Sermon: What a whale of a wayside chapel
It’s
always such fun to preach here -- in part because I end up with the most
interesting assignments from your minister.
When
I was here in the spring for the Presbytery Pulpit Exchange, I was given one
verse to preach from. It was Easter
season, Rev. Rick was working through the Gospel resurrection stories, and by
the time I arrived in the schedule there was only one verse left he had not yet
preached on – the very last verse of the Gospel of John, 21:25:
"But there are also many other things that
Jesus did; if every one of them were written
down, I suppose that the
world itself could not contain the books that would be written."
He’s
made up for it this time. He told me this
is your annual Consecration Sunday when you review what you have by the grace
of God, and you commit yourself and consecrate a pledge to God for the coming year
– what a glorious theme for worship and a sermon. And then he also mentioned he has been
leading you on a sermonic tour of the Hebrew Scriptures, and that what’s left
to deal with this week is the twelve Minor Prophets.
I did
a count. The minor prophets are Hosea to
Malachi. That’s 12 books of the Bible …
56 pages in my Bible at home … 67 chapters … 1,050 verses in all. I’m glad – I’m sure you are, too, that Lynn only read as much as she
did.
Famine
or feast, that’s the story. And no
matter which it is – whether only one little bit to work with, or more than we
can count and manage, there is the expectation of something fitting and faithful
being offered in praise of God, for the up-building of the body and life of
Christ in this place, as a sign of the growing expression of holy spirit in me
and in us all.
And
that is what both Consecration Sunday and the Minor Prophets are about.
The minor
prophets are the twelve books at the end of what we call the Old Testament. They bear the names of twelve men revered as holy
prophets. Some of the books date from
the sixth century before Christ when the kingdoms of Israel and Judah were on
their last corrupted legs – about to be overthrown by the Assyrians and
Babylonians, and the people taken into exile.
The rest of the books come from the time after that – the time of return
from exile and of trying to rebuild what had been destroyed. In other words, these are books of a matured
faith – a faith tested and tried, a faith that has faced a deep dis-connect of
people and God, a faith that has come through fire to see the true face and
desire of God – a faith such as we need and desire for ourselves today in the
struggles and challenges that we face.
These
prophets were not necessarily wild men of the desert like John the Baptist in
the time of Christ. As we read through
the books it seems they are more inside the system than outside. They know how things work; they understand the
inner springs of government and leadership; they speak the language of the
day. They live within the culture, and
know what makes people tick.
But
they see and speak about all this more honestly in relation to the desire of
God than others of their time, and this is what makes what they say so compelling
and unforgettable to people who have ears to hear something other than the
party line or the cultural slogans and public chatter of the day. In today’s terms these prophets are corporate
whistle-blowers, free-thinking politicians, renegade caucus-members,
investigative journalists, passionate preachers and activists, auditors-general
who take seriously their job of watching the direction of government, cultural
critics writing essays and books about where we are headed as a society.
Their
message is hard, critical and uncompromising.
It cuts like a knife through the veneer of the court, the ritual of the
temple, and the public discourse of the day to reveal the rot and misdirection
that lie at the heart of the kingdom, and that cannot but result in its collapse.
Hosea puts it concisely in the passage read this morning. As a people we started out well, he says. We were God’s beloved child, brought forth from hardship into a land of plenty. God taught us to walk and carried us along as we needed. God healed us when we were hurt and made us strong. God fed us and blessed us.
But the more God calls to us, the more we turn away. The more God teaches us, the more we don’t listen. The more God blesses us, the more we serve Baal – the god of prosperity, affluence, a strong economy, national security, home and hearth. The more God gives us, the more we worship idols. The more God calls us to be a holy people in the world, the more we become just like everyone else around us … and the more we are fated to suffer the same end other people come to.
And it’s not because we’re worse than others, he says. We are not especially bad or evil. It’s that we are exactly the same as all other peoples and nations of the world – just as misguided and corrupt, as short-sighted and self-centred, as closed and unloving, as resistant to the needs of others and of Earth – and as necessary to be brought to an end of ourselves for the sake of the good that God desires for Earth and all its creatures.
And yet … in the words of Hosea, God then goes on to say:
[But] how can I give you up and hand you
over?
How can I make you come to a
bitter end like just
another corrupt kingdom and
wayward child?My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows
warm and tender…
for I am God and no mortal…
and I will not come in wrath.
The
prophet reveals a radical, fundamental tension within God. On one hand, judgement is deserved and will
come. On the other hand, God’s choice of
the people and compassion for them have no end, and beyond judgement there will
be revival, renewal, return and resurrection.
Which
is part of the drama we see played out in the story of Jonah.
The Book
of Jonah is a story with a prophetic edge to it, about a character named Jonah
who in some sense may be a cipher, or a symbol of the people of Israel
themselves – of the people of God of any time and place.
In
the story Jonah – a servant of God, one of the covenant people, is called by
God to do something hard but good for God.
He is called to go to the city of Nineveh – the capital city of the
Assyrians, his people’s sworn enemy, to preach there a word of judgement that
most likely will cause the Ninevites to repent of the way they are, and be
saved.
Jonah
doesn’t want to do it. He’s content with
the status quo. He likes the way the cards
have been dealt and how the world has lined up for him – with him and his
people blessed by God, and others rightly scheduled for judgement. Beyond his bubble, he doesn’t like the bigger
picture of well-being for all that God calls him to be part of, and to help
happen.
He knows he has the power through what God has given him to help save others. But he doesn’t want to offer it. The world he enjoys living in is not as large and generous as God’s.
So he tries to flee the presence of God. Still claiming God as his God, he tries not to be in God’s presence – to not listen to what God is asking of him for the good of the world.
Like the people of Israel as Hosea describes them, he runs in the other direction. He ducks out the side door without shaking hands. As we often describe ourselves, he gets busy. He fills up his calendar. He creates important business somewhere else. He takes a cruise. He imagines a far-off goal. Maybe a five-year plan. Whatever will keep him from just sitting with God, and listening to the one clear thing God is asking of him in the present moment.
And his life goes from bad to worse. His journey becomes a disaster. Storms and turmoil overtake him in his heart and in his world. He becomes a burden to others around him. Even though he’s one of the covenant people he becomes a liability rather than an asset to the world. In the end he is tossed overboard … but not to his death – only to the death of his resistance.
As Jonah falls into the sea “the Lord provides a large fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah is in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.”
What a sanctuary. What a whale of a wayside chapel. What a wild place of spiritual retreat. What a wide-bodied, multi-ribbed, mobile house of prayer.
Three days and three nights Jonah has there to sit in the presence of God, to let his heart really hear the one thing God is asking him to give – time to listen, let go, and let God direct.
Jonah was not going to choose to slow down to sit and listen to God, so God arranges an interruption of rest and silence for prayerful open-ness and listening, as God arranges for us all – on a fairly regular basis.
And Jonah’s course is changed. He accepts what God wants him to do, and agrees to offer what God wants him to offer.
Not once-for-all. Jonah is like us. Once out on dry land again, even as he does what God wants him to do he has questions and reservations, and he has to re-learn, re-commit and re-consecrate at different steps along the way.
But in the belly of the fish his life is decisively consecrated, and he becomes the servant God calls him to be for the good of the world – hero of a story we still read today. Is there ever any such thing as a minor prophet? Or a minor servant of God, whenever we commit to what God asks – as we are asked to do today.
After I finish speaking we will have some time in the wonderful space just to listen. First, a duet will be offered. Then we’ll share a time of prayerful silence, to reflect on God’s goodness to each of us. We’ll end that silence with the Lord’s Prayer, after which I will invite you into a second time of prayerful silence – this time to listen to what God asks you this year to commit to God. Whether we have only one little bit to work with, or more than we can manage, God calls us all to consecrate some part – some percentage of what we have in praise of God, for the up-building of the body and life of Christ, as a sign of the growing holiness of spirit in each of us.
If you have already filled out your commitment card, the silence can be a time to give thanks that you can consecrate what you have. If you haven’t, perhaps God will speak to your heart in the silence. No one has to fill out a card; you are simply invited to spend this time opened to the presence of God.
Then Frederick will lead us out of the belly of the fish, to sing the hymns listed in the bulletin as you come forward – past the baptismal font to help you remember your baptism, to the table where you can place your offering and commitment cards before returning to your pew for the final blessing and the Celebration Luncheon downstairs.
So let us allow ourselves to be swallowed up, and to listen to God.
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