God Sightings: Jonah

Our story today is about Jonah. Jonah was a prophet of God to the people of the northern kingdom of Israel. 

Let’s just say that Jonah is not the best prophet. 

The only other place in scripture where we meet him is in 2nd Kings under the reign of Jeroboam II, one of the worst kings in the history of Israel. Here, Jonah prophecies in Jeroboam’s favor, promising that he will win a battle against the Assyrians and regain all this territory on Israel’s northern border. This is contradicted by God through the Prophet Amos, who challenges Jonah's prophecy and promises that Jeroboam will be overthrown by God because he is such a horrible king.

Let’s just say that Jonah is not the best prophet.

As today’s story opens, God is calling Jonah to go into the heart of Assyria, Israel’s enemies to the north. And to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, to call the people there to repentance.

We read in Jonah, chapter 1.

The Lord’s word came to Jonah, Amittai’s son: “Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their evil has come to my attention.”

So Jonah got up—to flee to Tarshish from the Lord! 

He went down to Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish. He paid the fare and went aboard to go with them to Tarshish, away from the Lord.

But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, so that there was a great storm on the sea; the ship looked like it might be broken to pieces. The sailors were terrified, and each one cried out to his god. 

They hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to make it lighter.

Now Jonah had gone down into the hold of the vessel to lie down and was deep in sleep. The ship’s officer came and said to him, “How can you possibly be sleeping so deeply? Get up! Call on your god! Perhaps the god will give some thought to us so that we won’t perish.”

Meanwhile, the sailors said to each other, “Come on, let’s cast lots so that we might learn who is to blame for this evil that’s happening to us.” They cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. So they said to him, “Tell us, since you’re the cause of this evil happening to us: What do you do and where are you from? What’s your country and of what people are you?”

He said to them, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven—who made the sea and the dry land.”

Then the men were terrified and said to him, “What have you done?” (The men knew that Jonah was fleeing from the Lord, because he had told them.)

They said to him, “What will we do about you so that the sea will become calm around us?” (The sea was continuing to rage.)

He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea! Then the sea will become calm around you. I know it’s my fault that this great storm has come upon you.”

The men rowed to reach dry land, but they couldn’t manage it because the sea continued to rage against them. So they called on the Lord, saying, “Please, Lord, don’t let us perish on account of this man’s life, and don’t blame us for innocent blood! You are the Lord: whatever you want, you can do.”

Then they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased its raging. The men worshipped the Lord with a profound reverence; they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made solemn promises.

Meanwhile, the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. --Jonah 1:1-17 (CEB)

What the heck was Jonah thinking? That he could get away from God? We’ve talked before about the relentlessness of God. When God has a plan, there is no getting away, no escaping from God. 

Here, God has a plan. A plan of salvation. A plan to save the people - or at least to attempt to save - the people of Nineveh. That great capital of Assyria. Israel’s most hated enemy to the north. 

What the heck was Jonah thinking? 

My guess is that, in part, he was terrified of going into Assyria and of “calling out” the people of Nineveh. Telling these evil pagans to repent of their sins. 

The irony of this first chapter of Jonah is that, as Jonah is attempting to escape God’s call to convert the pagan people of Nineveh, Jonah ends up converting the pagan sailors. By the end of this chapter, they are worshipping God for what they have seen. Their God sighting has changed them.

And Jonah? The chapter has ended with him in the belly of a great fish. With time to think. By the end of the second chapter, Jonah has repented. Sort of. 

In the closing lines of his prayer of repentance at the end of chapter 2, Jonah prays, “When my endurance was weakening, I remembered the LORD, and my prayer came to you, to your holy temple. Those deceived by worthless things lose their chance for mercy. But me, I will offer a sacrifice to you with a voice of thanks.”

“Those deceived by worthless things lose their chance for mercy.” Remember these words. As we continue in chapter 3.

Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto the dry land.

The Lord’s word came to Jonah a second time: “Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and declare against it the proclamation that I am commanding you.” And Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s word. 

(Now Nineveh was indeed an enormous city, a three days’ walk across.)

Jonah started into the city, walking one day, and he cried out, “Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on mourning clothes, from the greatest of them to the least significant.

When word of it reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, stripped himself of his robe, covered himself with mourning clothes, and sat in ashes. Then he announced, “In Nineveh, by decree of the king and his officials: Neither human nor animal, cattle nor flock, will taste anything! No grazing and no drinking water! Let humans and animals alike put on mourning clothes, and let them call upon God forcefully! And let all persons stop their evil behavior and the violence that’s under their control!” He thought, Who knows? God may see this and turn from his wrath, so that we might not perish.

God saw what they were doing—that they had ceased their evil behavior. So God stopped planning to destroy them, and he didn’t do it. --Jonah 3:1-10 (CEB)

One day. One day is all it took for Nineveh to repent. Jonah wasn’t even able to finish his walk across the city - a three-day walk - before Nineveh repented. But it wasn’t just the people of Nineveh who repented. Their king, on hearing the word of Jonah’s prophecy, put on mourning clothes and sat in ashes - a dramatic sign of his own repentance. And leadership. Then, he issued a decree that, not only would the people repent, the animals would, too! The entire city and everything and everyone in it. This wayward prophet, this not-so-great man of God has, once again, almost unintentionally, converted an entire pagan city.

Our reading continues in chapter 4.

But Jonah thought this was utterly wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Come on, Lord! Wasn’t this precisely my point when I was back in my own land? This is why I fled to Tarshish earlier! I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy. At this point, Lord, you may as well take my life from me, because it would be better for me to die than to live.”

The Lord responded, “Is your anger a good thing?”

But Jonah went out from the city and sat down east of the city. There he made himself a hut and sat under it, in the shade, to see what would happen to the city.

Then the Lord God provided a shrub, and it grew up over Jonah, providing shade for his head and saving him from his misery. Jonah was very happy about the shrub. But God provided a worm the next day at dawn, and it attacked the shrub so that it died. Then as the sun rose God provided a dry east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint. 

He begged that he might die, saying, “It’s better for me to die than to live.”

God said to Jonah, “Is your anger about the shrub a good thing?”

Jonah said, “Yes, my anger is good—even to the point of death!”

But the Lord said, “You ‘pitied’ the shrub, for which you didn’t work and which you didn’t raise; it grew in a night and perished in a night. Yet for my part, can’t I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who can’t tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” --Jonah 4:1-11 (CEB)

“Those deceived by worthless things lose their chance for mercy.” Remember those words? 

Although it’s hard to tell exactly from our text, it would seem that Jonah’s anger is less about the shriveled shrub and more about God’s mercy on the pagan people of Nineveh. 

“Those deceived by worthless things lose their chance for mercy.” That’s what Jonah prayed, wasn’t it? 

Don’t we pray this, too? That those people who follow other gods, who don’t think the way we do, who don’t vote the way we do, who “follow worthless things” lose their chance for mercy? 

We, in this country, have just gone through an election. Elections are, by their very nature, divisive. This one even more so. In this election period, as we, myself included, have demonized those who have different opinions than we, demeaned those who have supported a different candidate than ours, disparaged those whom we have identified as followers of "worthless things" (or candidates), aren’t we a little like Jonah? Self-righteous? Sanctimonious? Holier than thou?

Perhaps we need a leader to call our whole nation to repentance. 

We have a such a leader who calls us to repentance. Who sees the bigger picture and has a broader plan. Who has created all people in his own image. And who acts compassionately and with great patience that all people (and not just us) might receive redemption.

We have such a leader in God, whose knowledge is so far beyond us and whose acts of love extend way beyond our own imagination. Who has redeemed us through God’s very own Son, Jesus Christ.

May we follow our leader as the people of Nineveh followed theirs. May we repent of our thinking, like Jonah’s, that others are beyond God’s redemptive powers. And may we, as the church, freed in Christ, find a way to emulate the same acts of love and mercy in our deeply divided world.

May God grant this, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Preached Sunday, November 8, 2020, online at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.

Pentecost 24

Readings: Jonah 1:1-17, 3:1-10, 4:1-11; Luke 18:13

God's Way of Leading: History Repeats

Rehoboam went to Shechem, for all Israel had come to Shechem to make him king. When Jeroboam son of Nebat heard of it (for he was still in Egypt, where he had fled from King Solomon), then Jeroboam returned from Egypt. And they sent and called him; and Jeroboam and all the assembly of Israel came and said to Rehoboam, “Your father made our yoke heavy. Now therefore lighten the hard service of your father and his heavy yoke that he placed on us, and we will serve you.” He said to them, “Go away for three days, then come again to me.” So the people went away.

Then King Rehoboam took counsel with the older men who had attended his father Solomon while he was still alive, saying, “How do you advise me to answer this people?” They answered him, “If you will be a servant to this people today and serve them, and speak good words to them when you answer them, then they will be your servants forever.” But he disregarded the advice that the older men gave him, and consulted with the young men who had grown up with him and now attended him. He said to them, “What do you advise that we answer this people who have said to me, ‘Lighten the yoke that your father put on us’?” The young men who had grown up with him said to him, “Thus you should say to this people who spoke to you, ‘Your father made our yoke heavy, but you must lighten it for us’; thus you should say to them, ‘My little finger is thicker than my father’s loins. Now, whereas my father laid on you a heavy yoke, I will add to your yoke. My father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.’”

So Jeroboam and all the people came to Rehoboam the third day, as the king had said, “Come to me again the third day.” The king answered the people harshly. He disregarded the advice that the older men had given him and spoke to them according to the advice of the young men, “My father made your yoke heavy, but I will add to your yoke; my father disciplined you with whips, but I will discipline you with scorpions.” So the king did not listen to the people, because it was a turn of affairs brought about by the Lord that he might fulfill his word, which the Lord had spoken by Ahijah the Shilonite to Jeroboam son of Nebat.

When all Israel saw that the king would not listen to them, the people answered the king,

“What share do we have in David?
    We have no inheritance in the son of Jesse.
To your tents, O Israel!
    Look now to your own house, O David.”

So Israel went away to their tents. But Rehoboam reigned over the Israelites who were living in the towns of Judah.

Then Jeroboam built Shechem in the hill country of Ephraim, and resided there; he went out from there and built Penuel. Then Jeroboam said to himself, “Now the kingdom may well revert to the house of David. If this people continues to go up to offer sacrifices in the house of the Lord at Jerusalem, the heart of this people will turn again to their master, King Rehoboam of Judah; they will kill me and return to King Rehoboam of Judah.” So the king took counsel, and made two calves of gold. He said to the people, “You have gone up to Jerusalem long enough. Here are your gods, O Israel, who brought you up out of the land of Egypt.” He set one in Bethel, and the other he put in Dan.  --1 Kings 12:1-17, 25-29 (NRSV)

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

I’d like to tell you the story of two judges: Judge Cohen and Judge Klein. Both Jewish. One older - Judge Cohen. One younger - Judge Klein. Judge Cohen sat on the bench for over 30 years. Judge Klein was new to the bench, having just been appointed as a judge. Both of them, served at different times as the judge overseeing complex litigation in all of Los Angeles County. The complex litigation court is one that hears and presides over the cream of the crop when it comes to caseloads. Not your typical personal injury or motor vehicle accident. But cases that involve large numbers of people. That have substantial impact. Cases like class actions. Or coordinated cases - cases that deal with national issues, such as those related to asbestos exposure, or breast implants, or huge fires. Or massive price-fixing cases. They are cases that bring in the brightest and most powerful attorneys from around, not only the United States, but across the world.

Having served as the judicial officer overseeing the complex litigation courtroom for 20 of his 30 years, Judge Cohen had been responsible for decisions affecting not only California, but the U. S. and even the law in other countries. 

One might have expected him, then, to be incredibly proud of this work. One might have even expected that he might have become somewhat arrogant. After all, by the time he retired, his name was on the majority of published opinions in complex litigation cases throughout our country.

But, this was not who he was. Judge Cohen was, by his very nature, a humble man. He carried massive legal briefs home each night in a brown paper shopping bag. He read every word. And, when the powerful attorneys had amassed in the courtroom for argument, with one quiet question, he would hone into the very heart of the matter before him, would give space for all the parties to make their responses, would listen respectfully and carefully to each argument, and would then make his decision, most of which would hold up on appeal. An example of a humble, gentle, public servant.

Judge Klein took Judge Cohen’s place after he retired. Now, Judge Klein was as brilliant, if not more so, than Judge Cohen. Perhaps it was his lack of experience. Perhaps it was his sense of insecurity at filling the very big shoes left by Judge Cohen. But, when Judge Klein took the bench it was as if he had something to prove. Berating attorneys. Mocking their arguments. Often failing to remain neutral in an argument, instead deliberately trying to provoke the parties. Even verbally abusive to his staff. The power of his position appearing to go to his head. Feeding his ego. Making him arrogant, thinking that everything was about him. A type of “me-ism” that often occurs as one gains power and wealth.

This story of two judges, Judge Cohen and Judge Klein, is analogous today to our story of two kings: Rehoboam and Jeroboam.

Rehoboam was the son of Solomon. Solomon, who was the son of David, who we heard about last week as he was anointed king over a unified kingdom of Israel - all twelve tribes together under one king, David. Who reigned for 40 years. 

David’s son, Solomon, succeeded him in the dynasty. We know Solomon for his wisdom and as a great builder, especially of the temple. We also know him for his hundreds of wives, many of whom were from foreign countries. Whose gods distracted him. So that, in addition to the God of Israel, Solomon began to worship their gods, as well. It was because of this - because of Solomon’s lack of fidelity to God - that God declared judgment - that God would dissolve the united kingdom and take the northern tribes from him and from the house of David. And that this would happen during the reign of Solomon’s son, Rehoboam, one of our two kings in today’s story.

Solomon had another problem. Although he was a great builder, he did this on the backs of the people. By imposing huge taxes on them. And by conscripting them into forced labor. Into slavery. The man Solomon had placed as overseer of this enslaved workforce was none other than Jeroboam, the second in our tale today of two kings. While Jeroboam was in this role of overseer, God sent the prophet Ahijah to anoint as king over the northern tribes. And, as you can imagine, he quickly went into exile to preserve himself from the reach of Solomon’s power.

As today’s story opens, Solomon is now dead. Rehoboam has succeeded his father. The northern tribes now call Jeroboam out of exile to lead them to meet with the new king of the house of David. To seek from him a lightening of their load. A lifting of the heavy yoke his father has placed on them. That he might reduce the levels of slavery that they have suffered under Solomon’s reign. And, that, if he does, then they will serve him. Rehoboam sends them away for three days.

During these three days, he seeks counsel. First, he goes to the elders. Those who have served his father. To seek advice. They tell him to listen to the people. To reduce the load. To be a servant to them. That, if he does this, if he leads them in this way, then the people will serve him forever. 

But, Rehoboam is new to this position. Perhaps it's that he has something to prove. Or maybe he’s just immature. He seeks additional counsel from his own friends, his younger friends who now attend him. It is their advice he follows. So, when Jeroboam and the northern tribes return after the three days have passed, Rehoboam defaults to the immature, arrogant, young man he is. Mine is bigger than yours, he says to them. A response that is exactly how bullies and immature teenagers act. An understanding of power that is at its very worst. Rehoboam adds to the burden of the oppressed, rather than easing it. And the kingdom falls apart.

Today, we celebrate Reformation Sunday. Like the story of the two judges, this story of the two kings mirrors in some ways what was happening during the 16th century. The church had become a worldly, dominant power. Bishops sought and gained their seats through the wealth of their families. To finish the building of St. Peter’s in Rome, this great edifice to the glory of the church, it’s leaders sought to sell forgiveness in the form of indulgences. Those in power sought to lord it over the poor, trying to find more and more ways to extract wealth from them. It was this that Luther and others railed against. It was this that led to the split of the church, like the split of the kingdom. A difficult thing that we still live into today. 

In our story, Jeroboam was called to be a servant-leader. But, then, he, too, begins to create centers of worship away from Jerusalem to protect his own power and position. Eventually, putting up golden calves for the people to worship. Just as there was sin on both sides of the split of the united kingdom of Israel, so, too, there was sin on both sides of the Reformation. 

It is in our human nature, that, as we begin to amass privilege and power and control, we begin to move away from God. We begin to rely upon ourselves and those things in our lives that we set up as our own gods. Our intellect. Our money and profit. Our homes and our families. Even our religion. These things - these gods - that pull us away from God. This is the theology of glory that Luther wrote about in the Heidelberg Disputation. Where it is all about us. About me and mine. A pervasive “me-ism” that pulls us away from God.

Instead, we are called to follow Jesus, the true servant-leader. This is the heart of Luther’s theology of the cross. That, in Jesus, God comes to us. God meets us in our sin and in our suffering. When we recognize that we cannot do this on our own. God comes to us at great cost. A cost that most of us are unwilling to pay ourselves. A cost borne for us, who can do nothing to change who we are. But, a cost borne for us by God, who is the only one through whom we are changed. 

This is to be the shape of our Christian lives. Where we seek to follow the example of Jesus. We, who, in him, have become perfectly free, lord of all, subject to none. But, also, perfectly dutiful, servant of all, subject to all. It is in this paradox where lordship finds its expression in service. And where the good news of Jesus Christ takes root in us to change us into the servant-leaders God calls us to be.  “Whoever wishes to become great among you, must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you, must be a slave of all.”

May God grant us a life fully claimed by Jesus, that we might fully serve others. Amen.

Preached October 27, 2019, at Grace & Glory Lutheran Church, Goshen, KY.

Reformation Sunday

Readings: 1 Kings 12:1-17, 25-29; Mark 10:42-45; Psalm 46