1 Sermon for January 21, 2018 3 rd Sunday in Ordinary Time (Year B) Sermon texts: Jonah 1: 1-5, 10 and Mark 1: 14-20 Sermon title: Some Fishing Stories LET US PRAY: Holy Spirit, come to us this day. Open our hearts and our minds that your Word might better prepare us to follow you. May Scripture challenge the core of our being. We are weak and limited, and yet you have called us to follow. Equip us, we pray, for the journey ahead. Amen. Writers of Scripture knew that fish stories had special meaning because the sea evoked sustenance, mystery, and danger. Today s Hebrew Scripture and the Gospel message place two of the most well-known fish stories side by side. Who can say the name of Jonah without thinking of a whale? And who hears Jesus words Follow me and I will make you fish for people without recalling that the first disciples Simon and Andrew, James and John, left their fishing nets behind to follow Jesus. These two fish stories, of course, aren t really about fish. They are about who God is and how we respond to God s call to discipleship. There s a great deal of humor in the book of Jonah (in Hebrew the name Jonah is Noah s name turned inside out); in fact the tale is structured like a joke. It starts with an outrageous premise (Jonah s assignment), and an equally outlandish response (Jonah tries to hide from God by running in the opposite direction. As if he could really hide from God, Jonah finds a ship headed to Tarshish, the opposite direction from Nineveh. God hurls a great wind upon the sea and the ship threatens to break up. To lighten their load, the sailors throw everything they can overboard, including Jonah, who ends up in the belly of a whale.
2 Jonah prays to God, alternately blaming God for the mess that he is in, and begging God for rescue. God answers, and the whale deposits Jonah up on dry land, covered of course in whale vomit. Now comes what comedians call the callback. For the second time, God tells Jonah, almost word for word, as God did the first time: Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you. It s difficult to preach like Jonah. He preached one sermon, as far as anyone can tell (only three words in Hebrew): Yet forty days, and Ninevah shall be overthrown! It s a sermon with no hope, no promise at all of redemption. In fact, it s an anti-sermon, but it s wildly successful. The whole city repents on the spot. Jonah has converted the biggest city in the empire of the enemy. Ninevah was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, now known as Iraq which was hostile to Israel then, as it is now. The king proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth, even the animals. God saw the people s repentance and changed God s mind about the calamity that God said would be brought upon the people. Almost everyone in this story repents: the king, the people, the animals, even God. Everyone, except Jonah. Jonah stomps off to sulk. I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing, he cries, turning the Hebrew s ancient praise of God into a complaint. Jonah didn t want to be successful; he wanted fire and brimstone, at least an earthquake to punish those Gentiles. Melodramatically, Jonah asks God to put him out of his misery. The killme-now joke is one of the foundations of modern Jewish humour. It s like
3 the Jewish mother who sticks her head in the oven when her son drops out of medical school, it s the humour of Woody Allen. Comics speak of the rule of three, which means that the joke gets its greatest response when the situation comes around a third time. But when God addresses Jonah for the third time, the joke is turned on us -we can see our own grudges and prejudices. How often do we wish punishment upon the other not God s grace. There s no historical record to suggest that the Assyrians ever converted to the Hebrew God. That s in the realm of fantasy. So what are we to draw from this tale, this joke that turns deadly serious? God loves people that we don t. If God s grace extends to the Gentiles, and if God really intends salvation for all people, then we, who know God s grace, are asked to step out of our comfort zones and at least have a conversation with the others. Our modern suspicions and animosities match the ancient story perfectly. While Jonah is hunkered down, hoping that God will change God s mind again and destroy Ninevah, God commissions a bush to grow to give shade to Jonah from the heat of the day. Jonah is pleased; after all, he has obeyed God. But the very next day, God sends a worm to attack the bush and it withers. Jonah says It is better for me to die than to live. Is it right for you to be angry about the bush? God asks. It s a trick question, of course. But Jonah doesn t even hesitate in his reply. Yes, angry enough to die. In other words, Jonah is telling God that blessings should only go to the deserving, like himself, and not to those whom he believes are undeserving.
4 There s something unfair about grace, isn t there? Those calculators in our heads are going all the time. Click, click, click. God doesn t keep score the way we do. The story doesn t tell us whether Jonah repents, or not, but it is clear that God gets the last word: And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals? The good news for all of us is that God continues to love us even when we, like Jonah, act in unloving ways. Like Jonah, Jesus brings an urgent message: The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news. Simon, Andrew, James, and John were all experienced fishermen. Presumably they made a good living, had families and civic responsibilities. James and John were part of a family business, probably a successful one, since they left their father Zebedee in the boat with hired men. I wish Mark weren t so brief. What was it that Jesus said that made his message so compelling? Perhaps the seeds of discontent had already been planted in their hearts. Perhaps they longed for justice and righteousness in their occupied territory. Perhaps they were longing for change. Of course, they had no idea what they were stepping into. Dropping their nets was not the end of the story; it was only the beginning. Following Jesus didn t prove to be easy. There were times when the disciples misunderstood, backslid, and even abandoned Jesus. In the courtyard warming himself before the fire, Peter threatens to give up a lifetime of fidelity for a moment of fear. When Jesus is on the cross, Peter,
5 Andrew, James and John are nowhere to be found. Discipleship is not just about dropping your net for a moment. It s a call to follow Jesus for a lifetime. Even if we are reluctant disciples like Jonah, or ones like James and John, Andrew and Peter, who are eager one moment and unreliable and confused the next, we are called to a public vocation to take God s word to all God s people. There are times when the Spirit moves us, and we make an instant decision. We drop our nets and follow Jesus. Then there are the times when God calls, and we run in the opposite direction, like Jonah. Christianity is always both for now and for the long haul; both a moment and a lifetime. We are called to repent of our old ways, like every citizen in Ninevah. The good news that Jesus brings begins with the call to repent. These texts show us that there are fruits to repentance. God is merciful. God will change God s mind when we repent. To be caught by God, is to be saved and lifted into a new way of living. To be called to be a fisher of others is to be called to bring them the opportunity to be saved and lifted by this God of grace and forgiveness. Are you ready to fish? Amen.