Jonah 3:1-4:11; Mark 1:14-20            But God?            E/GR         Jan.22/06

1. There?s trouble in Nineveh we learn in our story from Jonah.  No gory details.  Just that they are evil and violent.  Jonah?s people want nothing to do with ?those people?.  They?re different than us.  We?ve heard terrible things about them.  We should have nothing to do with them.  But God wants Jonah to go and give them another chance.  Tell them, ?Turn your lives around.?  You?re not living in a healthy way for your own good ? or anyone else?s.  Unless you change drastically, you?re going to destroy yourselves and others.

2. Jonah really doesn?t want to go.  As well as his feelings about the people, Nineveh is a long way away and an exceedingly large city. Maybe it had a reputation as a super power, so Jonah?s perhaps afraid to confront those so big and powerful.  So Jonah gets in a boat and sails in the opposite direction ? he thinks away from the presence of God ? yeah right Jonah!

3. What about you?  Are there times that you were sure you knew something God wanted ? but you didn?t want to do!  ?But God?,? we whine, hoping against hope that God won?t notice that we?re running as fast as we can go in the opposite direction from our Nineveh!  What sends us packing?  This week I?ve had an amazing number of conversations with people about Nineveh.  They didn?t call it that of course.  I?ll only tell the stories from away!  Stories of lives swallowed up by feelings so overwhelming they can?t see their way out of the darkness.

4. So what does our Jonah story have to say about it?  In our very creative ?fish? story we also hear about a huge storm and an amazing rescue.  And whatever happens, Jonah gets another chance to work with God.  This time he agrees.  Pretty smart!  Who?d want to go through something like that again!  But it?s definitely not with a generous and loving heart that he does it.  In a very mean spirited way, he goes to the center of Nineveh, cries out the briefest of sentences ? ?Forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed.?  And the people believed, in spite of Jonah!  Everyone, great and small including the king put on sackcloth and ashes and proclaimed a great fast.  Now sitting and praying, hungry and thirsty, with itchy sackcloth and irritating ashes on your head and in your eyes, indicates quite a change of heart.  The story says that God?s mind was changed but I really wonder whose mind was changed.  Obviously the Ninevites were.  And they quit destroying themselves and each other.

5. Good story, but you noticed that it doesn?t end there.  Is there something important left?  Jonah goes off to pout.  It says, ?This was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became very angry.  ?I knew you were gracious and merciful, abounding in steadfast love, and I knew they were going to repent and they did and you forgave them as always.?  Wow?but the next bit is even more interesting!  ?Take my life, I don?t want to live if that?s how you?re going to be!?  He doesn?t want God to be God ? gracious, merciful, loving.  So, being gracious, merciful and loving, God sends a tall bush to give Jonah shade while he rants.  Jonah was happy about the bush.  The bush withers and again Jonah is very unhappy.  God asks a very good question.  ?Why are you so worried about a bush that you didn?t plant or nurture, and yet you don?t want me to be concerned about more than 120, 000 people??

6. Would it have been better if the story had ended at the end of Ch 3?  It certainly doesn?t leave Jonah in a very good light.  So why did it go on?  What if this story is about the lengths that God will go, to try to save just one person from himself.  God can see that Jonah has not turned anything around in his life.  God tried to use him to save a great city.  And probably hoped Jonah would learn something about his own life and begin to heal.  But Jonah?s miserable, he?s angry, he?s very unhappy.  There?s nothing healthy or whole about him at all.  And that seems to be very important to God.  This turning around, repenting thing, isn?t just to please God.  Or for the Ninevites only.  That?s very important.  But it?s also because God can?t bear for Jonah to be upset, hurting, eating his insides out.  Forgiveness, letting go of things are for Jonah?s sake, because he?s now as self-destructive as the Ninevites had been.  The very people who Jonah didn?t think were worth saving.  Will he dare to believe he?s worth saving now?  This part I think is the very heart of the story.
7. I talked to Jonah this week.  Oh that wasn?t of course his name.  This was a friend who has recognized that his life has gotten out of whack in a number of areas.  And he?s stuck.  One of the big sticky patches is his relationship to his sister.  She seems very weak to him.  Always talking about this illness or the next.  Always something wrong.  Always blaming someone, rather than taking responsibility herself where needed.  Never really got established at any job though she tried many and took training several times.  ?She?s very like his mother-without any of the redeeming qualities,? he says, and it seems there?s a childhood hook way back where that is imprisoning him.  Although he?s always presented as a very strong person, he?s now feeling that he can?t spend the usual family times with her.  He went to a spiritual guide in his own tradition, and said, ?I need to forgive my sister.?  After listening, she said, ?You don?t need to forgive her.  That?s just how she is.  You don?t have to put up with her.? He?s taken it as permission not to see her much, and perhaps not at all when his father dies.

8. What happens when we hold that up to the Jonah story?  What would we say that God?s calling him to?  It seems pretty familiar doesn?t it?  He?s running from Nineveh.  If he goes off to hide, his boat will be rocked by his unresolved feelings.  If he goes off to pout, it will still eat away at him, still angry because she?s the way she is.  It seems to me that he was right in the beginning.  He did need to forgive his sister ? for being the way she is.  Part of what?s bugging him is that he knows she like any other could change, no matter how hard it is to do it.  So he?s angry that she won?t do what she needs to do to change and heal from her old wounds so like his.  He?s done a fair bit of changing ? still some to go obviously!  It seems though that instead of looking at himself to see where he needs to grow, change, let go of the past, he?s spending his time comparing himself to her.  Building himself up a little because he?s not as bad as she is.  But that doesn?t do anything for him or her.  What he really needs to do is accept her just the way she is.  Does that condone her unhealthy emotional state?  Not at all.  But when she doesn?t have to push up against the wall of his indifference or judgment, then she?s freed to change.  It?s his best chance of her actually changing!  And if she doesn?t, they?re both still better off, because it?s not eating him or upsetting her.  It is letting go of past hurt, forgiving her for being like she is.

9. When I start playing Jonah, I?m running off madly in all directions ? not listening to God, or anyone else!  Wanting everyone else to run as fast.  Not healthy for me, and not helpful for others. Another long time friend is afraid she won?t be able to do her new dream job she?s longed for and finally got.  It is challenging, but she thinks a painful relationship she had as a child is preventing her from succeeding.

10. Do you see the pattern that connects to Jonah?  Each one is responding from an unhealthy place or hurt in the past.  For Jonah it could easily have been generations ago.  The problem is that we are controlled by our past.  The forgiving, the letting go that God is calling us to is for our own sake every bit as much as for the Ninevites, or my friends? sister.  The health, wholeness, spiritual well being of even one person, our scripture is telling us clearly is important to God.  So will we be victims of past hurt or healthy survivors?

11. These stories are about individuals, but it goes way beyond.  It starts with the person - healed, then set free to answer God?s call.  Martin Luther King Jr. says how happy he was that Jesus had not said, ?Like your enemies.  I can?t like someone who bombs my home, exploits me, tramples over me with injustices, threatens my life day in and day out.  But I can love them.?  And he went on to tell why we love those it would be so much easier to hate.  ?We will not only win freedom for ourselves (through non-violence), we will so appeal to your heart and conscience that we will win you in the process, and our victory will be double.?  The change has been dramatic, but there?s still a long way to go!

12. In a world where we read of one atrocity after another, taught to fear those who are different, bombarded with the nonsense that one group of people are all evil, constantly aware of the difficulty of relationships in our own lives, we need this story of Nineveh.  Because it?s a story about God isn?t it?  About God?s amazing compassion, grace and love poured out for us, so that we can live healed lives of wholeness and meaning and joy.  And then answer the call to go all the way to our Nineveh ? with love!