The Mind of God


Sunday, January 22nd, 2006
Epiphany/Ordinary 3B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Jonah 3:1-10

1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” 10 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.

What is the single most astonishing aspect of the story of Jonah?

Ask any self-respecting 6-year old what the most amazing part of the story is and I would bet you a dime to a donut that he or she would say “The Whale!!”, or if they have read up on their Hebrew, “The Big Fish!”

There are several distinguishing features to the story, coming at it from a purely literary standpoint.

If you read through the other books of either the Major or Minor Prophets you find long passages – whole sections of the books that are written in verse – literally poems or song lyrics that are oracles against Israel or against the opposing or occupying nation. In Jonah, except for the prayer he speaks from the belly of the fish, we find an unbroken prose narrative – more like a modern-day short story than a poem – that tells the story from beginning to end – in chronological order, with little if any poetry.

As for Jonah himself, he is never called ‘the Prophet Jonah’ – ANYWHERE in the story. You know the story. In the first two verses of chapter one, we read where God tells Jonah to “go immediately to Nineveh and cry out against it”.

So what does Jonah do?

Picture this: Jonah is in Israel, on the southeastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

The ruins of ancient Nineveh are in what is today Iraq. In fact, they are across the river from a city that has frequently been mentioned in the news – Mosul. Anyway, Nineveh was across the river from present-day Mosul. Which if we had a map up here you could see is to the north east of Israel, where Jonah received the message.

Jonah, unlike the other prophets we read about, finds the nearest port, Joppa, and immediately books passage – not to Nineveh, which would in fact be an overland route, but in the OPPOSITE direction. In fact, as FAR in the opposite direction as he can go – a couple of the places with names similar to the word we read as Tarshish are in southern Turkey or as far away as Spain – the other edge of the known world at the time. Either way you look at it, Jonah wasn’t interested in following God’s orders.

Makes you wonder what it was about the assignment that Jonah didn’t like.

God does not sit back and watch Jonah run. Or rather, Jonah tries to run, and God chases after him. God sends a storm to stop the ship in its tracks. It scares the sailors so bad that they turn away from the gods they had worshipped up until that point and turned to God. Even so, the storm doesn’t abate. Meanwhile, Jonah is down in his cabin sleeping through the storm of the century. The sailors run down and get him, and he confesses that the only way they are going to get rid of the storm is to get rid of HIM. He KNOWS he’s the reason FOR the storm in the first place.

It is, after all, a slightly implausible story. And it gets stranger.

Jonah goes overboard and lands in the belly of a big fish. He then spends three days and three nights, according to the text, in that belly, and it is from there that he recites a prayer of thanksgiving to God that could have been pulled directly out of Psalms.

Have you ever watched a couple exchange sweet nothings to the point of nausea? You know the kind, where they are sickly sweet to each other, and all you can do is roll your eyes and work at holding your lunch down? Jonah’s is such a beautiful prayer that the fish just can’t stand it, and literally VOMITS him out onto the beach – the same shore that he left from just a few days earlier.

HERE is where we pick up the story this morning. Notice the numerical qualifier in the sentence: ‘word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time’. THIS time, Jonah obeyed. Reluctantly, yes, but he DID obey. Picture it. Jonah is a hayseed prophet going to a major metropolitan city, a center of commerce, culture, and military power, and God tells him “I’ll tell you what to say.” Jonah doesn’t get any talking points to review and memorize on his trip TO Nineveh. He doesn’t have an opportunity to craft the message, to work out the wording, the inflections, the pauses. He’s just told to GO.

So he does.

He gets to Nineveh, and the text describes it as a huge megalopolis. Last year when we visited Mexico City, there was no single place where you could be and take in the whole city. There’s a big telecommunications tower in the middle of the city, right next to the Zócalo, the central plaza, and it’s pretty tall, but I’m certain that even from the observation platform near the top, you still wouldn’t be able to view the whole of Mexico City – if for no other reason than the smog that is produced by the cars, taxis, trucks and buses that the 18 million or so inhabitants drive and ride around in. Nineveh is described in similar terms.

‘An exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across.’

Modern archeology is a wonderful thing. Surveyors and archeologists are able to reconstruct and bring to life all kinds of places from history. They have, in the last 30 years or so, excavated at least part of Tell Nabi Yunus – the Muslim name for the site – ‘Ruin of the Prophet Yunus - Jonah’ – you see, Jonah is part of Muslim tradition as well – and the whole city is about 3 miles long, with a perimeter wall about 8 miles around.

Why do you think God would describe it as an exceedingly large city that would take three days to cross if it is only 3 miles across? There are a couple of alternate explanations.

One is that the ‘city’ referred to is actually the equivalent of the ‘greater metropolitan area, including suburbs and the surrounding counties’ – which comes out to about a 60 mile circumference, which would be about right for a three day trip by foot.

The other alternative is that cities in the ancient middle east – well, even in the MODERN middle east, for that matter, tend to have incredibly concentrated centers of population – houses jam packed together, with tiny alleys in the place of streets, that twist and turn and zig and zag, making the prospect of getting through them a true challenge to KEEP it to a three day trek.

The other understanding is wholly different: that the exceedingly large city is more a reflection of two things – the success of Jonah’s efforts and the breadth of God’s mercy, than of the actual physical dimensions of the place.

Jonah shows up at the city not knowing the local language, not REALLY wanting to be there, and with a short and simple message: “Forty Days and counting until Nineveh crumbles!”

Here is a Jewish prophet proclaiming a message in Hebrew to the entire population of a city that hardly needs to take notice of his entire country. And what kind of success does he have? Disproportionate.

‘The people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.’

And this repentance – it didn’t stop with the grass roots population – word got around, and it extended up to the king himself. When HE heard, he took off his royal robes, put on sackcloth, and covered himself with ashes. And he had a proclamation made – that everyone and everyTHING in Nineveh would express repentance – picture animals wearing sackcloth and dusted with ashes – and everyone and everything went on a fast – all to convey to God their true repentance from their evil ways. “Who knows?” the king says, “God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”

The last verse in chapter 3 would seem to be the end of the story. God saw what they did, and changed his mind about the calamity he was going to bring upon them, and he did not do it.

But there’s a whole other chapter to the story. It’s got to do with Jonah’s reaction TO God’s mercy on the Ninevites. Jonah’s not pleased with God’s change of mind. Read a little further – in speaking with regards to HIMSELF and HIS run from God at the beginning of the story, he fled to Tarshish because he knew, speaking to God,

“that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.”

He goes on to ask God to kill him, since he’d rather die than go on living in the knowledge that God would be merciful to a people like the Ninevites.

There are times when Hannah will try to convince us to do something – or let HER do something – and will be … just a little dramatic in her presentation – makes us want to go “Oh, Camille!” – I can just picture God doing the same thing in response to Jonah’s comment there – “Oh, Jonah!”

The story goes on to a conclusion that involves a plant, a worm, a hot east wind, and Jonah again asking God to let him die.

The point is, God’s mercy and grace abounds in such a way that we can’t even begin to understand it. The words of the hymn – there’s a wideness in God mercy – speaks to that – in truth, we can only see what applies to us, and sometimes we’re given a glimpse of how broad the love of God is.

The shadowside of that knowledge is to stop at the application we receive – and assume that God stops there as well.

Jonah’s story parallels that of the people of Israel and Jesus. God sent love incarnate into the world through them, and they didn’t accept it – they ran from it to the point of crucifying him. And then when God overcame THAT in the resurrection, that Grace and love flowed well beyond the boundaries that they had expected – and we have been blessed because of it.

Let’s not box the love of God in.

Let’s pray.

God of grace, none of us are beyond your reach. In Jesus Christ you have sought and found us. Through him you call us to speak your redeeming word of love. Some of us answer willingly. Others pull back in reluctance. Some can respond impulsively dropping their nets and leaving everything else behind. Others can respond only through your repeated patience and your long-suffering love. Whoever we are, receive us into your love, enlarge our hearts and minds that we might serve you lovingly and logically. Give us the grace and good humor to see your hand in all things and make us useful in your sight. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

http://www.day1.net/index.php5?view=transcripts&tid=246
(Rev. William Carter, PCUSA)

Can Anything Good Come Out Of …?


Sunday, January 15th, 2006
Epiphany/Ordinary 2B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Text: John 1:43-51

43 The next day Jesus decided to go to Galilee. He found Philip and said to him, “Follow me.” 44 Now Philip was from Bethsaida, the city of Andrew and Peter. 45 Philip found Nathanael and said to him, “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” 46 Nathanael said to him, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.” 47 When Jesus saw Nathanael coming toward him, he said of him, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” 48 Nathanael asked him, “Where did you get to know me?” Jesus answered, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” 49 Nathanael replied, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” 50 Jesus answered, “Do you believe because I told you that I saw you under the fig tree? You will see greater things than these.” 51 And he said to him, “Very truly, I tell you, you will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”

The prospect of letting them walk out into the world is sometimes simply terrifying. That is as starkly clear as I can put it when it comes to the children. When our friend told us almost eleven years ago that we would be living the rest of our lives with our hearts walking around outside our bodies, she was not kidding. The thing is it gets HARDER, not easier, as they get older. That’s because, just like us, the longer we live the more we become aware of the ugliness that can so quickly rear its head in the world, and the higher the chance that they will run into it.

A few weeks ago, before Christmas, Hannah came to me and told me about some boys in school who have apparently decided that teasing her and making fun at her expense is one of the ways they are going to spend their time. She told me about how it made her angry, and upset to the point of wishing she were bigger than they are so she could get back at them. It brought back vivid memories of my own, of being similarly teased as a child by stronger, bigger and faster boys and my heart ached.

Even here, in rural Virginia, in an area where it is still relatively safe to leave the door unlocked, we are visited by violence and exposed to the underside of human existence. Granted, it’s not with the same frequency as in other more urban settings, but in some ways that makes it all that more shattering. Our community was faced with that violence just this past Thursday, in the death of a local man. A fellow pastor, who recently moved here from one of our larger metropolitan areas, put it this way: “it’s no different from the big city.”

For me, the fact of violence in our midst is more a reflection of human nature than it is a result of the environment in which we happen to find ourselves.

In our text this morning, we find an example of that fallen human nature. We’re at the beginning of the Gospel according to John, and Jesus is selecting his disciples. We know from previous readings and lessons and stories that, if nothing else, the disciples WERE spectacular examples of human frailty; sometimes petty, sometimes argumentative, sometimes just plain thick-headed, not always so brave, or honorable, or clear-thinking; in short, no different from you and me.

Philip is the first to appear, and John has Jesus speaking just two words to him: “follow me”. Philip turns around and has a few MORE words for HIS friend Nathanael. To him, Philip says: “We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.” And what is Nathanael’s response? Is it, “Great! Take me to him!” or, “REALLY??? FINALLY!!! Where is he? Quick, let’s go!”

No, it’s none of those. What we find in Nathanael’s response is an example of how the establishment and religious leadership were going to respond to Jesus generally as he became more well-known during his ministry. His response was: “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”

It is one of the single most destructive tendencies of the human heart: Judging – and PRE-judging someone based on either superficial or even irrelevant information is as violent to the human psyche as any blow dealt by a closed fist or an open palm.

Our lesson today comes from Philip’s next statement:

“Come and see.”

He didn’t start an argument, he didn’t try to convince Nathanael directly, all he did was ask him to come and see for himself. I think Philip knew what Nathanael was feeling, because I suspect Philip himself had to go through the same process. Philip himself was a Galilean, just like Jesus. And in first century Palestine, there was a definite sense of place in society determined by where you were from. As a Galilean, Philip had grown up with the understanding that Nathanael expressed. In modern terms it might be called an inferiority complex. Seeing yourself as all-around LESS than someone else. In the worst cases, that someone is ANYONE else.

But Philip overcame that weight that was pulling him down. He understood on meeting Jesus that there was an element of worth in everyone – and the epiphany for him was that he discovered that in himself. Christ called him out of his regular existence and with two words invited him to enter into relationship with him.

The lesson for us here this morning is that, just as Philip introduced Nathanael to Christ, we are likewise to introduce others to Christ. The question of course is how do we do that if Jesus is not just around the corner? Granted, we ARE in Jerusalem, but … just not THAT Jerusalem. J

In the passage just before this one, Jesus called Andrew and Simon Peter to follow him. We heard Chance read part of it yesterday evening when he shared at the brotherhood fish dinner.

They are in Bethsaida, which in the first century was a Jewish town – more or less – it was a very GREEK town for the most part. The inhabitants most likely spoke both Aramaic, the form of Hebrew common for the time, as well as Greek. Galilee was on the northern ‘border’, so to speak, of what was considered Judea “proper”. Beyond it was the even more heavily Greek influenced areas of what are today Syria and Turkey.

Though they were under Roman rule, the language of the common man, the language of commerce, was still Greek. It would make sense for Jesus to select his disciples from an area where Greek was spoken in a Jewish context, for that was who Jesus was intending to reach. Jesus was coming from a Hebrew society, but was well aware of the reality of the culture of the day – the agglomeration of Greek and Roman practices and societal structures and mores required that those who would become Christ’s disciples be able to communicate in the language of the people to whom they would be sent. The disciples were just who would be needed to mediate the Gospel of Christ between the Jewish and Greek worlds.

Back to that question: where are we going to find Jesus in this day and age in order to introduce people to him? Well, that’s the rub, as Shakespeare would say. You’ve heard me say it before: the original – and still appropriate – meaning of the word ‘Christian’ is “little Christ”. That means no more and no less than that we’re IT. WE – both individually and collectively ARE the Christ to whom we are going to introduce people. So how can that be?

How can we even pretend, especially as we are at times painfully aware of the many ways in which we don’t even come close to being imitators of Christ? When we make the wrong choices, when we think those dark thoughts, when we let those jagged words come out of our mouths and cut into the heart and crush the spirit of the loved one, or the child, or even worse, that stranger, the person we don’t even know and whom we will probably never see again?

Well, who better to deliver the Gospel of grace to a broken world than broken people who have received and experienced that grace themselves?

Who better to put into words and actions just how it feels to know what it is like to be loved by Christ first, and have that love call us out of our brokenness into a relationship with him? Who better to understand what it is like to recognize that, however much the world tells us how useless, how unworthy, how broken and unfixable we are, there is someone who loved us enough to come to earth, became human just like us, and is teaching us how to live – even today, even now even here.

Let’s pray.

Observing Ordinances

Sunday, January 8th, 2006
Baptism of Christ B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton VA
Mark 1:4-11

4 John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. 5 And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. 6 Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. 7 He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. 8 I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” 9 In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. 10 and just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. 11 And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

Welcome to the New Year.

It’s been a … difficult time for us, hasn’t it?

We are now two fewer than we were two weeks ago.

Though it had been a while since either Annie or Hazel were able to be actively involved with us on a regular basis that did not make them any less a part of the family.

And in their passing, we find ourselves grieving not only THEIR absence, but the absence of those who have gone before them, Berry and Ray, Fox and Charlotte, Mary Jane and Irene and Chunk and George, Edna, Margaret, Bill and William, Pearl and John -- because on some level that’s what we do when we come to a place that marks an event – marks the passing of time – whether it is another funeral or whether it is the ending of one year and the beginning of another. Whether it is a cultural practice or something we are hardwired to do, it is in the turning of the year that we look back on what has been and for better or worse look forward to what’s ahead. I don’t mean that in a negative sense, I mean it simply as an observation, that in looking ahead, some look toward the future with glee, others with hope, others with apprehension, and still others with despair.

Some look toward the future with a combination of all those emotions. Some will even experience the full range of those emotions … the families of the 12 miners in Sago, West Virginia lived through an utterly devastating 3 hour ride from one end of that spectrum to the other just this past Wednesday.

So it is with some of that same mixture of emotions that we turn to the text this morning. And find in it an equal blend. A passage that, in its familiar phrases, has rays of hope, and promise, and joy, but mixed in with those we find foreboding – shadows of what is to come.

We are, after all, coming at scripture from this side of the resurrection. We can never forget that. If we are to be true to our faith, we cannot separate scripture from the fact of the resurrection – and the ultimate hope and joy that we find promised to us in that.

So we come into the Gospel – the story of Jesus “According to Mark” – KATA MARKON that is how the earliest manuscripts are entitled – not ‘The Gospel of Jesus Christ, according to Mark’, but just ‘according to mark’ – it almost sounds like someone’s shorthand notes – telegraphed for the reader to understand at a glance whose version of the story he or she is reading.

We’ve just come through Advent, reading in Matthew and Luke the beautiful story of the birth of the Christ Child. Those wonderful passages where the Angel visits Mary and then Joseph, then the shepherds in the fields, and the wise men coming from the east … the narrative is as important a part of the stories of our faith as any. But Mark has no time for any of that.

Mark jumps into the story with Jesus as a full-grown adult – at the beginning of his ministry, marked, as we know, by his baptism by John in the river Jordan.

And as we read of Jesus being baptized, we read about his coming up out of the water … which presupposes that he had to go DOWN in the water beforehand.

Two weeks ago yesterday, on Christmas Eve, the ordinance of baptism was observed in this sanctuary – in this baptistry right behind me. A family from our community had asked to be baptized, and we were glad to provide the place for them to do that together. It was a short, sweet ceremony, with a total of seven people in attendance, counting the three who were baptized. It was a first for me in at least three ways – a first baptism indoors, besides my own, a first where a whole family was baptized, and a first with so few people in attendance. It made the event feel very intimate – very relaxed, and deeply meaningful.

As Baptists, what do we believe about the act of baptism? What does it symbolize? In going beneath the waters of baptism, and coming up, we signify – we note – we affirm – that we have repented from our sins – from our old way of life, and rise in the newness of life that Christ offers by forgiving us those sins – baptism itself carries no special power – it is a purely symbolic act – but it is powerfully so.

When we look at Jesus’ baptism, the perpetual question to be asked is ‘why did he do it?’ He was the one person in the world who DIDN’T need baptism for the forgiveness of sins, and yet he submitted to it. Why?

One answer is because he wanted to identify with the people he was preparing to minister to. Jesus’ baptism was another aspect of Emmanuel – God becoming flesh and dwelling among us. He became like us so that, ultimately, we could be like him.

The other answer is one that we see from here – from this side of Easter. Jesus’ baptism was a foreshadowing of his own death, burial and resurrection.


So even from the very beginning of his ministry, Jesus was proclaiming the heart of the Gospel – the cross – his OWN sacrifice – but not only his death, but also his resurrection.

And it is in the observation of the ordinance of the Lord’s Supper, that we also signify, affirm, and proclaim – that same Gospel message. That Christ gave himself TO us through his teaching and FOR us through his sacrifice.

Just as the services we held here last Sunday afternoon and this past Tuesday were solemnly joyous, so it is any time we gather to celebrate a baptism or share communion together – the occasion to remember the Lord’s death and burial is solemn, but it doesn’t stop there – it is joyous because through both we also complete the story – the joyous resurrection that broke the hold of death on our lives.

(communion)