Recap the story of Jonah for those who may not know the story…
Title: Does God Really Care About Everyone?
Text: Jonah 3:1-10
Slide 3
Thesis: God challenges us to rethink our attitudes and actions toward all people.
Introduction
Westboro Baptist is a church in Topeka, Kansas whose members say that “God’s hatred is one of His holy attributes.” They take exception to talk about the love of God and are a virulently homophobic, anti-semantic hate group that believes America is a doomed country. They base their assumptions on the conviction that their understanding and interpretation of the bible is the only legitimate one.
They regularly picket and stage protests around the country and may be seen holding signs that state: “God Hates Israel!” Thank God for 9/11! God Is Angry Everyday! “God Hates Fags!” And Thank God for Dead Soldiers!”
When Elizabeth Edwards died from cancer the Westboro Baptist Church published a news release of their intent to picket her funeral because when “God visited them (the Edwards) with the death of their 16 year old son, they did not humble themselves before God’s almighty hand.”
They actually planned to picket the funerals of the victims who died in the Joplin, Missouri tornado last year. They believe that the tornado was divine judgment against the people of Joplin, Missouri and that all natural disasters are God’s judgment against America.
It is hard to imagine anyone celebrating the judgment of God on anyone. However I can understand how a person might hesitate to extend the grace of God to some people. I understand that there is “honor among thieves” so to speak and that social hierarchies do indeed exist even in our penal system. Apparently, unless given protective custody, informants and pedophiles have a very short life expectancy if they are incarcerated in the general prison population. We may have our own hierarchy of behaviors we consider unforgivable and most deserving of eternal damnation.
Job did…
Transition: I suspect we do as well.
I. We may be reluctant to see others as recipients of God’s grace.
But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God… abounding in love.” Jonah 4:1-3
When God initially instructed Jonah to go to Nineveh in 1:2, God described Nineveh as a great city but a very wicked city. The nature of its wickedness is not explained but historians tell us Assyria was among the most evil of empires in history.
Some of you remember the days of the Cold War and of how “back in the day” President Ronald Reagan referred to the Soviet Union as “The Evil Empire” in a speech to the National Association of Evangelicals in Orlando, FL on March 8, 1983.
More recently in his State of the Union Address on January 29, 2002, President G.W. Bush spoke of North Korea, Iran and Iraq as “The Axis of Evil.”
The Ancient Military History web site cites the 5 Most Evil Empires in History as:
1. 3rd Reich 1933-1945
2. Assyrian Empire 911-605 BC
3. Stalin’s USSR 1922-1953
4. Aztec Empire 1376-1521 AD
5. Khmer Rouge 1975-1979
The Old Testament Books of Kings and Chronicles talk about the Assyrian Empire. They were notorious for terrorizing their neighbors and deporting entire populations and carrying them off into exile. They were indescribably brutal… kings were known to order the flaying of people alive for his dinner entertainment. They were feared and hated by all. (ancientmilitaryhistory.com)
Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. It was a vast city on the east bank of the Tigris River near what we now know as Mosul in northern Iraq. Jonah could not conceive of the people of Nineveh as deserving of grace and mercy. In Jonah’s mind, the thought that God might spare the evil people of Nineveh was just plain wrong!
Transition: And to think God would want him to be an agent of grace to people so undeserving was just plain wrong and out of the question. We, like Jonah may not only be reluctant, we may be down right resistant!
II. We may be resistant to our role in sharing God’s grace.
The word of the Lord came to Jonah, “Go down to Ninevah…” But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish… to flee from the Lord. Jonah 1:1-3
When Jonah thought of going to Nineveh and of the possibility that God might actually be gracious to such a people he could not bring himself to be God’s agent of grace and mercy.
Illustration: A few days ago the Governor of Mississippi handed out 193 pardons during his final days in office. Five of the men pardoned had worked odd jobs at the governor’s mansion while serving their sentences… four of whom are convicted murderers. In that the pardons seemed to have been done in haste and without having followed protocol there has been a huge public outcry resulting in a Mississippi judge blocking the release of 21 inmates who received full pardons.
In other cases the State Attorney General states that “the men hit the road running” after being freed and that a nation-wide manhunt may be necessary to bring them in. (Josh Voorhees, Gov. Barbour’s Pardons Spark Manhunt for Missing Murderers, The Slate, January 13, 2012)
Governor Barbour may have been feeling big-hearted and magnanimous but Mississippians, by-in-large, were considerably less inclined to extend pardons to those convicted criminals.
We get it… We were embarrassed when the 40 second clip allegedly depicting American soldiers urinating on the dead bodies of enemy combatants in Afghanistan surfaced. The scene is described as disgusting and highly reprehensible. However, if and when you have seen and experienced enough inhumanity at the hands of an enemy a person might just begin to believe that there is nothing we can do that would not be justified in a given circumstance.
So the thought of extending mercy and grace to a child-molester or a rapist is unthinkable… and the thought that God would ask us to befriend and extend grace to such a person is even more unthinkable.
Jonah wasn’t gonna do it. His resistance was so great that he literally ran away in the opposite direction. He was supposed to make the trip some 500 miles to the northeast to the city of Nineveh but instead he booked passage on a ship to sail to Europe.
You know the story. The perfect storm. Tossed overboard. Swallowed by a giant fish. Three days in the fishes belly. Repented and agreed to do what God had asked him to do. Vomited out onto the beach. Went to Nineveh.
If we begin to think about God’s expectations of Jonah and understand that what God asked of Jonah is actually universally applied to all followers of Christ it begins to feel a little dicey to us as individual and as a church. However, whatever mindset we may have toward others the fact of the matter is, God is a gracious. God sometimes gives the best of us and the worst of us a second chance.
Transition: God is a God of second chances.
III. We may not realize that God’s grace is about second chances.
The Word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time… Jonah obeyed the Lord and went to Nineveh. Jonah 3:1-3
Second chances are huge expressions of grace.
Illustration: We are all familiar with Three Strike Laws. Three strike laws are enacted by state governments to require courts to impose a life-sentence, usually without parole, to a person who is convicted of two or more serious criminal offenses. So if you do a bad thing three times, whatever the severity or nature of your crimes, it’s life in prison.
It is based on the old baseball three strike rule. If you swing once and miss, you get a second chance. If you swing twice and miss you get a third chance. If you swing three times and miss… you are out!
When I play with our grandkids I am inclined to let them swing away until the finally get a hit. I am big on grace when it comes to my grandkids.
Illustration: When I was in college I got a job driving a bus for Columbia Transit in St. Paul, Minnesota. It was a good job but when they hired me they were very up front. If you have an accident, any accident you are fired. There was no possibility of a second chance. One strike and you were out!
There are stories in the bible wherein God did not give people a second chance.
When Lot’s wife turned back and looked at the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah she turned into a pillar of salt. When King Saul consulted a sorcerer he lost his job as King of Israel. When Ananias and his wife Sapphira withheld money and lied about the amount of their contribution they were struck dead.
When someone is deserving of a consequence and is given additional opportunities to do the right thing… it is a huge gift.
In our story today, despite Jonah’s initial refusal to share God’s grace with the people of Nineveh, God gave him another chance to do the right thing.
The story of Jonah is a sobering reminder to us as individuals that when God gives us a second chance to do the right thing in any situation it is a huge expression of grace. And when it comes to being pro-active in living out our faith with people we do not particularly care to be around or even like, we are fortunate when God lets us have another go at it.
This year we are embarking on a pathway to congregational vitality. Our desire is to pursue Christ and those things that are important to Christ. Our desire is to become a spiritually healthy and missional…
One of the ways we become healthy spiritually is by pursing Christ and one of the ways we become missional is by pursing what is important to Christ… lost people are important to Christ!
Illustration: I confess I am reluctant to reach out to some people. While attending a public meeting, I discovered that there are folks living in my neighborhood who could be guests on the Jerry Springer Show. I have sufficient drama in my life without making a conscious effort to engage the Jerry Springer culture. When I realized that those folks are the very people I’m to love and it occurred to me that should they become part of our church our annual meeting could look like an episode of the Jerry Springer Show…
Transition: The world is full of people who live outside of our comfort zones… but the bottom line is simply this:
People are important to Christ! Therefore, people are important to us!
Transition: When we allow ourselves to be instruments of grace God does surprising things.
IV. We may respond to God’s urging and be instruments of God’s grace.
Jonah obeyed the Lord and went to Ninevah… When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Ninevah, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. [And he decreed] “Let us give up our evil ways. Who knows? God may yet relent with compassion…” Jonah 3:3-9
Sometimes people appear to be “lost causes” but in fact they may be ready to respond to God’s call upon their lives. From the outside, Nineveh looked like a city lost to paganism… but from the inside and behind the scenes God was at work in that city and people were prepared to respond to the grace of God and repent of their sins.
Illustration: This week I thought about how my own family came to Christ when I was a little boy and of how unlikely that would ever have happened it occurred to me that if my family could be reached for Christ… there are no lost causes. I wonder how many in this room today would have thought you would be here 1 year ago or two years ago or five years ago or ten years ago or twenty years ago? When God works, God works and sometimes it is with unlikely people at unlikely times.
But Jonah was not at all happy when the people actually responded to his message and turned to God. In fact he was angry and went off and pouted. The bible says he sat under a leafy plant in the shade and fumed. Then God sent a cut-worm that destroyed the plant and as it withered Jonah lost his shade.
As he sat there under the blazing sun and the discomfort of a scorching east wind he got increasingly agitated and angry. God had not tripped the trap door and dropped the Assyrians into the fires of hell. And if that wasn’t enough, the plant had died. He figured it would be better to simply die than endure the salvation of his enemies and the discomfort of the day.
God confronted him as he sat in the shade lamenting the surprising turn of events and asked Jonah two simple questions: (1) Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” and (2) “Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people?”
What is more important – Jonah’s comfort zone or the saving of a city full of people?
We must not let our own preferences, preconceived notions and prejudices prevent us from reaching out to others or welcoming and receiving anyone and everyone who find their way to us.
The fact is everyone in this room has his or her own Nineveh. A Nineveh is essentially anyone or any place where God is leading you. A Nineveh is the people you are reluctant to engage, get to know and love.
Conclusion
This story is not just about a wicked city full of wicked people who needed to repent of their evil ways and turn to God for forgiveness and salvation. The story is largely about the good guy who let his prejudices keep him from loving people the way God wanted them to be loved and of how that good guy had to repent of his disobedience and his prejudices and reach out to people outside of his comfort zone.
This morning you may immediately relate to the people of Nineveh and you may be really excited to know that God loves you and wants you to turn to him…
This morning you may more likely relate to Jonah and realize that you are not as open and receptive toward others as you might be…
Illustration: Wabush is a very remote town in Canada that until recently was completely cut-off and isolated. Recently a road was cut through the wilderness… one road in and one road out. It is an unpaved road that necessitates a six to eight hour drive if you want to reach Wabush. That one road is the only road in and the only road out.
If you make the trek to Wabush, in order to leave you have to turn around. If you want to leave Wabush you have to make a u-turn. You have to make a complete about-face… otherwise you are stuck in Wabush.
When we find that we are headed in the wrong direction or have reached a dead end… the only way out of it is to make a u-turn and get headed in the right direction. It is true of us as people and it is true of us as a church.
I don’t know what the future holds. I don’t know who God will lead us to or whom God will lead to us. But I do know that if we are not willing to go to the people God sends us to or receive those whom God sends to us, we are not headed in the right direction.
Transition: When we begin to see people as God sees people and when we open our hearts to those people we will see just how expansive and all-inclusive the love of God really is.
When we see people as God sees people we will begin to grasp how wide, how long, how high and how deep God’s love really is.
When we see people as God sees people we will no longer see race or ethnicity, socio-economic classes, rich or poor, weak or strong, cultured or not so much… When we see people as God sees people we will embrace every person without prejudice or bias.
Many churches in our country were founded by immigrants. The Italians lived in Italian neighborhoods. The Irish lived in Irish communities. The Swedes lived in Swedish communities. The Germans lived in German communities. More recent immigrant groups have formed communities and churches that reflect their countries of origin. So we have Korean congregations and Hmong congregations and Russian congregations and Sudanese congregations and so on…
It is natural for homogenous groups to flock together… but is it not missional!
And typical of most ethnic groups, they cling to and celebrate their heritage and so much so as to exclude others.
Not long ago Bonnie and I were talking over lunch one Sunday after church and we began to envision what a potluck dinner here at Heritage might look like someday soon. We envisioned a potluck dinner on Anniversary Sunday that celebrated our diversity… we would call it “The Taste of Heritage: Celebrating our Diversity.”
The tables would be spread with dishes that reflect the various heritages of our faith community… there would be some sausage, some chili rellenos and enchiladas, meatballs, some egg rolls, fried rice and some hot and sour soup, some pastas and sauces, some corned beef and cabbage, some haggis, some soul food, some naan and hummus, some fry-bread, some grits and red-eye gravy… you get the idea.
At our Christmas Eve Service our choir would prepare to lead us in singing Silent Night in languages of all who make Heritage home.
May we be a welcoming faith community where anyone and everyone may belong to the body of Christ, come to believe in Jesus Christ and become Christ-like in life.
Transition: A place where anyone and everyone may:
A Place Where Everyone May:
• Belong – be at home in Christ’s Church
• Believe - come to faith in Christ
• Become – become devoted followers of Christ.
Transition: A place where all God’s children sing:
A Place Where All God’s Children Sing:
“Glory, glory, hallelujah! He reigns, He reigns!”
