Saturday, January 20, 2018

The Third Sunday after Epiphany, Year B

Fish Stories

Readings: Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 62:6-14; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1: 14-20

I was visiting my sister many years ago. I was sitting in the living room with my then teenaged niece. We were chatting, getting caught up. My sister called her to come and help with setting the table. She ignored her completely and kept on talking to me as if she had heard nothing. My sister called again a little louder. Once again it was as if my niece had not heard a word that was said. I asked her, “Why aren’t you answering your mother?” Her reply: “She isn’t mad enough yet?” Of course, my sister did eventually really lose her cool. Only then did my niece get up and do as her mother demanded.

Confronted with calls for action from God, we can find all sorts of excuses. “I didn’t hear you!” “I don’t understand what you want!” “It’s too hard!” “Find someone else!” “ I’m not the right person for the job.” “You couldn’t possibly mean me!” All along, the real reason is more likely to be “I don’t want to” or “ I will never help that person” or perhaps to give the benefit of the doubt, “I’m afraid of what you are asking me to do”.

Consider the story of Jonah. And to do so we need to look at the whole story, not just the part that is assigned as the Old Testament reading for this Sunday. Jonah was a prophet – not a very good one as it turns out – but a prophet nonetheless. God called him to action. He was to go to the people of Nineveh to give them a message from God. It is important to understand that as far as Jonah was concerned, Nineveh was the archenemy. It was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, a brutal occupying force, the destroyer of Israel. In his estimation it was unreasonable that God would ask him to do anything for the people of Nineveh. Yet here was God wanting to send him to tell them that he was going to overthrow them because of the evil things they had done. He was being sent to give them a chance. As far as Jonah is concerned it would be just fine if they fell off the face of the earth. It would be an end to the problem. Jonah was their last chance. And you know! He refused. Like my niece with her mother he heard what God was saying to him. He ignored the message. In fact, he ran in the other direction as fast as he could.

Fortunately for Nineveh, God did not give up. God went to great lengths to move Jonah to action, to allow him to answer God’s call. A huge storm arises and threatens to sink the ship that Jonah is on. The crew casts lots to see who might be responsible for the storm. Jonah confesses that he is actually running away from God. The only way to save the ship, he tells them, is to toss him overboard. As the situation becomes even more hopeless, they finally do exactly that. They throw him into the sea. The sea immediately quiets down.

But God is not done with Jonah. He has him swallowed by a great fish and thrown up on the shores of Nineveh. Still Jonah is reluctant to act. He sulks for a time, but when he sees that it is doing no good, he begrudgingly does what God has asked of him. He begins his walk through the streets of Nineveh. “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” he cries out to the people. And, much to Jonah’s astonishment, perhaps even disdain, they hear and believe. They repent. They change their ways. They proclaim a fast and everyone puts on sackcloth. The whole of Nineveh’s society gets involved in changing their ways. God spares the people.

It is not just the people of Nineveh who are called to repentance in this story. Jonah also needs to repent. There is no doubt about it. He is being racist. The Book of Jonah was a prophetic word to its time. It challenged the nationalism that limited God’s love to one people. It is a prophetic word to our time as well. In our day and age, we need to ask what Nineveh’s we are called to minister to. It is a challenge to those who would define God’s grace by their parochial boundaries. It is a challenging message to the modern day Church in which Ecumenism seems all but dead. This is the end of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. Do we understand that “one church, one faith, one Lord” does not mean “my church, my faith, my Lord”? What a tragedy it is that we cannot eat at the same table? What a tragedy that we allow differing traditions to stand in the way of unity! How do we work together to hasten the kingdom of God?

It is a challenge during the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity for us to put aside denominational boundaries. But it is an even greater challenge in the multicultural, multifaith world in which we find ourselves to put aside our racist attitudes and embrace all of God’s people. What transformed ways of being together do we seek?

Perhaps the answer lies in a different fish story, the one we hear in today’s Gospel. Jesus calls the disciples to leave their nets, follow him, and begin their ministry of fishing for people. It is amazing how immediate the response it. It seems unreal. And yet on reflection, I can see how it could happen. Some people are just sitting on the edge of life waiting for the call to something worthwhile. If the right person comes along with the right call they are up and away. They have been secretly longing for it. Life has prepared them for it. They did not choose it. It chose them.

I think sometimes when we see what is going on in the world we would just like to get off. That is what Jonah wanted to do. “Stop the world’ I want to get off!” he is saying to God. “I want to hide out and ignore every terrible thing that is going on!” That is what we are like when we hearken back to what we consider to be better times, times when churches were full; Sunday Schools were burgeoning with children. Or when we latch onto the latest fanatical movement! Jesus, in calling us to be fishers of people does not make it comfortable or easy for us. He does not give us permission to opt out of society. Rather he calls us to follow, to serve and to accept the consequences. I have found in my own life that to do so results in a sense of security that cannot be eradicated by tragic events.

God calls us, not once, but again and again throughout our lives, to renewed life in Christ. It is a call to choose new priorities, to leave behind the things that impede our discipleship, to find new ways of serving God and humanity. Like Jonah, God calls to us through the crises of our lives. God may even call us to seek out the Nineveh’s of our world, the last place or the last person on earth that we feel called to serve.

The truth about following the call of God is that we cannot let our fears and insecurities about what might happen hold us back. We need to discern that it is indeed God calling us. We need to discern what it is that God is calling us to do. We need to bring it to God in prayer. If it rings true, then the way forward, the way to respond, will emerge. We can be sure that we are all called – called to repentance, called to transformation, called to be the people of God, called to be witnesses to the love of God in Christ Jesus – called to be. Amen.





No comments:

The Second Sunday after Epiphany, Year A

Come and See Readings: Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42 Invitations come in many shapes and sizes. They ...