IMMEDIATELY!

A sermon by George Pasley

Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20

Maybe you know the story of Jonah and maybe you don’t.

Maybe you know all about how Jonah didn’t really want to go to Nineveh and maybe you don’t.

Maybe you know also that Jonah could not escape doing what God wanted, and that he was rescued from the belly of a fish just for the purpose of preaching to the people of Nineveh.

But this part of the story, chapter 3, is not about Jonah. Instead, it is about the people of Nineveh.

Forty days, they were told.

You have forty days to live. After that, the city will be overthrown. The buildings will be demolished, the government thrown into panic, the banks and the markets will close, refugees will crowd the highways, and the stench of death will be everywhere. Forty days.

Forty days, and you will be overthrown.

I don’t know what it would be like to hear those words, except that I know the people of Nineveh took them to heart. They looked at their lives, and they did not like what they saw.

They saw people who served their own interests. And they saw people who oppressed others. And they saw people who quarreled and fought.

They saw people who wouldn’t share, and what’s worse, they saw people who didn’t care.

They saw people who went to church and who showed up for work on time and who went to all of their kid’s programs at school, but in all of that they still saw people who were not humbled by life, people who pretended that life was in their firm control, people who hadn’t a clue that they were sick and getting sicker.

Well, they heard Jonah’s words, and they looked at themselves, and they realized they were dying. They had forty days to live.

Scripture says they put on sackcloth and covered themselves with ash and prayed sad prayers, but we know there was more to it than that. We know they started making plans to do the things the prophet Isaiah says we all ought to do if we want to offer an honest fast. Things like making amends with their brothers and sisters, and sharing their bread with the hungry, and giving clothes and shelter to the ones who had nothing.

But let’s ask, WHY DID THEY DO THAT?

The sermon that Jonah preached said only that Nineveh would be overthrown. It did not say, “Straighten up, or else!” Yet they straightened up.

Jonah knew that God is merciful and forgiving- that’s why Jonah didn’t want to go. But Nineveh did not know. They only thought that maybe, God might forgive them. They thought repentance might be worth a shot, so they gave it the best shot they had. They were certain of nothing except that trying something was essential.

There was nothing good about the news that Jonah preached, but the people who heard that message and took it to heart discovered good news: God is merciful, forging, and is here to help. That’s the message that Jesus came preaching, and that’s the message that led Simon, Andrew, James and John to stop what they were doing and follow him.

Last week I shared a bit of the book I’ve been reading with you, The Soloist, by Steve Lopez. I want to share a bit more with you this week, because I think it sheds some light on the message Jesus preached, and his invitation to follow.

Lopez is a newspaper columnist who met a homeless man, Nathaniel Ayers, who was playing an old, battered violin in a city park. Lopez got to know Ayers, and learned he had been diagnosed with schizophrenia. Lopez became consumed with helping Ayers and getting him off the street. His search for help and knowledge led him to Dr. Mark Ragins, a psychiatrist who works with the homeless in Long Beach.

Lopez sat through a session that Ragins held with David, a formerly homeless man. The Lopez told Ragins everything he knew about Ayers and asked if his diagnosis might be the same as David’s.

Ragins chuckled. “Making a diagnosis is not as important as making a connection,” he said.  “If Nathaniel is going to get better, it won’t be because of a correct diagnosis and a textbook treatment program, but because he develops enough trust in me and others to pursue his own recovery.” (The Soloist, p. 53)

Paul and I did something rather audacious Friday night. We went to the First City Tavern. We saw some people there who were having a lot of fun, and we saw enough to know that more than a few of them probably get into some serious trouble more than once-in-awhile. Jonah would say they were sinners, and so would I.

But this I know: we all have the same diagnosis, but that diagnosis, as bad as it is, is not as important as making a connection with the one who asks us to believe the good news: God is merciful and forgiving and is here to help.

Say that with me: GOD IS MERCIFUL AND FORGIVING AND IS HERE TO HELP.

Yes, God is. But there is something more.

We have a few stories about Peter and Andrew and James and John, and more than one version about how they became followers of Jesus. In this story from Mark we are not told that their introduction to Jesus left them with a profound awareness of their deep sin.

They were sinners and they knew it. After all, they were good Jews. But I think this story tells us there was another reason they left their boats and their nets and followed Jesus.

Jesus announced the Kingdom of God, and then gave them an invitation to be part of it.

We have lots of descriptions of the Kingdom of God in the Bible, bit no real good definition. So let me prove my boldness by suggesting one.

The Kingdom of God is a place filled with love, justice, perfection, and grace. And, the Kingdom of God is every time in the course of human events when we make a connection with the one who can love us when we are not perfect, make just what we have made unjust, and nurture from our weakness good things that we would never imagine.

In short, the Kingdom of God is Father Son and Holy Ghost working in us and with us, leading us into a way of common living that is PURPOSEFUL, MEANINGFUL, and CONSEQUENTIAL. So when Simon and Andrew, James and John received an invitation to that sort of life, it was an offer they could not refuse and they left at once.

Let me tell you: God does sometimes ask us to leave. God does sometimes ask us to change our occupation. Sometimes. But God ALWAYS asks us to change our focus.

For Simon and Andrew, it was from fish to people.

For me it was from sheep to people.

But for all of us, it is from what we are doing to what God is doing, and when we look and see that it is purposeful, meaningful, and consequential we will look for ways to make whatever we’re doing serve God’s greater purposes. In fact, when we see what it really is we get so excited that we can hardly stand to wait, just like when we got that one special present in our childhood.

Each of our lessons today involved some urgency. In Nineveh it was an urgency brought on by a threat of death, but in Mark it was an urgency of excitement. It’s like that whenever we hear good news that is life changing.

During World War 2, a ship went down in the Pacific. Most of the crew was lost, but some were rescued, and they were taken to a naval base on an island somewhere in that vast theatre of war. The commander of the base visited the rescued sailors at the hospital, and he told them to do the very thing they all wanted to do: “Write your parents,” he said, “and tell them you are safe.”

Word had already reached stateside that the ship had sunk. Mothers and Grandmothers and wives and sweethearts were worried. But the letters and postcards began to come, and one by one some were relieved- and others began to worry even more.

But one postcard got stuck, somewhere. Maybe it didn’t fall out when a mailbag was emptied- who knows. But it didn’t arrive, and a woman in a small town worried about her son. And the whole town prayed with her. And one day, on the last mail truck coming into town, it came. The postmaster wasn’t looking for it- in fact, the bag it was in would normally have waited until morning before being emptied, but for some reason the postmaster emptied that bag, three minutes after closing time. And the address on the post card caught his eye.

He picked it up.

He turned it over.

He saw the message, brief as it was.

And he saw the signature at the bottom.

This was good news, and there was only one thing to do with that postcard, and he did it- special delivery, right to that mother’s front door.

In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen.