Third Sunday After Epiphany - B

January 25, 2009

The Very Rev. Peter Swarr

Nineveh was quite a city. According to the book of Jonah it was a three day walk across its confines, and scholars estimate it had a population of well over 120,000 people, making it one of the largest cities on the face of the earth.[1] Nineveh was powerful, massing huge armies that were able to conquer much of the eastern Mediterranean world. Nineveh was the enemy of countless nations, including Israel. On top of all of that Nineveh was a symbol for what was sinful and evil in the world. Two different biblical prophets, Nahum and Zephaniah wrote countless words berating the wicked and evil city of Nineveh. “Zephania condemned it for arrogance and forecasts its destruction…Nahum assailed it as the ‘city of bloodshed’, and described its evil in great detail. [For these prophets]…Nineveh was evil incarnate.”[2]  It would be fair to say that Nineveh was, to the people hearing the book of Jonah, our modern day equivalent of Amsterdam or Vegas only on a much darker scale. It could well be that there was a saying floating around the ancient world that went something like this, “what happens in Nineveh stays in Nineveh.”

Needless to say, Jonah was not exactly thrilled when God called him to get up, go to Nineveh, and proclaim the Word of God. Quite honestly the last thing Jonah the judgmental prophet wanted to do was to have anything to do with that sin-sick, evil foreign city. Like Nahum and Zephaniah, Jonah would have much preferred to stay in Israel speaking to a people who were a little more inclined to listen to God while watching Nineveh be destroyed by God’s all consuming wrath. And yet God called out to Jonah and in a powerful and unexpected way God’s call transformed both the messenger AND the recipient of God’s Word.

Our short reading from Jonah doesn’t give us nearly the whole story of Jonah and his interaction with Nineveh. The fact is, this is the second time our persistent God calls this reluctant and rather resentful man. Earlier on God called Jonah to go to Nineveh and Jonah got up and ran in the opposite direction. Soon thereafter he boarded a boat to get as far away from Nineveh as he possibly could. That led to a rather interesting incident with a whale, but that’s another sermon for another day. Finally, after running from God’s call Jonah finally relents and he heads to that great and evil city, that ancient day Amsterdam, to proclaim God’s word to a people Jonah was convinced were already beyond redemption. And, in a twist of history that Jonah nor most of us would ever believe, an entire city, the poor, rulers, politicians, even animals repent. They turned around in their tracks and listened to God, and God then chose to have mercy on the people of Nineveh. After this unbelievable repentance Jonah goes outside of the city and begins to bewail God’s mercy, angry that God had relented in his anger, angry that God would not wipe out this city which Jonah despised. And in the midst of that anger God reached out and transformed Jonah as well.

Incredibly, God’s call, God’s word, God’s invitation to humanity is something that changes and transforms everyone, the reluctant and judgmental messenger, as well as the fallen and sinful recipient.

Today is our annual meeting, the day when the Church of God in Plymouth will gather together to celebrate what God is doing in our midst. A day when we will prayerfully vote to elect new lay leaders for vestry, a day when we will give thanks to God for the faithful servants which God has provided to this parish through St. John’s Cross Awards. Just two years ago, St. John’s held another annual meeting of which I desperately wanted to be a part. The problem was I was stuck in the city of Amsterdam due to a massive windstorm which had paralyzed much of the flights in and out of northern Europe. Angela and I were put up, thanks to Luftstansa, at a hotel just outside of Schipol airport about a 30 minute train ride from Amsterdam. Since there were no flights which would get us back to Detroit, and since it doesn’t happen all that often that you get free lodging, food and transportation in an expensive European city we decided to visit that infamous city.

Amsterdam has beautiful architecture, it has wonderful museums, it has interesting people, it also has numerous stores and restaurants which gave me a sick feeling in my stomach. As we headed to the Oude Kerk, the oldest church in Amsterdam, we unexpectedly found ourselves passing establishment after establishment with dimly lit red windows staffed by innumerable immigrant women. As we walked towards the eight century old church I felt my stomach turn and I felt indignation build within me. I felt as if God was speaking to me about the evil and brokenness of this city. And then I looked around and saw that every person in that dimly lit district was a tourist. As Angela and I beat a hasty retreat back to the main street of the city I began to realize that the brokenness and sin of Amsterdam, that great and notorious city, was in fact part and parcel of the sin and brokenness of all humanity. In some way, God caused me to realize that the brokenness of Amsterdam was not isolated, it was not contained, but was intricately connected with all of humanity near and far. In some way, all of us, myself included, were implicated in Amsterdam’s sin. In realizing that fact I began to feel God judging and changing me just as God was judging those who run and patronize those dimly lit establishments.

It is all too easy for us to believe that we hear the righteous call of an indignant God judging the world, judging others. It can be all too easy for us, people of faith, to believe, just like Jonah, that we know God’s plan and that we know God’s mind. Yet God has a way of calling out to a broken and sin-sick world in ways that transform those who are meant to be the messengers as well as those meant to be the recipients of God’s gracious words. God’s call for repentance, for turning away from paths of sin, of separation, of brokenness is a call that transforms not only Nineveh, not only Amsterdam, but those who are the messengers of God’s call. God’s call is meant to transform the heart of all people, to reshape the heart of all people ever more into the image of Christ who reached out to sinners, to the sick, to prostitutes, to those rejected and despised by all.

We see that reality in the story of Jonah. We see it in Jesus calling Simon, Andrew, James and John to follow him, not only to heal others, not only to spread the Gospel, but to be transformed themselves by the power of God’s message incarnate in Jesus. The fact is, the Bible is full of stories demonstrating how God’s word, God’s call is living and active, touching and changing the recipient and the messenger.

As we gather today to take counsel, to give thanks, to celebrate what God has done, and to listen for God’s voice at the Annual Meeting, I pray that we might be mindful of the story of Jonah and Nineveh. May we listen to where God’s call for justice and righteousness in our world is also calling for mercy and forgiveness in ourselves.  May we be open to the One who comes down to the lake shore, who comes into the Parish Hall, who comes into our hearts and calls us by name. May we be open to thinking and pondering about where in our lives we might be like Jonah, resistant to the call of God which offers mercy. May we be willing to consider where Christ might be calling us as individuals and as a parish to new vision and new understandings. May we reflect and consider what parts of our world, what parts of our relationships we have deemed irreparable and beyond the mercy of God. Where is it that God’s voice is calling us to travel to? What is our modern-day Nineveh?

Today we hear, beyond a shadow of a doubt that nothing and no one is beyond the mercy and love of God. Today we hear that the Word of God can and is transformative and powerful in ways we have never imagined. May our persistent and merciful God continue to call us, and may we, like Simon, Andrew, James and John, yes, even like Jonah be open to hearing God’s voice which seeks to transform not only the world, but us as well.