come near! Turn around, transform your minds! And believe the good news.”
You and I may look back with the long view that is the result of retrospective and layers of tradition, and see a kind of regal divine Jesus. But the folk who first hear him do not have the thick layered theologically shaded view. They just see a new person—one of the baptized-- stepping in where the baptizing prophetic John has left off. Some are elated, some are worried. He is calling the people to a fresh start. He is calling ordinary people to come away from their nets, come away from their day to day occupations and preoccupations. He is calling for a new kind of justice that starts at home, but is big enough to encompass the nations. And immediately, without waiting, they respond.
The God of Jonah, the God of the Ninevites, the God of every invisible woman or man or child or beast, will not be tied down to our sense of the possible, will not be limited to our limited optimism or our flagging convictions. God will not hold the peoples hostage to the failings of their leaders. This God is better than that.
IV.
I confess that on my worse days, I may have some of Jonah’s tendencies. And I know some of you a little, so I can safely say: so do you. We have trouble believing that those who seem to us so much in need of transformation are even capable of such a thing, and we have trouble even wanting it to happen because, frankly, after a while resentment, suspicion and defeat have a lovely flavor all their own.
Nonetheless, we cannot afford to give up the conviction that hearts can be changed, and lives turned around and a new pilgrimage to justice and mercy begun.
Does anyone here remember when legalized apartheid in South Africa came to an end? We were surprised, to say the least. The world was in shock when they let Nelson Mandela out. Does anyone remember the day they began to bulldoze the Berlin wall? We had thought such a thing impossible.
And perhaps in your personal life you have some memory of some day when you yourself were changed—or someone you knew, when a heart turned, a hatred snapped, or a repeating pattern of violence was finally rejected-- if not by the perpetrator then by the one who refused to be the victim anymore.
It starts with us—it starts small, it involves some pain and struggle, and potentially a great deal of joy. Christ is still calling: “The time is fulfilled, and the reign of God has come near! Turn around, transform your minds! And believe the good news.”
Graphic art: Rembrandt Harmenszoon van Rijn, 1606-1669. Prophet Jonah Before the Walls of Nineveh, from Art in the Christian Tradition, a project of the Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Nashville, TN. http://diglib.library.vanderbilt.edu/act-imagelink.pl?RC=56387