L. Gregory Jones - "You've Got to Be Kidding" (January 23, 2000)
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Transcript
Transcripts may contain inaccuracies.
- | Gospel according to St. Mark the first chapter. | 0:03 |
"Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee | 0:08 | |
"proclaiming the good news of God | 0:12 | |
"and saying the time is fulfilled | 0:14 | |
"and the Kingdom of God has come near, | 0:16 | |
"repent and believe in the good news. | 0:19 | |
"As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, | 0:22 | |
"he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net | 0:25 | |
"into the sea, for they were fishermen. | 0:28 | |
"And Jesus said to them, follow me | 0:32 | |
and I will make you fish for people. | 0:34 | |
"And immediately they left their nets and followed him. | 0:38 | |
"As he went a little further, he saw James son of Zebedee | 0:42 | |
"and his brother John, who were in their boat | 0:46 | |
"mending the nets. | 0:49 | |
"Immediately he called them | 0:50 | |
"and they left their father Zebedee | 0:52 | |
"in the boat with a hired man and followed him. | 0:54 | |
"This is the word of the Lord. | 0:58 | |
Congregation | Praise be to the Lord. | 1:00 |
- | Let us pray. | 1:13 |
Gracious God may the words of my mouth | 1:16 | |
and the meditations of all of our hearts | 1:19 | |
be acceptable in thy sight, | 1:21 | |
oh Lord, our strength and our redeemer. | 1:24 | |
Amen. | 1:27 | |
Talk about your bad days | 1:31 | |
I know that we've had struggles with weather this week, | 1:35 | |
but I suspect Jonah would have changed positions | 1:38 | |
with any one of us | 1:41 | |
even though his weather was probably just fine. | 1:43 | |
There he was minding his own business | 1:47 | |
when he gets a message from the Lord | 1:52 | |
with such crystal clarity that he knew exactly | 1:56 | |
what God was calling him to do. | 1:59 | |
There was no struggle over discernment, | 2:02 | |
no needing to check the signals with friends, | 2:04 | |
no kind of growing sense of the presence of God, | 2:07 | |
this was a message that came over a loudspeaker | 2:10 | |
with such clarity, | 2:14 | |
Jonah knew exactly what God was calling him to do. | 2:15 | |
And his immediate response was probably something like, | 2:20 | |
you gotta be kidding. | 2:24 | |
For what God was calling him to do, | 2:27 | |
was to go and preach repentance | 2:31 | |
to his most hated enemies. | 2:36 | |
You gotta be kidding, I got other things to do. | 2:39 | |
I wouldn't even wanna go and have to do it to people | 2:44 | |
that I feel somewhat ambivalent about | 2:47 | |
but the Ninevites, you gotta be kidding. | 2:51 | |
And so when the going has gotten tough, | 2:58 | |
Jonah gets going in the opposite direction. | 3:01 | |
If Nineveh is one direction, | 3:07 | |
he goes in exactly the opposite direction | 3:10 | |
headed to Tarshish. | 3:12 | |
There's no problem with having heard the message, | 3:16 | |
the problem is he doesn't want to follow it. | 3:18 | |
And so he gets on the ship, | 3:23 | |
feeling pretty smug and self satisfied. | 3:25 | |
Found a way to escape the word of the Lord | 3:29 | |
till the storms start up | 3:33 | |
and the ship is being tossed to and fro. | 3:36 | |
The people on the ship are trying everything | 3:41 | |
they can to try to figure out what is happening | 3:43 | |
finally they come to Jonah and said, | 3:45 | |
could it be you? | 3:48 | |
And Jonah says go ahead and throw me overboard | 3:52 | |
and so they do | 3:57 | |
and pretty soon, Jonah ends up in the belly of a large fish | 4:00 | |
where he sat for three days and three nights. | 4:08 | |
Now, can you imagine what must have been going through | 4:14 | |
Jonah's mind as he was sitting in that belly? | 4:16 | |
It wasn't that long ago | 4:20 | |
that my life seemed just fine, | 4:23 | |
I'd made some plans I was observe, | 4:25 | |
I was doing pretty well | 4:27 | |
and then that message came from God | 4:30 | |
and look where I am now | 4:35 | |
you gotta be kidding. | 4:38 | |
After the three days and the three nights had passed, | 4:42 | |
Jonah had a change of heart. | 4:47 | |
They say there are no atheists in foxholes, | 4:51 | |
I suspect there are no atheists in the bellies | 4:53 | |
of large fishes either. | 4:55 | |
And so Jonah has a change of heart | 4:58 | |
and he cries out to God for forgiveness | 5:00 | |
and he promises God, that he will indeed | 5:03 | |
do what God has called him to do. | 5:06 | |
Jonah repents of his unwillingness to accept the message. | 5:10 | |
And so the Lord speaks to him a second time | 5:16 | |
after he's been spewed out onto the dry land | 5:19 | |
and in the passage, that was read just a few moments ago, | 5:22 | |
Jonah goes and he proclaims the message | 5:25 | |
God had entrusted to him, | 5:28 | |
calling the Ninevites to repent. | 5:31 | |
And much as Jonah suspected, or perhaps feared, | 5:35 | |
the Ninevites do repent. | 5:41 | |
Now you'd think that in an ideal world, | 5:45 | |
the story would end there | 5:47 | |
and we'd all live happily ever after. | 5:48 | |
People known for their wicked ways had turned back to God, | 5:51 | |
there was the opportunity for reconciliation | 5:55 | |
for a healing of the divisions | 5:58 | |
between the Israelites and the Ninevites, | 6:00 | |
all is well they lived happily ever after end of the story. | 6:02 | |
But not with Jonah. | 6:08 | |
For Jonah is not happy | 6:11 | |
that the Ninevites repent, | 6:14 | |
nor is he happy about the character of the God | 6:18 | |
whom he has been worshiping. | 6:23 | |
The God of heaven and earth, who made the earth | 6:27 | |
and the skies and the seas that he had been traveling on. | 6:30 | |
And so rather than being filled with joy | 6:37 | |
and thanksgiving at this reconciliation, | 6:39 | |
Jonah goes off and sulks. | 6:41 | |
He goes to pout outside the city. | 6:45 | |
He's angry, he's bitter, | 6:49 | |
and he cries out to God | 6:53 | |
God, I knew you were like this. | 6:54 | |
See one of Jonah's problems is he knows God is gracious | 6:58 | |
and merciful, abounding in steadfast love, | 7:02 | |
ready to relent from punishing. | 7:06 | |
He just doesn't like that, | 7:11 | |
if it means that he might be reconciled with his enemies | 7:13 | |
if his enemies might be forgiven. | 7:17 | |
Oh how like so many of us, | 7:19 | |
we want forgiveness as long as it's for me | 7:21 | |
and perhaps my friends and my house. | 7:23 | |
But what if it involves our most hated rival, | 7:27 | |
our most bitter enemy? | 7:31 | |
So Jonah's out sulking and | 7:34 | |
God then gives him a bush to offer some shade | 7:38 | |
and then takes away the bush | 7:40 | |
and Jonah gets even angrier. | 7:42 | |
Throughout the entire story, | 7:45 | |
it is clear that it's not what Jonah does that matters, | 7:46 | |
it's who God is and what God does | 7:51 | |
that really matters | 7:54 | |
and Jonah is just mad because he isn't in control, God is. | 7:56 | |
So God says to him, hey Jonah, are you angry? | 8:02 | |
And Jonah, like a two year old child | 8:09 | |
in their best fit pitching mood, | 8:11 | |
says angry enough to die. | 8:14 | |
Little does he know just how deep his comment goes. | 8:20 | |
Anger is not always a bad thing. | 8:27 | |
Anger can be an appropriate response | 8:30 | |
to injustice and betrayal. | 8:32 | |
A sign of life that there is still passion | 8:35 | |
to be welled up within us, | 8:37 | |
giving us a commitment to resisting injustice | 8:39 | |
and oppression and betrayal. | 8:42 | |
The book of Ephesians says, "Be angry but do not sin." | 8:45 | |
Because how easy it is for us to collapse that fine line | 8:51 | |
and for our anger to become the seat of so much sin. | 8:56 | |
That's Jonah's problem. | 9:02 | |
He's angry enough to die, he's closed in on himself | 9:03 | |
where he can't see anything else in the world | 9:06 | |
much less God because he's so consumed by his anger. | 9:09 | |
The writer Frederick Buechner has said | 9:15 | |
that anger is perhaps the most wonderful | 9:17 | |
of all the seven deadly sins. | 9:21 | |
To lick your wounds, to smack your lips | 9:24 | |
over grievances long past, | 9:29 | |
to roll over your tongue, | 9:32 | |
the prospect of bitter confrontations yet to come, | 9:34 | |
to savor to the last toothsome morsel, | 9:40 | |
the pain you are giving and the pain you are receiving back | 9:43 | |
in many ways, it is a feast fit for a king. | 9:48 | |
The only drawback is that | 9:54 | |
what you are wolfing down is yourself. | 9:57 | |
The skeleton at the feast is you. | 10:01 | |
The skeleton at the feast is you. | 10:08 | |
Jonah's clear recognition of who God is | 10:13 | |
and the character of God's grace | 10:16 | |
coupled with his own anger and bitterness | 10:20 | |
and unwillingness to let go of hatred of others, | 10:24 | |
ultimately leads him to be angry enough to die. | 10:30 | |
The skeleton at his feast | 10:35 | |
is himself. | 10:38 | |
And yet there is another feast | 10:42 | |
to which we are all invited. | 10:47 | |
A feast marked not by anger and bitterness, | 10:51 | |
but by God's grace. | 10:55 | |
A feast marked not by hatred, | 10:58 | |
but by love. | 11:02 | |
A feast marked not by resentment and desires for vengeance, | 11:05 | |
but forgiveness, reconciliation, | 11:11 | |
God's shalom. | 11:15 | |
It is a feast that Jesus announces | 11:19 | |
at the beginning of his ministry, | 11:22 | |
the kingdom of God has drawn near the time is fulfilled. | 11:24 | |
Consistently through the gospels | 11:29 | |
as Jesus describes this kingdom, | 11:31 | |
which has drawn near | 11:34 | |
he uses images of a banquet, of a feast, of a party, | 11:36 | |
of a celebration, of people gathering together. | 11:39 | |
It is a feast | 11:45 | |
fit for a different kind of royalty | 11:48 | |
where all are nourished and made whole, | 11:52 | |
where all are enabled to find life | 11:56 | |
and to find it abundantly. | 12:00 | |
Where people are living their best | 12:03 | |
because of the celebration that has begun, | 12:05 | |
where time seems to no longer be a factor | 12:07 | |
as our joy is complete. | 12:11 | |
Oh, the kingdom of God has drawn near what wonderful news | 12:14 | |
and yet, Jesus say's that second clause, | 12:20 | |
"repent and believe in the good news." | 12:26 | |
Jesus isn't calling us to repent in the way Jonah does, | 12:31 | |
in the depths of a dark hour, | 12:35 | |
from the belly of a large fish, | 12:39 | |
in the hours before a final exam, | 12:42 | |
in the midst of anxieties about a new job, | 12:46 | |
one time repentance in the midst of a difficult struggle | 12:50 | |
isn't all that difficult | 12:53 | |
because we can easily lapse back into bad habits. | 12:59 | |
The repentance that Jesus calls us to here | 13:04 | |
is even clearer in the original Greek | 13:08 | |
that it's not so much a one time event | 13:10 | |
as keep on repenting, keep on believing. | 13:12 | |
It is an activity that is to mark our lives | 13:14 | |
if we want to live in God's kingdom, | 13:17 | |
if we wanna be at that feast, that celebration, | 13:20 | |
that party, then we need to keep on repenting | 13:22 | |
and keep on believing. | 13:26 | |
But you notice the call to repentance | 13:30 | |
is shaped on both sides by the proclamation | 13:32 | |
that this is good news. | 13:36 | |
How can this be good news? | 13:39 | |
We think of love and forgiveness and mercy | 13:43 | |
as the good news and repentance as part of the burden. | 13:46 | |
It's no wonder they're 10 times as people | 13:50 | |
as many people in churches on Christmas | 13:53 | |
as they are on Ash Wednesday, | 13:56 | |
far more on Easter Sunday than on Good Friday. | 14:01 | |
We like the love part | 14:05 | |
but repentance? | 14:08 | |
How is that part of the good news? | 14:09 | |
Especially if it's to be seen as a daily obligation. | 14:12 | |
Repentance is a gift that comes from God | 14:18 | |
because when we see the real possibilities of life, | 14:24 | |
we discover that we want to cast off the hatred, | 14:28 | |
the bitterness, the anger, the sin | 14:32 | |
that divides us, that separates us from God | 14:36 | |
and from one another. | 14:39 | |
Karl Barth, the noted, Swiss theologian once said, | 14:42 | |
"repent not because you must, but because you may." | 14:45 | |
We're invited to repent | 14:51 | |
as the way we prepare ourselves for the feast, | 14:54 | |
the party. | 14:59 | |
Well I have a confession | 15:02 | |
my confession is that I like to do something somewhat | 15:05 | |
mischievous during the month of May, | 15:08 | |
I like to go out to nice restaurants on Friday | 15:11 | |
and Saturday nights when junior | 15:14 | |
and senior prom's are being held, | 15:16 | |
to sit off in the corner of one of those nice restaurants | 15:19 | |
and just watch as the high school juniors | 15:22 | |
and seniors come in, dressed in their finest | 15:25 | |
to eat a wonderful dinner before they go to the prom. | 15:29 | |
I like to do it because these are kids | 15:33 | |
I've seen all through the rest of the year | 15:35 | |
with baseball hats on backwards and shorts and T-shirts | 15:38 | |
and giving each other grief and dissing one another | 15:41 | |
and lo and behold, on that Saturday night there they are | 15:46 | |
eating with the right fork, | 15:51 | |
offering each other the food before they eat it themselves, | 15:55 | |
pulling out chairs for one another, | 16:01 | |
it's a marvel, close to a miracle. | 16:05 | |
And then you begin to think | 16:11 | |
how long these kids have spent preparing for that night, | 16:13 | |
the tuxes and the dresses, | 16:18 | |
the excitement that they've had | 16:20 | |
about preparing for that night to impress one another, | 16:22 | |
it's a celebration. | 16:26 | |
Well if people would devote that much preparation, | 16:31 | |
to getting ready for a dance, | 16:35 | |
a party, | 16:39 | |
imagine how much more we need to prepare | 16:44 | |
to live in God's kingdom. | 16:47 | |
If we really want to be in the presence of God | 16:50 | |
then we need to be putting on our finest, | 16:56 | |
to casting off all that which ordinarily divides us, | 16:59 | |
the hatred, the hostility, the anger, the bitterness, | 17:04 | |
but not just for one night of a dance, | 17:11 | |
but to changing the habits of our lives | 17:16 | |
so that habits of hatred, become the gift of love, | 17:20 | |
habits of bitterness, become a gift of gentleness | 17:25 | |
and kindness and forgiveness, | 17:29 | |
habits of injustice become gifts of justice | 17:33 | |
as we bear witness to the God whom Jonah saw so clearly | 17:37 | |
a God of steadfast love, | 17:43 | |
grace and mercy. | 17:46 | |
Immediately after Jesus' announcement, | 17:51 | |
that the kingdom of God is drawn near | 17:55 | |
he calls disciples, | 17:57 | |
and as Mark tells it, | 18:01 | |
immediately they leave their nets to follow him. | 18:03 | |
Not because of who they are, | 18:08 | |
but because of who Jesus is. | 18:12 | |
They embark on a new life, of learning what it means | 18:16 | |
to live in God's kingdom. | 18:20 | |
It takes time. | 18:24 | |
It requires the support of others | 18:26 | |
but immediately they followed him. | 18:30 | |
We are invited this morning | 18:35 | |
to celebrate Holy Communion | 18:39 | |
a sign of the feast of God's kingdom. | 18:42 | |
Come, not because you must, | 18:48 | |
but because you may. | 18:53 | |
Come, not because of who you are | 18:55 | |
or what you have done, | 19:01 | |
but because Christ has invited you, to follow him. | 19:03 | |
Come, not because you are full and satisfied, | 19:08 | |
but because you are hungry and thirsty. | 19:14 | |
Come because the feast that God has prepared for us | 19:19 | |
will give us life and nourishment | 19:26 | |
and expand the horizons of grace, | 19:30 | |
to touch those whom we love | 19:34 | |
and those whom we used to hate. | 19:38 | |
Come to the feast of our Lord. | 19:42 |