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Texts: Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20
It seems to me our nation is a little schizophrenic right now.
Or maybe just bi-polar.
On the one hand, we are in the midst of the worst
world-wide financial meltdown in 80 years,
with no end in sight to rising unemployment, strangled credit lines,
and plummeting stock markets;
we are slogged down in two wars, and the chance of peace in the Middle East
has never seemed more dim.
On the other hand, literally millions of people gathered in Washington this week
for the largest celebration in our nation’s history
– an absolutely euphoric celebration of promise and possibility
and hope for a new beginning.
It seems like everyone was there, in Washington last Tuesday
– or at least everyone knew someone who was there.
Josephine was there. My best friend was there.
Two of my sisters-in-law and several nieces and nephews were there.
The son of Karen’s best friend was there.
And the millions of people who gathered around the jumbotrons
on the Washington Mall, and the tens of millions more
who gathered around TV sets and streaming video computer screens
and radios around the world didn’t hear a message
of Pollyanna reassurance that everything was really all right.
They heard a message of change, of turning
– but not an message that the economy was going to turn around on its own
so we could get back to the good old days;
– not a message that we would crush our enemies and beat them into submission
with our superior military might and technology.
No, they heard a somber message that we the people, we as a nation,
need to change our attitudes, and our lifestyles,
and our expectations of easy success without sacrifice,
and prosperity without effort.
Basically, the American people heard a call to repentance
for our nation, a call to turn from unrighteousness to righteousness,
from pride and selfishness to humility and selflessness,
from easy answers to hard choices.
Here are a few of the statements President Obama made,
in his first address to our nation as president:
“(W)e can no longer afford indifference to the suffering outside our borders;
nor can we consume the world's resources without regard to effect.
For the world has changed, and we must change with it.”
“What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility
— a recognition, on the part of every American,
that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world,
duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly,
firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit,
so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.
This is the price and the promise of citizenship.”
And we do these things, he said,
“— not out of charity, but because it is the surest route to our common good.”
OK so what has this got to do with the Bible or with Eliot Church?
Well, a whole lot, I think – that’s why I brought it up.
The first reading this morning was a snippet of the story of Jonah.
Everyone who’s ever been to Sunday School knows part of the story of Jonah.
The book of Jonah starts this way:
“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying,
‘Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and preach against it;
for their wickedness has come up before me.’
But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.
He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish;
so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish,
away from the presence of the Lord.”
And then of course, the Lord sent a great storm
that threatened to swamp and sink the ship,
and Jonah realized that the storm was directed at him, to get him to turn around,
so he told the sailors to throw him overboard.
And he was swallowed by the great fish, the whale, which saved him from drowning.
And after three days, the Bible says,
“The Lord spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land.”
That’s the part that everyone remembers from Sunday School.
But what is perhaps more remarkable, is that Jonah then DID go to Nineveh,
much as he hated to, and did call the people to repentance.
Now in the beginning, the Lord had charged Jonah to
“Go to Nineveh, that great city, and preach against it”
And do you know Jonah was to preach against?
Do you know what the wickedness of Nineveh was all about?
Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian empire,
the dominating world power of the eighth century BC,
and according to Biblical scholars, the two main sins of Nineveh
were Assyria’s arrogance and abuse of power
in conquering and plundering the wealth of poorer nations, (Isaiah 10:13)
and the cruelty of Assyria’s treatment of the people they captured. (Nahum 3:1, 10, 19)
Does that sound just a little bit familiar?
But lo and behold, the leaders and the people of Nineveh did hear Jonah’s message,
and the judgment that God was calling them to,
and they repented their sins and changed their ways.
The king of Nineveh repented, and called on all the citizens to repent with him.
And “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways,
God changed his mind about the calamity
that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.”
The strange ending to this story is that after Nineveh repents and is spared,
Jonah gets angry at God – “angry enough to die” he says.
Jonah thought the Ninevites deserved to be destroyed for their evil ways,
and they had no right to repent and be spared,
and God had no right to have mercy on them.
Jonah prayed to the Lord,
“O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home?
That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish.
I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God,
slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.”
And that’s where I will bring the story around to us.
Not that I think that we in the Eliot Church community
have been evil or selfish or uncaring.
I believe that we have been earnest and honest
in our striving to be a faithful church and faithful disciples of Jesus.
But as you have been hearing this fall,
and will be hearing more about in a few minutes,
the financial crisis that is rocking our nation is deeply affecting us as well.
I believe we have the strength and the resources not only to survive this crisis,
but to thrive through it.
But it will require wisdom, and hard work,
and a willingness to consider changes in the ways we be church together.
It will require, from each of us, an even stronger dedication
to support Eliot’s ministries and staff with our treasure and our talents.
And it will require faith in our God, who is “a gracious and compassionate God,
slow to anger, and abounding in love.”
This will be a call to commit, and a call to change.
When I listened to the president’s Inaugural address last week,
I was struck by how much of what he said
could be applied to the church, as well as to the nation.
If I may, let me close with a paraphrase of his words,
and make them my words to you today.
“In reaffirming the great value of our church’s mission and ministry,
we understand that greatness is never a given. It must be earned.
Our journey has never been one of shortcuts or settling for less.”
“What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility
— a recognition, on the part of every member
that we have duties to our God, to ourselves, and to our children,
duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly,
firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit,
so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task.”
“Let it be said by our children's children
that when we were tested we refused to let this journey end,
that we did not turn back nor did we falter;
and with eyes fixed on the horizon and God's grace upon us,
we carried forth this great gift of Christian faith, hope and love
embodied in the Eliot Church of Newton
and delivered it safely to future generations.”
Amen.
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