Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20
Being in relationship with God often means being required
to do things one may not want to do, or doing things one may not think they can
do, or doing things that seem impossible to do, and doing them anyway.
Jonah learned this.
The Psalmist knew it. Paul
continually practiced and taught this.
Simon, Andrew, James and John learned this.
The less-than three-page book of Jonah is the story of a
man who ran away and attempted suicide just so that he would not have to do
what God asked of him. Not because what
God was asking of him was wrong, but because what God was asking him to do went
against his own feelings, his own sense of pain and would mean that he would
have to do something that would make him change his mind. And even when he did what God asked, he
pouted and whined and still wanted to die, because he didn’t understand the big
picture God has for Creation. He didn’t
want God to love everyone, because Jonah could not love everyone.
There is a little portion of the Psalm today that caught my
attention. It’s verse 13, where it
says:
God has spoken once, twice I have heard it,
that power belongs to God.
that power belongs to God.
There
is the reverberation of God’s voice, echoing in the ears of this Psalmist in a
Psalm that celebrates God, yet still places warnings on how to trust other
people. We are reminded that God’s got
this. God is in control.
Paul was in Corinth helping people
understand the teachings of Jesus in their particular context. He based his teaching on what the people of
Corinth needed to know, and he would continue this way of teaching in all the
communities where he would be sent, where he would often ultimately be
imprisoned, giving him time to hear the voice of God, again, telling him to
teach according to the needs of these
people in this time.
And then there are the fishermen, who
dropped everything to follow and be taught by Jesus, not knowing what their
futures would become and without seeming to care about the consequences their
leaving would place on those they left, holding the nets.
Yet, each of these people did what was
asked of them. Each obeyed the voice of
God.
It must have been incredibly hard for
them to do this, because it’s still incredibly hard to do this. It’s hard to be called by God, knowing that
the work of the Creator can put you into situations that may compromise your
own convictions, like Jonah; that make you wary of others whom you do not know
how to trust, like the Psalmist; that need to teach others how to live,
allowing long-standing rules to bend so that they most suit the realities of
each place you teach, like Paul; and that make you leave everything you know --
to do something you’ve never done before, like the disciples.
It must have been hard, because it
remains hard.
It’s hard, maybe especially hard, for
women these days. Many women who have
endured all depths of abuse that make them a part of the #metoo movement. Women who must decide if they should tell
their story, reliving their moments, not knowing how it will be received by the
men, or even women in their lives. Is it
better to remain silent so as not to stir a pot of hurt, or is it better to
listen to God, maybe twice, to stand up and speak out?
It’s hard, maybe especially hard, for
children of immigrants, those Dreamers we keep hearing about, who must decide
to what length they will go to stay in this country—will they tell others of
their circumstance, or will they stay silent?
It’s hard, maybe especially hard, for
families who struggle with an addicted loved one, or who mourn their avoidable
death from opioids. Are they willing to
be honest, like the family of Tom Petty, and tell the world that their loved
one died of an overdose of pain pills, or will they choose to keep it a secret
for fear of what others will think?
It’s hard, maybe especially hard, for
people who want to preach from the pulpit or in the street or at the doors of
their congressmen and women about injustice. About inequities and prejudices and racism and
ableism and sexism. Or the right to
carry a weapon or about reproductive rights or to protest wars and question
authority and all those things that stir up conflict within them, within us,
that turn the world upside down within families and communities, and even,
sometimes, within ourselves.
It’s hard because these are things
that Jesus did, in his own way, in those days.
And these are things we, too, are called to do as Christians, and
sometimes being a Christian means we must do things that stir up our own
comfort, changing our minds, adapting our convictions. We do these things because we have so many
examples in the Bible of people doing these things. They do these things because God has called
them to do them.
Jonah was sent to tell the people of a
huge city that they needed to repent and turn to God so that God would not kill
them all. What makes this story really
hard is that in his heart of hearts, Jonah wanted
God to kill them all.
The Psalmist, even in his praise to
God, still feared.
Paul had to find ways to massage the
long-standing rules that identified how people understood the meaning of living
out their faith, so that those folks would come to believe in a God who was
less concerned about rules like what foods
they could eat and circumcision and more concerned about them loving God and loving
one another.
The disciples would learn how to stand
up for the marginalized; to heal the sick; to trust that others would feed them
and provide them a place of rest; how to teach about the abundance of God’s
love; and would watch as this man who called them from the sea would be
arrested, beaten, hung on a cross and die.
AND they would be in that upper room when Jesus returned to call them, a
second time, to follow him.
I’ll say it again.
Being in relationship with God often means being required to do things
one may not want to do, or doing things one may not think they can do, or doing
things that seem impossible to do, and doing them anyway.
It’s hard work. And
it’s worth it.
Let us pray. God, you call us into relationship with you
so that we can learn from you how to live with one another in community. You ask us to show mercy when we simply do
not want to; to listen, twice, so that we can clearly hear what you have to say
on any matter; to learn and to teach how to live together as a faith community;
to follow you, even when it means giving up everything we thought we knew. You ask us to do these things because you
love us and want us to show that love to one another. May it be so. Amen.