I Wonder What Would Happen If . . .
Trinity Episcopal Church, Hartford, CT
Epiphany 3 – January 25, 2009
Jonah 3:1-10; Psalm 62:6Epiphany 3 – January 25, 2009
“I wonder what would happen if . . .”
Reflections on Being Radically Open to Jesus Christ
The Rev. Donald L. Hamer, Rector
The Rev. Donald L. Hamer, Rector
Let the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be always acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength and our redeemer. AMEN.
The City of Nineveh is brought to its knees by the Word of God, and transforms its very life from a haven of privilege to a sanctuary of public repentance.
St. Paul tells the people of Corinth that the appointed time has grown short, and that the present form of this world is passing away.
By the simple act of passing by the shore and inviting them to follow him, Jesus forever changes the lives of Simon, Andrew, James and John as they leave their lives as fisherman to become “fishers of people.”
Today I would like for us to reflect on how these passages from Scripture put out there for us God’s call to radical change in the way we humans look at the world, in the way we do things, in the way we steward the lives that God has given to us. Particularly in this week when the world has taken an unprecedented interest in a profound change in our national leadership, and we who live in this country have been participants in that change, I want to draw some parallels: Parallels between God’s story as told in Scripture and our story. Parallels between what we are being called to do as citizens of this nation and what God is calling us to do as members of this church.
Let’s begin our reflection this morning by looking at the twists and turns in the story of Jonah and how he handled his rather precarious place between a rock and a hard place – between God and the great Assyrian capital of Nineveh. And I choose this story in part because this is the first time we Episcopalians have heard this story in church – it does not appear in the Book of Common Prayer lectionary, but only in the Revised Common Lectionary which we have been using for the last two years.
Now, Jonah is not one of your typical prophets. First, the book itself it not the message of a prophet, but rather a short story about the prophet. Secondly, while it is true that most of the prophets – the true prophets, anyway – did not initially warm to the task of being tagged by God as a prophet, Jonah brought this to an art form. In Chapter One of the Book of Jonah, the prelude to the passage we heard this morning, God has told Jonah to go to Nineveh “at once” to warn them of the Lord’s displeasure so that they can change their ways and be saved. Now today, Nineveh no longer exists as a noteworthy city, but to place it in modern history, it is right across the Tigris River from the modern Iraqi city of Mosul, the site of such intense fighting in the present Iraq war.
So, getting back to our story, God asks Jonah to go to Nineveh, but Jonah doesn’t want to go – not because he thinks he isn’t up to the task, but because he doesn’t want Nineveh – an enemy of Israel – to be saved. He doesn’t like God’s plan, so he’s going to make up one of his own. So instead of doing what God wants him to do, Jonah runs down to Joppa, buys a ticket for the next ship leaving port and sets sail for Tarshish – which is the opposite direction from Nineveh. He wants nothing of this assignment. But, to paraphrase the title of a play that was performed at Ford’s Theater 25 years ago, Jonah’s arms were too short to box with God. A great storm rages around the ship, and the crew determines that it is because Jonah is fleeing from the Lord that this calamity has befallen them.
There is an interesting side note here. Even as he is admitting that the storm is because of him, Jonah proclaims to his fellow sailors, “I am a Hebrew. . . I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Talk about chutzpah! He claims that he worships the Lord, but he was high-tailing it out of the country to avoid Him!
Imagine that!
Well, most of us know how that part of the story ends. Jonah’s shipmates decide to throw him overboard in hopes that this will calm the storm – which it does. God then sends a large fish to swallow up Jonah, God tells the fish to spit Jonah up on the dry land and, lo and behold, Jonah lives to see another day – another day in which God gives him yet another chance to do what God is asking him to do.
But even this time, Jonah’s heart isn’t in it. We hear that Nineveh is a large city – nearly a three-days walk across, but Jonah only goes a third of the way in. And after making such a big deal over not wanting to do this – look at what happens: All he does is issue a simple proclamation, and the people of Nineveh sit up and take notice: They believed God and put on sackcloth. It reminds me of that night about 20 years ago when my daughter Katie spent 2 ½ hours throwing a tantrum because I wouldn’t help her with her homework – read, figure it for her – and when she finished screaming and got down to work, it took her exactly 14 minutes to finish it.
But not only do the citizens listen to Jonah – the King himself puts on sackcloth and sits in ashes – a traditional sign of mourning and repentance. He, too, comes to believe in God, and issues a decree setting forth three stages of repentance for the entire nation:
1. To admit their guilt and their sinfulness, and to do that by changing their behavior.
2. For each person to change his or her attitude toward others by turning away from evil and avoiding violence.
3. For the entire nation to open itself to the possibility that the God of Israel can love all of creation – even traditional enemies of Israel.
And this part of the story of Jonah ends with the people of Nineveh being saved by turning to God. And Jonah is still unhappy about it. . . . That part of the story is to be continued . . .
For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him this morning’s psalm begins. And it’s true, isn’t it? We all would go along with that sentiment. But unfortunately, as with Jonah, we like to believe in the idea of that verse, but for most of us it remains a sentiment. As with Jonah, our outward actions – the things we actually do in our daily lives – belie the truth that while we know as a spiritual matter that our hope is in God, we’re not all that confident that God will actually be there with that safety net when we really need help – we’re not sure that if we jump off of that boat, if we take that risk, that God will have a big fish there ready to scoop us up and bring us to safety to give us another chance.
Let’s look back at what the King says to the Ninevites when they hear Jonah’s warning:
1. They are to fast – to intentionally go without something in order to be open to the presence of God.
2. They are to turn their lives around and treat others without violence.
3. They are to believe in the reality that God really does have the power to redeem all people, no matter what they have done, even people who are perceived to be God’s enemies.
In the face of uncertainty, in the face of impending doom and destruction, the King didn’t call his people reflexively to strike back. He didn’t call them to make excuses. He didn’t call them to be defensive. He called upon them to take the risk of trusting God.
For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him.
This past Tuesday, as we look back on President Obama’s Inaugural Address, didn’t we hear some of the same themes? In successive paragraphs of his speech, he spoke to America’s allies and its foes; to people of all faiths, and to people of no faith; to the comfortable people of prosperous nations and to the suffering people of nations whose wealth is not measured by money. Some of his words might have been directed to Jonah, or to the people of Nineveh:
What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition . . . 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. . . . This is the source of our confidence – the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
In the face of crisis, we are being called not to fight or to flee, not to be defensive, not to embrace what our baser human instincts would lead us to, but instead to embrace the challenge and to do so by placing our confidence in God.
For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him.
Also this past week, as you know, this parish served as a “satellite” host site for the Trinity Institute from Trinity Church, Wall Street. The Theme was RADICAL ABUNDANCE: TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF SUSTAINABILITY. One of the speakers, Majora Carter, addressed the subject of crisis. Her own story is about returning to her home neighborhood in New York City’s south Bronx and leading its transformation from a desolate industrial wasteland to a vibrant, ecologically friendly neighborhood. When asked about the impact of the current economic crisis on efforts to create healthy communities, she thought a moment and then responded, “You know, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Think about it: We can react like Jonah and run and hide – we can be like ostriches and stick our head in the sand -- at our Vestry meeting the other night our treasurer, Jack Pearson reminded us what is left exposed when you stick your head in the sand . . . We can respond like Jonah, or we can respond like the King. And while it is both a shame and a missed opportunity when civil governments react to crisis without faith and without hope, it is senseless, indeed, it is the essence of sin, when churches – communities of faith – respond without faith.
And so, as our Sunday school children do each week and during our Godly Play Eucharist on the first Sunday of each month, I want to leave you to ponder some wondering questions:
I wonder what would happen if we really did trust that God will take care of us. . . .
I wonder what would happen if we trusted that God really does desire to bring all of creation into harmony and balance . . . .
I wonder what would happen if we thought of ourselves as spiritual beings having a human experience, instead of worldly beings having a spiritual experience . . . .
I wonder what would happen if each of us embraced Trinity church as a true center of spiritual inquiry and opened ourselves to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit . . . .
I wonder what would happen if the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives became our image of reality instead of the finite events of this world . . . .
I wonder what would happen if we focused on life as a series of opportunities to be embraced instead of a succession of problems to be solved. . . .
I wonder what would happen if, instead of focusing on overcoming those we perceive to be our adversaries, we focused instead on linking arms with those with whom we discover common interests. . . .
I wonder what would happen if we thought about wealth as having anything that has value, especially value that is beyond money. . . .
I wonder what would happen if we truly believed that God’s abundance has no limits . . . .
I wonder what would happen if we really believed that in order for us to have enough someone else does not have to go without . . . .
I wonder what would happen if every member of this congregation were committed to engage in at least one ministry of this church in the next three months . . . .
I wonder what would happen if each week, there was a different individual or family greeting parishioners at the Sigourney Street and Goodwin Hall doors . . . .
I wonder what would happen if every member of this congregation committed to achieve the Biblical tithe in their financial support of the mission of Trinity Church within the next five years. . . .
I wonder . . . .
For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him.
AMEN.
c 2009 The Rev. Donald L. Hamer
The City of Nineveh is brought to its knees by the Word of God, and transforms its very life from a haven of privilege to a sanctuary of public repentance.
St. Paul tells the people of Corinth that the appointed time has grown short, and that the present form of this world is passing away.
By the simple act of passing by the shore and inviting them to follow him, Jesus forever changes the lives of Simon, Andrew, James and John as they leave their lives as fisherman to become “fishers of people.”
Today I would like for us to reflect on how these passages from Scripture put out there for us God’s call to radical change in the way we humans look at the world, in the way we do things, in the way we steward the lives that God has given to us. Particularly in this week when the world has taken an unprecedented interest in a profound change in our national leadership, and we who live in this country have been participants in that change, I want to draw some parallels: Parallels between God’s story as told in Scripture and our story. Parallels between what we are being called to do as citizens of this nation and what God is calling us to do as members of this church.
Let’s begin our reflection this morning by looking at the twists and turns in the story of Jonah and how he handled his rather precarious place between a rock and a hard place – between God and the great Assyrian capital of Nineveh. And I choose this story in part because this is the first time we Episcopalians have heard this story in church – it does not appear in the Book of Common Prayer lectionary, but only in the Revised Common Lectionary which we have been using for the last two years.
Now, Jonah is not one of your typical prophets. First, the book itself it not the message of a prophet, but rather a short story about the prophet. Secondly, while it is true that most of the prophets – the true prophets, anyway – did not initially warm to the task of being tagged by God as a prophet, Jonah brought this to an art form. In Chapter One of the Book of Jonah, the prelude to the passage we heard this morning, God has told Jonah to go to Nineveh “at once” to warn them of the Lord’s displeasure so that they can change their ways and be saved. Now today, Nineveh no longer exists as a noteworthy city, but to place it in modern history, it is right across the Tigris River from the modern Iraqi city of Mosul, the site of such intense fighting in the present Iraq war.
So, getting back to our story, God asks Jonah to go to Nineveh, but Jonah doesn’t want to go – not because he thinks he isn’t up to the task, but because he doesn’t want Nineveh – an enemy of Israel – to be saved. He doesn’t like God’s plan, so he’s going to make up one of his own. So instead of doing what God wants him to do, Jonah runs down to Joppa, buys a ticket for the next ship leaving port and sets sail for Tarshish – which is the opposite direction from Nineveh. He wants nothing of this assignment. But, to paraphrase the title of a play that was performed at Ford’s Theater 25 years ago, Jonah’s arms were too short to box with God. A great storm rages around the ship, and the crew determines that it is because Jonah is fleeing from the Lord that this calamity has befallen them.
There is an interesting side note here. Even as he is admitting that the storm is because of him, Jonah proclaims to his fellow sailors, “I am a Hebrew. . . I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” Talk about chutzpah! He claims that he worships the Lord, but he was high-tailing it out of the country to avoid Him!
Imagine that!
Well, most of us know how that part of the story ends. Jonah’s shipmates decide to throw him overboard in hopes that this will calm the storm – which it does. God then sends a large fish to swallow up Jonah, God tells the fish to spit Jonah up on the dry land and, lo and behold, Jonah lives to see another day – another day in which God gives him yet another chance to do what God is asking him to do.
But even this time, Jonah’s heart isn’t in it. We hear that Nineveh is a large city – nearly a three-days walk across, but Jonah only goes a third of the way in. And after making such a big deal over not wanting to do this – look at what happens: All he does is issue a simple proclamation, and the people of Nineveh sit up and take notice: They believed God and put on sackcloth. It reminds me of that night about 20 years ago when my daughter Katie spent 2 ½ hours throwing a tantrum because I wouldn’t help her with her homework – read, figure it for her – and when she finished screaming and got down to work, it took her exactly 14 minutes to finish it.
But not only do the citizens listen to Jonah – the King himself puts on sackcloth and sits in ashes – a traditional sign of mourning and repentance. He, too, comes to believe in God, and issues a decree setting forth three stages of repentance for the entire nation:
1. To admit their guilt and their sinfulness, and to do that by changing their behavior.
2. For each person to change his or her attitude toward others by turning away from evil and avoiding violence.
3. For the entire nation to open itself to the possibility that the God of Israel can love all of creation – even traditional enemies of Israel.
And this part of the story of Jonah ends with the people of Nineveh being saved by turning to God. And Jonah is still unhappy about it. . . . That part of the story is to be continued . . .
For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him this morning’s psalm begins. And it’s true, isn’t it? We all would go along with that sentiment. But unfortunately, as with Jonah, we like to believe in the idea of that verse, but for most of us it remains a sentiment. As with Jonah, our outward actions – the things we actually do in our daily lives – belie the truth that while we know as a spiritual matter that our hope is in God, we’re not all that confident that God will actually be there with that safety net when we really need help – we’re not sure that if we jump off of that boat, if we take that risk, that God will have a big fish there ready to scoop us up and bring us to safety to give us another chance.
Let’s look back at what the King says to the Ninevites when they hear Jonah’s warning:
1. They are to fast – to intentionally go without something in order to be open to the presence of God.
2. They are to turn their lives around and treat others without violence.
3. They are to believe in the reality that God really does have the power to redeem all people, no matter what they have done, even people who are perceived to be God’s enemies.
In the face of uncertainty, in the face of impending doom and destruction, the King didn’t call his people reflexively to strike back. He didn’t call them to make excuses. He didn’t call them to be defensive. He called upon them to take the risk of trusting God.
For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him.
This past Tuesday, as we look back on President Obama’s Inaugural Address, didn’t we hear some of the same themes? In successive paragraphs of his speech, he spoke to America’s allies and its foes; to people of all faiths, and to people of no faith; to the comfortable people of prosperous nations and to the suffering people of nations whose wealth is not measured by money. Some of his words might have been directed to Jonah, or to the people of Nineveh:
What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility – a recognition . . . 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. . . . This is the source of our confidence – the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny.
In the face of crisis, we are being called not to fight or to flee, not to be defensive, not to embrace what our baser human instincts would lead us to, but instead to embrace the challenge and to do so by placing our confidence in God.
For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him.
Also this past week, as you know, this parish served as a “satellite” host site for the Trinity Institute from Trinity Church, Wall Street. The Theme was RADICAL ABUNDANCE: TOWARD A THEOLOGY OF SUSTAINABILITY. One of the speakers, Majora Carter, addressed the subject of crisis. Her own story is about returning to her home neighborhood in New York City’s south Bronx and leading its transformation from a desolate industrial wasteland to a vibrant, ecologically friendly neighborhood. When asked about the impact of the current economic crisis on efforts to create healthy communities, she thought a moment and then responded, “You know, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.”
A crisis is a terrible thing to waste. Think about it: We can react like Jonah and run and hide – we can be like ostriches and stick our head in the sand -- at our Vestry meeting the other night our treasurer, Jack Pearson reminded us what is left exposed when you stick your head in the sand . . . We can respond like Jonah, or we can respond like the King. And while it is both a shame and a missed opportunity when civil governments react to crisis without faith and without hope, it is senseless, indeed, it is the essence of sin, when churches – communities of faith – respond without faith.
And so, as our Sunday school children do each week and during our Godly Play Eucharist on the first Sunday of each month, I want to leave you to ponder some wondering questions:
I wonder what would happen if we really did trust that God will take care of us. . . .
I wonder what would happen if we trusted that God really does desire to bring all of creation into harmony and balance . . . .
I wonder what would happen if we thought of ourselves as spiritual beings having a human experience, instead of worldly beings having a spiritual experience . . . .
I wonder what would happen if each of us embraced Trinity church as a true center of spiritual inquiry and opened ourselves to the transforming power of the Holy Spirit . . . .
I wonder what would happen if the Holy Spirit’s work in our lives became our image of reality instead of the finite events of this world . . . .
I wonder what would happen if we focused on life as a series of opportunities to be embraced instead of a succession of problems to be solved. . . .
I wonder what would happen if, instead of focusing on overcoming those we perceive to be our adversaries, we focused instead on linking arms with those with whom we discover common interests. . . .
I wonder what would happen if we thought about wealth as having anything that has value, especially value that is beyond money. . . .
I wonder what would happen if we truly believed that God’s abundance has no limits . . . .
I wonder what would happen if we really believed that in order for us to have enough someone else does not have to go without . . . .
I wonder what would happen if every member of this congregation were committed to engage in at least one ministry of this church in the next three months . . . .
I wonder what would happen if each week, there was a different individual or family greeting parishioners at the Sigourney Street and Goodwin Hall doors . . . .
I wonder what would happen if every member of this congregation committed to achieve the Biblical tithe in their financial support of the mission of Trinity Church within the next five years. . . .
I wonder . . . .
For God alone my soul in silence waits; truly, my hope is in him.
AMEN.
c 2009 The Rev. Donald L. Hamer
posted by Don+ @ 9:51 PM
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