“No Boundaries”
Jonah 1:1-7, 15-17, 2:10, 3:1-5, 10
Mark 1:14-20
By: Rev. Kenneth Sauer, Pastor of Parkview United Methodist Church, Newport News, VA
www.parkview-umc.org
According to a famous parable: There once was a fishing village on the shore of a great lake stocked full of fish. The fishermen of the village diligently debated and discussed what fishing is, how best to do it, and which equipment to use.
They invested millions in boats and gear and a fishing headquarters, hired a staff, and sent emissaries around the world to search other lakes and rivers for fish.
One day, a little child stood up in their meeting and asked, “You all claim to be great fishermen—how come you’ve never actually caught one?”
They had never even been fishing.
We aren’t the first persons to be reluctant to share our faith with strangers.
The Book of Jonah, one of the oldest books in the Bible, tells the familiar story of a reluctant evangelist.
Rather than heeding God’s call to reach out to the strangers in Nineveh, Jonah fled in the other direction.
Ironically, in his reluctance to be a “fisherman” for God, Jonah became fish bait himself!
To put the story of Jonah into a bit of perspective, we have to understand that the Jewish people were, in many ways, a very prejudice people.
They believed that they were God’s chosen people, and no one else even stood a chance.
It was normal and acceptable practice for the upstanding and pious Jew to have nothing to do with the non-Jew or the Gentile as they are called.
As a matter of fact, any association with a Gentile would cause a good, clean Jew to become unclean!!!
The Jews thought so low of anyone who were not within their bloodline that they actually disdainfully referred to them as “dogs.”
Therefore, for God to call Jonah to preach to the city of Nineveh was a loathsome task at best!!!
Not only were the Ninevites Gentiles, they were also one of the most wicked cities on the planet!
So, the Ninevites were not just dogs, they were really, really bad dogs!!!
How could God call Jonah to preach repentance to these sub-humans?
Jonah had been taught, through human tradition to hate these folks, and this hate was so deep he couldn’t shake it.
So when God calls Jonah to go to
Nineveh, Jonah instead takes a ship--in the opposite direction—to Tarshish (which is Spain) in order to get away from God!
But it’s not so easy to ‘get away from God.’
God sent a storm, and Jonah saw another way to escape God.
Perhaps he might drown.
Then how could he go to Nineveh?
Jonah would rather die than face these dogs of Nineveh!!!
Prejudice sure can run deep, can it not?
It’s a hard thing to shake.
Anyhow, I love what we see in verse 17 of Chapter 1.
Jonah is thrown overboard, he’s ready to die rather than offer these people God’s forgiveness, but…
… “The Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights.”
If it weren’t for that fish, Jonah would have drown.
Instead, God provided a means to save Jonah from his self-destruction!!!
God always takes the intuitive when it comes to our salvation.
And although it was dark and lonely and frightening inside that great fish, it provided Jonah with…not only a second chance at life…but Jonah prayed a long prayer to God.
In the darkness of his depression and running from God’s call, Jonah got back in touch with God.
That fish was God’s prevenient grace in action!
Jonah had not been looking for it.
He had not consciously wanted it.
He had certainly not asked for it, but God was there…
…giving Jonah a second chance.
How often has God given you, or me a second chance?
I think that God understood Jonah’s plight quite well.
He understood Jonah’s prejudice and where it had come from.
He knew Jonah was running from His call.
But God continued to love Jonah despite Jonah!
Remember that, when you are feeling low.
Remember that, when you feel like being tossed overboard to die.
God loves you.
God understands you.
God will provide a way for you.
Also, keep God’s grace in mind whenever you might be called to do a task that you don’t feel you are up to doing.
Perhaps this task will bring with it great anxiety.
Perhaps the thought of it will plunge you into fear and depression.
But it’s God’s call.
It’s God’s plan.
And you are very much loved by God!
We must also keep in mind that God very much loves the Ninevites….
…A nation of 120,000 people who, as God puts it in Chapter 4:11, “cannot tell their right hand from their left.”
The persons in Nineveh did not believe in the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.
More than likely, no one had spent much time sharing with them the good news about the One and Only God.
If they had heard of God, it was probably in a judgmental, second-hand sort of way.
They knew that the people who did believe in God, the Jews, were very prejudice against them…
…The Jews did not like them in the least, and they were constantly letting them know that they had no chance whatsoever of being transformed from being a ‘so-called dog’ into a child of God!!!
“What a bunch of hateful, judgmental hypocrites,” the people of Nineveh probably thought!
“Why would we want to serve a God that makes people so prejudice and unloving toward us?”
And isn’t this how Jonah was acting?
Judgmental, hypocritical, unloving, mean.
Do we ever find ourselves with these same attitudes toward others who do not share our beliefs?
And if so, how does this make them feel about the God we worship?
So after God provides the great fish for Jonah, after giving him 3 days and 3 nights in the darkness to hash things out…
…God tells Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
And this time, Jonah obeyed God.
And incredibly, these persons of Nineveh, these ‘dogs’ who did not believe in God repent!!!
In our Gospel Lesson for this morning that Jane read earlier, Jesus begins His ministry by proclaiming: “The time has come,… The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”
Our word repent comes from a French root that means to “rethink.”
It means to rethink your life.
Are you satisfied with who you are and what you are doing?
Are you restless for more of God and meaning and joy?
Then rethink what you are doing and where your attention is focused.
Turn to a new life.
Why?
Because the Kingdom of God is at hand.
That means that God’s rule is at hand, right here and right now.
It’s not some far off fantasy.
You can decide to live under the rule of God, which is the Kingdom of God, right this very moment.
And when you do, your life takes on new meaning, a new vitality and a new worth as you enter a new way of thinking and living and doing!
Life is never the same again!!!
In our Gospel Lesson, Jesus sees Simon and Andrew. He sees them fishing.
And He calls them to a new type of fishing, to a new life altogether!
“Come, follow me,’ Jesus said, ‘and I will make you fishers of men.’”
And isn’t this what Jonah had been called to be as well?
Jonah had a lack of compassion for the people of Nineveh.
Let’s hope that this is not our problem as well.
Like the fishermen in the parable I read earlier, we too, live on the shore of a great lake stocked full of fish.
That, is, we live on the shore of a great community stocked full of the unconverted who may have no experience of God’s love or who may even have had a negative experience with folks who are called “Christians.”
Many of these people may be highly resistant to an invitation to hear the gospel, but we are called to fish for these folks none the less.
We are called to fish for these persons with great patience, understanding and love.
Maybe God is calling us to develop friendships with those in our community who are not Christians.
We must reach out to people in need wherever they are.
And just as fishing requires the right lure, so does fishing for people.
I was speaking with a fisherman not too long ago.
He had a whole tackle box full of shiny lures.
But he was quick to tell me that nothing beats the real thing: live bait!
In the same way, the world offers all kinds of glitzy lures, but they are often very artificial.
People are sometimes lured by money, success, and popularity, or by the pleasures of drugs and alcohol.
Addiction to drugs is appropriately referred to as ‘being hooked.’
It’s easy to get hooked by attractive artificial lures.
It can also be easy to get hooked into having a feeling of superiority.
Of being prejudice toward others who are not a part of our particular ‘in’ group.
It gives us a sense of security in an insecure world.
But, thankfully, God is not prejudice.
Jesus’ message is a message of universal salvation.
Which means, it is offered and available to all people, no matter what their race, station in life or so-called sinful behavior.
Christ alone is the real thing!
He is not artificial; He is living.
Jesus offers us true and lasting love, joy, and peace.
And once we accept His offer, He calls us to leave the shore and go out into the waters…to fish for others…with our authentic faith in Christ as the bait!!!
And authentic faith is what the world is hungry for!
Do you have authentic faith?
Are you a follower of Jesus Christ today, or are you perhaps still just thinking about it?
In our Gospel Lesson, Simon and Andrew respond to Jesus’ invitation without hesitation.
They were never known as just simply fishermen again, not in the old sense.
For their profession had changed quickly, immediately and forever!
In a similar way, the Ninevites responded to God’s message as put forth by Jonah without hesitation.
“The Ninevites believed God”…
…and… “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion…”
Like the Ninevites, people really do want to hear about salvation and hope, about life and love given through Jesus Christ.
We need not be timid with our valuable message.
The most selfish thing in the world is to discover the joy and peace of God’s love and then refuse to share it with others.
Yes, we are surrounded by a great lake stocked full of fish.
We have diligently debated and discussed what fishing is, and how best to do it, and which equipment to use.
We have invested money, we have sent money to missionaries to search for fish in other lakes and rivers, but how many of us go fishing for people right along our own shores?
Are we offering Christ to our friends, our neighbors, our co-workers, even those we think of as enemies?
Are we heeding the call of God on our lives?
