First reading: Jonah 3:1-5,10
Psalm: Ps 25:4-9
Epistle: 1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Gospel: Mark 1:14-20

The word of the LORD came to Jonah, saying:
“Set out for the great city of Nineveh,
and announce to it the message that I will tell you.”
So Jonah made ready and went to Nineveh,
according to the LORD’S bidding.
Now Nineveh was an enormously large city;
it took three days to go through it.

The story:

We all know the story of Jonah. We know it so well that we can overlook some of its finer points. Today’s reading starts with Jonah washed up on shore after the whale spat him out. God comes and reminds Jonah of his task. Go to Nineveh and deliver my message.

How did Jonah get here? Where did he fail? Why did Jonah lack faith and trust in God’s goodness?

The journey:

Jonah was a happy-go-lucky prophet. He had been delivering all sorts of good messages from God for years. God comes to him and asks him to deliver a new message. Jonah is ready for another great message that everyone will like.

Imagine you were visited by God sometime around 1936. God tells you to board a plane and travel to Nuremberg. You are to visit the largest Nazi rally ever held. You are to take the stand, in front of all the microphones, stand right next to Hitler, and tell him and all the gathered crowds that they are doing evil and are required to repent. They must repent or they will be destroyed.

That’s the message Jonah received. The Assyrians of Nineveh were the Nazis of the ancient world. They conquered huge territories. They were particularly brutal. Their statues show their kings standing over conquered people while they were brutally tortured and killed. They loved violence and blood.

The happy-go-lucky prophet was to go to the center of their capital, a four city megalopolis, with walls so thick you could drive three chariots abreast along them. There were 1,500 towers, and 120,000 people living there, and it would take three days to walk through the city.

Jonah figured, forget faith in God — I’m going to run away. Anyway, why should the chosen people deliver a message of possible salvation to these foreigners?

Journey, Part 2:

Now Jonah’s not being too bright. He is running away from God forgetting that God is — everywhere. You can’t run away from God, you can only run to Him. Jonah gets on a boat headed in the opposite direction from Nineveh. He meets a group of foreigners. More foreigners! When God sends the storm to stop Jonah, who acts with faith? The foreigners do. They show their trust in God and try to save and help Jonah. When they finally relent and throw Jonah overboard, they do so acknowledging God’s power. This is something Jonah still hasn’t done.

Here is a small faith challenge: Jonah gets swallowed by a fish? Can’t be possible right? Isn’t it silly, and quite unscientific to think this was possible? Yet we must acknowledge that God, as creator of all, as God, can make anything possible. We are asked, in this small way, to respond with faith. If we cannot believe that this was possible, how can we believe that Israel was led through the sea on dry land, that Daniel stood in faith before the lions, or that the miracles of Jesus occurred? For us, this is about acknowledging God’s power and miracles with faith. Responding when faith reveals something that is beyond reason.

Jonah arrives:

Jonah has arrived, and in the face of the most brutal, psychotic, despotic people in the world delivers God’s message: repent or in forty days Nineveh will be destroyed.

The people of Nineveh do exactly that, they repent. Jonah for his part gets angry with God. Jonah wanted to see the fireworks. He wanted destruction. What he found was God’s love extended to foreigners who reacted with more faith than he had.

Faith:

For Jonah, faith was easy when times were good, and he had happy messages to deliver. As soon as his apple cart was upset, he didn’t like it. His faith failed.

As God’s spokespeople in the world, we are called to act with faith. We are called, as God’s children, to always respond with faith.

In our Epistle, Paul is telling us that time is running out. Does that mean we should run around crazed with fear? Should we abandon everything and hide? Should we act like Jonah, and try to run away? Of course not. We are to act with faith.

Faith is confidence in the caring and powerful love of God who makes all things right. Our God does miraculous things. He keeps His promises. The brutal Assyrians were no match for a Jonah when he followed God’s word and acted with faith.

Like Daniel:

There was a pastor who was faced with very difficult times. His congregation didn’t like him very much. They wanted someone else, and we’re making moves to have him replaced. He was young, and didn’t know how his reputation might be affected, or how he could possibly pastor and minister to people. He began to doubt himself, his vocation.

One of the women in his congregation invited him over. “I have something to show you,” she said. “Please, come to my house.” Apprehensively he went to visit her. “Come in,” she said, “I have something to show you.” She led him through her house to her bedroom. She pointed to the wall. “Tell me what you see,” she said.

It was a picture of Daniel in the lions den. He looked, acknowledging what he saw. “Tell me,” she said, “what do you see?” He gave the usual description, knowing the verses from the Book of Daniel. “It’s Daniel, he’s been thrown into the pit with the lions. There are the bones of others who were thrown into the pit. That’s about it.”

“Look at his eyes, where are they?” she asked. She went on, “His eyes are not on the lions or on the bones. He is looking up and his eyes are focused on the light of God.” The pastor saw the reality of Daniel acting with faith and complete trust in God.

The call and response:

John has been arrested, and Jesus is walking along the sea. He calls a message of repentance and the immanence of the kingdom of God. Andrew, James, John, and Simon respond to His call and they drop everything to follow Him. They act in faith, not knowing the future, except to know that the kingdom was at hand, was close, was around the corner.

We live in the kingdom that has begun and is coming to fulfillment. That’s all we need to know. We all face our Nineveh, we all face our lions, and we are all called to trust that God’s miracles overcome. We are called to faith and trust, that God who could love and forgive the psychotic and brutal Assyrians, who could still the lions, who raised Jesus from death, will save and renew us.

God is already rewarding our faith and trust in Him. It isn’t easy to trust like that, to set aside fears and practicalities — but we do. It is there, in our eyes, in our resolve. His miracles are for us. Thank you Lord Jesus for the gift of faith and trust in You. Grant that we live them every day. Amen.