Matthew 9:9–13

9As Jesus went on from there, he saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax collector's booth. "Follow me," he told him, and Matthew got up and followed him.

10While Jesus was having dinner at Matthew's house, many tax collectors and "sinners" came and ate with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, "Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and 'sinners'?"

12On hearing this, Jesus said, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 13But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."

Dinner with Jesus: At Matthew’s House

I read recently of a family that was attending a certain church, they’d been going there a while. One Sunday the husband sat on the center isle, his 6 year old next to him, the 4 year old in the middle, the two year old next to her mother all in a row. They got through the first part of the service all right, but then the daughter next to her dad leaned toward him with a, “Pssssst.” Being the spiritual head of his house, he ignored it and tried to focus on the message. Pretty soon she was tugging on his sleeve, so he bent toward her, she whispered, “Daddy?” she asked, “Why is that man yelling at us?”

He thought about it a minute then leaned back toward her and whispered, “I don’t know.” And he decided maybe they should look at their worshipping options.

Around Jesus there are always questions. By what authority does he work wonders? What is the source of his power? Why is he doing things this way, and not that way?

Some questions were asked sincerely in order to learn, “why?” or “what is that?” But what we read happening here with the disciples and the religious leaders is not a “please tell me” kind of question…what is happening here is “questioning.” The leaders were casting doubt on Jesus whole method of ministry…and not to him directly they addressed their questioning to the disciples. Why does your master eat with tax collectors and sinners? …and (I suppose) implied in their question is why doesn’t he eat with leaders like us?

It’s a fair question. If Jesus came to change the religious climate of the earth, why wasn’t he working with religious leaders?

Jesus takes the opportunity of this question to explain how he saw his role and purpose in the world. It’s the ill that need a doctor…and since he was in the soul doctoring business, tax collectors and sinners were his clientele. Now when the religious leaders called the people Jesus was hanging out with “sinners” they meant people whose moral problems were obvious to all.

I suppose some of those Jesus might try to get close to today might include those struggling with addiction, or folks who claim other gods. Maybe he’d spend time with those who were God fearing, but not religious in the usual sense. And he might not meet with pastors, priests, bishops or denomination leaders. If you want to get something done among the hurting people, you may as well go straight to them. That’s exactly what Jesus did. He took his teaching, his miracles, and his disciples to the streets. And there he taught those who would listen, he ate with tax collectors, he encountered sinners in their natural habitat.

I’m not sure when it happened to us Methodists, but at some point we changed from being out-goers to being invite-inners… We quit going where the people are, and started hoping they’d find us where we are. To do that, we become something that resembles religious hermits. You know hermits, they stay in, they don’t go out much, and when they do go out, they do so with a minimum of contact with others.

Methodism started with a rather unwilling street preacher named John Wesley. He didn’t really want to be a street preacher, but the churches would no longer let him preach in their buildings. And so in his journal he wrote, “I submitted to be more vile.” “I submitted to be more vile,” he said, because he decided to preach on the streets.

In other words, for the sake of this great love of God toward him—and for the sake of sharing it with others—John Wesley decided to do something that he once thought he would never do. But somehow, that didn’t matter any more. The embarrassment didn’t matter, the uneasiness didn’t matter, the raised eyebrows didn’t matter. Only one thing mattered, and what mattered was love. God’s love for people is so worth sharing that everything else pales next to it.

Now folks, I don’t think very many of us today would say that we want to become “more vile” for God. That really isn’t the kind of language we use these days. But what if we said instead that we resolve to allow God to stretch us beyond what makes us comfortable? What if we said that we resolve to allow God to pull us and challenge us into being a new kind of people? What if we said that we resolve to do things that make us feel uncomfortable if they allow others the same opportunities to fall in love with God that we have had? After all, none of us would be here today—this building wouldn’t be here—if someone somewhere along the way had not resolved to put up with a little inconvenience and a little discomfort and a little newness so that generations to come like you and me could fall in love with God too.

Do any of you know how Methodism first came to Missouri? I learned a little about that at annual conference last week. There were some Methodists over Illinois…this was back before Missouri was part of the US territories…before the Louisiana Purchase. Missouri was still part of the property of the French, and the official religion here was Catholic. At that time, it was against the law to bring other faiths into what would later become Missouri. But some Illinois Methodists rowed across the Mississippi to hold bible studies on this side. If they had been caught, they would have been in trouble. But they came and started studies, and churches.

Have any of you seen the Mississippi river? I grew up in Nebraska, the home of the Platte river…a river with a subtitle; “a mile wide and an inch deep.” You could cross the Platte any time you were willing to roll up your pant legs to mid calf or so. That’s not a river that’s a stream. The Mississippi is a river! How many of you have ever been down on the actual bank of the Mississippi and looked across there. It’s big, it’s wide, it’s deep and it’s dangerous. Now imagine it with no bridges, and no Evenrude to clamp on the back of your boat.

What would possess Illinois Methodist people to cross that water to have a Bible study with the folks in Missouri? They were risking life and limb, but they did it week in and week out. And so when the Louisiana Purchase was made, the Methodist church was already here in Missouri. Early Methodists were reaching out. They were out-goers.

Jesus said, “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” And in spiritual matters, it’s those at the margins of life who are most in need, and often most receptive to the positive difference Christ can make. Jesus mode of operation was to go to them, rather than hoping they’d come to him.

The second part of Jesus answer was a challenge to the Pharisees. He said, “But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' It’s a quote from the Old Testament prophet Hosea. Speaking for God he says, “what can I do with you, …your love is like the morning mist, like the early dew that disappears. (That’s how their love for God seemed to the almighty, it was like a vapor) And the Lord says through the prophet, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgement of God rather than burnt offerings.” Then a little later in the chapter “…as marauders lie in ambush for a man, so do bands of priests.” God was not very complimentary of their devotion, their practice or their leaders.

God prefers to be honored: acknowledged. God wants to be known. And he prefers being known over ritual obedience. So what Jesus was saying to the Jewish leaders was this. I’m out here with these folks…these tax collectors and sinners…because they acknowledge God. They want to know God.

I’ve often found this honesty with people at the margins…they know their own spiritual temperature better than many leaders. Jesus worked with folks on the margins because that’s where life change was happening. That’s where the ill were made well, the lost were found, the blind found sight.

Jesus was at dinner when the question came up. Why don’t you hang out with religious people, and why do you purposely spend time with those who are not religious at all. As you come to dine with Jesus today, I want to turn that question toward you. When was the last time you had a conversation about spiritual things with a person that is not an obvious part of a church? When did you join Jesus in focusing your attention one someone who is not yet a believer? You see we can get so busy doing things with churched folks, that pretty soon we may not know very many people who do not profess faith…we loose touch with the people Jesus spent most of his time with.

Jesus ate with those who needed him…(in this story) tax collectors and sinners…and he still is with those who need him today. Jesus heart is aimed outward…his love is given to be shared. And so as we come for communion today, we come as the kind of people Jesus liked to eat with…we’re not particularly important or popular according to the world. We come with needs, some obvious some held within our hearts…but needs that Jesus as our physician has ways to help. We come not depending on our own goodness, but counting on his grace.

As you come today…. Instructions about communion, etc.

BENEDICTION:

May the grace of Christ, which daily renews us,

and the love of God, which enables us to love all,

and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, which unites us in one body,

make us eager to obey the will of God until we meet again, through Jesus Christ, our Lord.

Jonah 4 Angry Jonah

^NIV Jonah 4:1 But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.  ² He prayed to the LORD, "O LORD, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.  ³ Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live."  ⁴ But the LORD replied, "Have you any right to be angry?"  ⁵ Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.  ⁶ Then the LORD God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine.  ⁷ But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered.  ⁸ When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live."  ⁹ But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" "I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die."  ¹⁰ But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.  ¹¹ But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?"

 

 

Jonah 4 — “Angry Jonah”

          We’ve been looking at the story of Jonah the last three weeks and we’ve seen Jonah hear God’s call to go East… and instead he takes to the sea going West to try to run from God’s call to go to Nineveh.  The Ninevites were tyrants…worthy of any fear and trepidation that Jonah felt…except God called him to go…at that point it wasn’t just about the Ninevites, but about Jonah’s trust in God.

          He boarded a ship hoping to get as far from Nineveh as possible.  Tarshish over in Spain.  But God sent a great storm to stop them, and in a desperate attempt to appease the LORD, the Sailors threw Jonah overboard, and God sent a fish to swallow him.  During his three days inside the fish Jonah prayed, and God delivered Jonah on a beach, not far from his home.  And again God called him to go to Nineveh.  This time Jonah went.  

          Last week we saw Jonah’s simple message “40 days and Nineveh will be overturned” was amazingly effective.  All of the Ninevites from the peasants to the King, repented.  They called upon God, they turned from their evil and violence.  They put on sack cloth (a symbol of repentance) and they even put sack-cloth on their herds and flocks. 

 

Jonah chapter three ended with these words: Jonah 3:10   ¹⁰ When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

 

That sounds like good news doesn’t it?  If this story had taken place in the New Testament, they’d have lined them all up for a big baptism at the river.  What happened was a revival that changed the whole city.  It was great news!  The Ninevites turned from their wrong, they called out to God.  And in God’s mercy they were spared.  They were converted.  They were saved. 

 

Those of us who hang around the church have heard good news like this all of our lives.   A person gives their lives to God, they turn from a lot of bad things around, they turn toward God.  It’s all good.  In joys and concern time…it’s a joy right? 

 

 

But once again the story of Jonah doesn’t fit with expectations.  Rather than being happy that his preaching brought a response, we turn the page from chapter three to chapter 4 and find out that Jonah is angry with God. 

 

  God dragged him all the way back from his little cruise in the Mediterranean to Nineveh to tell people they were going to be destroyed…and then God decided not to destroy them.  And Jonah says, see God? 

·        I knew it!  You were planning on forgiving them all along!

·        Wasn’t this what I said at home?

·        That’s why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish.  (what’s he doing? He’s blaming God for his previous disobedience)  He was disobeying because he knew God was good.  

·        Jonah complains, “I just KNEW you would be gracious”

·        I knew you were compassionate

·        You are a God who relents from sending calamity…what’s he saying…God you won’t even make good on your threats. And he sums up his anger like this: 

·        I want to die.

You know what folks.  This has to be a true story, because only real people can be so stupid.  

Now if we can try to bend our minds around the twisted logic of Jonah for a moment, what is his real beef?  Is it that Jonah hates the Ninevites…it could be that.  But I don’t think that’s it.  I think the basic problem is pride…Jonah’s pride.  A prophet really only had one leg to stand on, and that was whether or not his prophecies turned out to be true.  So God sent him to announce that Nineveh was going to be overthrown.  And then because the people repented, God chose not to destroy them.

So Jonah had obeyed in delivering the message…and then God embarrassed him by not making the message come to pass.

Jonah is basically having a little hissy fit.  So God asks him, “do you have a right to be angry?” and Jonah doesn’t even answer.

You know what it means when you don’t answer don’t you?  …he was way out of line. 

So Jonah decides to go sit on the hill so he made himself a little shelter…probably a few sticks leaned up together to make a little shade.  He sort of set himself up a little campsite.  Maybe put some coffee on a little fire…and there he sat.

God decides since Jonah isn’t talking to him, that he’d do something to get Jonah’s attention, so God caused a little vine to grow…and it sprang up and gave Jonah some shade… for a day.  And that made Jonah happy.  Then the next day the Lord sent a worm and it killed the vine and so it withered.  That’s how it goes when I garden too…so I know how Jonah feels.  

Then God decided to send a hot windy day and Jonah got himself cooked sitting out there on the hillside.  I’ve always thought that camping is nature's way of promoting the motel business.  ….and that gardening is a good reason for there to be a McDonalds.

But at least demise of the vine does prompt Jonah to start talking to God again, because he decides wants to die again…so he complains to God that without his little vine, it would be better to die.

 

What’s he saying really?  “I’d rather die than not get what I want.”  God, if you are going to send me to tell the Ninivites they were going to be destroyed, then you’d better destroy them.  Don’t make me look like a fool!  If your going to give me a vine to shade me one day, you’d better give me shade on the next day too. 

 

We were in Wal-Mart the other day, and we overheard a mother patiently saying “NO” to her 3 or 4 year old in the toy aisle.  The little one came back with, “but I want it.”  Folks, if you can overcome “but I want it” syndrome in your life, you should write a book because there are a lot of folks who need to read it.  We didn’t stay to see the end of the fight, but I hope for the child’s sake that the mother won…it looked for the moment like she had the upper hand.

 

Jonah wanted what he wanted.  He was more concerned that the message he’d delivered come true, than that the people of Nineveh live.  And if the city was not going to be overturned, he wanted to die.  And then, when he lost his shady vine, he was ready to die all over again.  Jonah’s a bit of a drama-queen, that’s all I can say.

 

To me the history of Jonah poses a question we might not wish to think about.  And that question is not, “How do you feel about prophets?  …or sailors?  …or even whales…(actually “great fish.”)  The question Jonah’s history asks us is this, “Are you willing to live out of the loving nature of God?”

 

          We say we understand that God loves everyone, and what we may mean by that is God loves us…and ours…but what about when the ones God is loving happen to be our enemy? 

 

          If you’re all American Citizens here today, there’s a good portion of the world that hates you, simply because you are American.  That fact may not bother you much, nevertheless, it’s true.  And chances are, closer to home, there could be some folks who dislike you because of your family name.  And a few might hate you personally, for their own reasons, they could be good reasons.  All I’m saying is it’s likely that some of you have enemies…or you will soon enough that you may as well listen.

 

Politics can be a source of hatred, the mere mention of the names of certain politicians can send some folks into fight mode.  Sports rivalries …towns can hate each other over games.

 

Have any of these hatreds, strong dislikes, rivalries, feuds and grudges touched your life yet?  How about churches.  Some of you might be in this church today primarily because of something that happened to you in some other church.  Or you may have only cautiously come back to this congregation.  You may have chosen to be Methodist because you were done being named among another group.  And though you might not choose to call it hatred, church fights can certainly be hateful, can’t they?

 

          Let’s draw the circle a little tighter.  What about your family?  …that collection of in-laws, outlaws, X’s, various generations with cousins, uncles, great folks and awful folks that share your line or your name.  Surely you are at perfect peace with your own flesh and blood right? ….Right.   Even in the most important and primary relationships in our lives, we can have enemies.

 

          The question Jonah poses about the nature of God is a question to be answered by you, the community of faith.  What if God calls you to reach out to the hated ones, or to the ones who hate you?  And how do you really feel about serving a savior that calls us to “love our enemy” and meant it?  You see there was a time in religious history when a person would pray.  “Lord, I hate those who hate you, I hate them with a perfect hatred.”  And they would feel good about hating. 

 

          The story of Jonah would suggest to us that that idea of hating for God’s sake was never one of God’s ideas.  God was always concerned for the Ninevites…even when they were doing their worst.  God in love sent Jonah to them on the chance that they might respond, or at least to give them a chance to be spared.  And just as the ships captain said, “who knows maybe your God will spare us.  And as the king said, “who knows maybe the Lord will relent and not send this catastrophe upon us.”  God had sent Jonah with the idea of giving Nineveh a chance…who knows?  Maybe they’ll change if they hear the warning.

 

          Jonah’s having his fit, so           God gets the last word in the book of Jonah.  He basically tells Jonah he is goofy to want to die over the vine.  God says, You didn’t tend it, or make it grow, it sprang up overnight and it died overnight.  The vine was no big deal Jonah, and here you got all worked up over it!

 

          But Nineveh has more than 120 thousand folks in it…who cannot tell their right from their left  Should I not be concerned about that great city?  Actually God throws a joke in this last line…he mentions their sackcloth wearing and no doubt repentant cattle.  There’s a 120 thousand folks who do not know their left from their right hands, and many cattle as well.  Does God wonder if Jonah can’t have a little pity on the people, if he’s at least more caring about their cows?

 

          Should I not be concerned for this great city.  And the answer is …well, there is no answer given in the text.  (The answer my friend…)  The answer about who God should care for…and by inference who we should care for is left hanging out there in the scorching middle eastern summer breeze.  And an angry sunburned prophet Jonah is once again tight lipped about the obvious answer to God’s question. 

 

          Jonah makes it clear God does care.  He cares about lost Nineveh.  He cared about them when they were living in evil and violence.  God’s love for the lost is amazingly great.  God even cares for and loves lost Jonah who doesn’t know when to be joyful and when to angry.  God cares about the world gone wrong, and he cares when his own people go wrong.

         

          Jonah doesn’t answer God’s final question to him, at least not for us to overhear, but I believe it’s important for us to note that God is there, in conversation with his lost and confused prophet, and there is no indication that God is going to leave Jonah alone.  God in love works with us and at times asks us about the legitimacy of our feelings.  “Do you have a right to be angry?”   About my mercy…about the plant…do you have that right?  After all you’ve been forgiven is it right for you to resent the grace given to another?  God asks, “don’t you care about what I care about?”

          Jonah’s author leaves each of us in that conversation with God about our involvement and our concern for those who are far from him.  We are called, as Jonah was called, to take the message of God’s love across boundaries of race, creed, or even to an enemy or a cranky neighbor.  Jonah’s author leaves us with the ultimate question; will we join with God to love those he loves?  All of them?

 

Prayer: Lord show us the direction of your love.  Do not leave us alone till we move with you and until your heart is formed in us…so that we will love those you love, and be concerned where you are concerned, and till your joys are our joys.

 

          

"Take A Chance On God" Jonah 3

We’ve been looking at the story of Jonah the last few weeks, and we saw in Jonah chapter 1 that the word of the LORD came to our hero and said, Go to Nineveh. Jonah ran the other way and boarded a ship for Tarshish…which is in modern Italy. God sent a storm at sea and after the ships captain begs Jonah to pray, Jonah tells them to throw him overboard. So after throwing him overboard the storm is stilled and the sailors are amazed and we leave them converted to God and worshipping him on the deck of their ship.

So the first chapter of Jonah might be summed up this memorable way: God says, "Go." Jonah says, "No." God says, "Blow." Jonah says, "So." Captain says, "Bro." Jonah says, "Throw." Sailors say, "Whoa." We were reminded that the safest place to be is in the will of God. And to run from the Lord’s calling on our lives is to drag our storm into the lives of everyone our lives touch. The sinking Jonah was swallowed by a great fish.

The Second chapter is Jonah’s prayer from inside the fish. In that prayer he actually becomes hopeful that he will make it. I guess where there’s life there’s hope. And he gives thanks that God hears him even from the bottom of the sea. We were encouraged to Pray from any and every situation. Pray, pray, pray.

Chapter two closes with a loud amen as Jonah is deposited like a salmonella salad on the beach.

Following Jonah’s three day’s in the warm cozy (no doubt) spa-like restful atmosphere of the fish’s insides, Jonah has landed on shore looking and feeling his best and once again he hears “the word of the Lord.” “Jonah” “What?! What do you want?” I want you to go to Nineveh.…the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you."

vs 3 says Jonah obeyed (what?) the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city-- a visit required three days. (yeah, for Jonah it required three days in a fish to even get him there. ) 4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned."
Now here’s where things get interesting.
5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
Remember what we’d said about the Ninevites? These were hardened soldiers of fortune, they were terminators…they would capture whole cities and put their captives on death marches, and they piled the dead along the roadway as a warning to others of their strength. The Ninevites were a group of WWF wrestlers, Hells Angels back in the day before they got job and stuffs, they were like modern gang members, or tough old hillbillies and their even meaner women folk. Ninevites were not the kind of folks you’d expect to respond to a God message at all, let alone from an outsider. Yet they spontaneously declared a fast and put on burlap.

6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. 7 Then he issued a proclamation in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence.
We’ll come back to this, because it’s just too silly not to, but think about it! The people’s repentance spread to the halls of the king, and the king extended their repentance even to their animals…man and beast herd and flock, they all fasted from food and from water, and they all put on sackcloth.
9 (The king’s edict includes this: Who knows? (this is the second “who knows” kind of God statement in the book of Jonah, do any of you remember the first one? The captain of the boat when he was asking Jonah to pray said, Maybe your God will take notice of us, and we will not perish." Here the King suggests, “Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish."
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

What an interesting history. Jonah lands on shore and has barely checked out the babes on the beach before the word of the Lord come to him saying “Go to Nineveh and preach the message I give you.” Haven’t we heard this before from the Lord? Does it sound to you like the Lord has moved on from his original plan for Jonah? Jonah ran from God (perhaps) with the hope that God might choose someone else for this Nineveh assignment. When I run from God, I certainly always hope he’ll choose someone else for the task while I’m away. But it appears God has not moved an inch…The Lord is like a broken record…for those of you old enough to remember what that sounds like. God still tells him to go, except now the message he’s to deliver has changed some. Now it’s not, ‘go and preach against the city’ NOW it’s go and proclaim to the great city of Nineveh the message I give you.

What happened to “go preach against that city because their sin has come up before me? Some dynamic has changed and I think this story might help us understand.

I read about a Jonah I know who was a lawyer. He was trying to get away from God on the ship of Tarshish. He had a lot of cash, and he was living for a lot more. His particular sea was a sea of alcohol. He could not stay away from alcohol. He just kept going down and down and down. The managing partner of his law firm told him at one point, "Your next bender will be the last one you have when you work for this firm."
For a couple of months, he stayed sober. Then he was sent to a convention, he blew off the meetings. When they found him in his hotel room, he had been on a three day binge. Just out of control.
He lost his job. He got put into a rehab clinic for a month, got assigned a sponsor who told him that he would have to get up every morning at six o'clock for an AA meeting. His response was, "No way am I getting up at six o'clock in the morning to meet with a bunch of drunks." His sponsor said, "You're not just going to meet with them; you're going to get up earlier and fix coffee for those drunks." Kind of a tough sponsor.

I think God is being a tough sponsor with Jonah. He’s now sending Jonah to serve the people. And I think the difference now is that God isn’t sending a holy prophet to a disobedient people. He’s sending a disobedient prophet to people who have not heard…He’s not sending holy Jonah to preach against the Ninivite’s sin. He’s sending a broken Jonah, who identifies with their sin…or if he doesn’t, he ought to.
In fact you might say Jonah’s sins is worse than theirs, because he knew God and still ran away…the Ninevites as we’ll see didn’t know what they were doing religiously. So now Jonah is being sent, not to preach against them, but now to proclaim to them God’s message. I think that’s sort of like having to make coffee for the drunks. He’s going to have to humble himself, and identify with the Ninivites…not just deliver a message.
Well, we know something’s changed because Jonah obeys. He goes. And you know what, suddenly everything works. Jonah is faced with a daunting task, one little guy in a fishy smelling robe walks into a city of a hundred thousand. How do you get a message out to so many? But look what happens. He proclaims in the suburbs, “40 days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” And the Ninevites listen. It says they believed God. The Ninevites call a fast and they put on sackcloth.

Do you all know what a burlap sack is? Sackcloth. Itchy, uncomfortable, cloth made for utilitarian purposes, like hauling grain around. It was not the finer woven cloth made for comfortable clothes. You know when you buy sheets, they give a thread count rating…and the more threads per inch the softer the sheets will feel. Comfortable bed sheets are like 300, 400, 600, 700 threads per inch. Sackcloth would probably count out in the 15 to 20 threads per inch. So when sackcloth was worn, it was an announcement to the world around you that you were grieving, that you were denying yourself comfort because of a great loss. The Ninevites put it on to show God they were sorry for their sins. They were showing God they were not going to give themselves ease until they would know what God was going to do with them. The people responded in an amazing way to the proclamation of Jonah.

Their repentance and Jonah’s message soon reached the ears of the king, and amazingly the king joins the people in putting on sackcloth but the king takes it even further…he sits in the dust. He issues a proclamation that extends the fast to letting no one eat or drink…which if you’ve every tried fasting, is not recommended…you have to have fluids. And the King extends the fast beyond people to their livestock as well. In fact even the livestock are supposed to put on sackcloth, both flocks and herds. Which I’m sure the sheep, goats and cows didn’t appreciate much. In fact I imagine those who managed flocks and herds didn’t enjoy rounding them up to put sackcloth on them. If they had dogs and cats, my guess is they put sackcloth on the dogs, because dogs are sorry when they sin. Cats on the other hand, as we all know, are evil.

Sack cloth on cattle…was this silly? Yes. Did the cows know why they were wearing sackcloth? No! Did the people seem to know what they were doing in trying to please God? No! But did it get results? Yes!

Have the results they received here prompted other herdsmen in the scripture to include their flocks and herds in their repentance by dressing them in sackcloth. No. Why? Because it’s goofy. Cows don’t repent. The Ninevites didn’t know what they were doing but they hoped to turn away the wrath of God.

But though man looks at the outward appearance, God looks on the heart. And any repentant heart that would put their cows on a fast and put them in sackcloth is going to get God’s attention. But just because it worked in this story, does not mean it should be repeated. God saw in their prayers, and in their actions the sincerity of their repentance.

And here’s the deal. The King has heard the message (40 days). And he makes his edict. And listen to his comment… he says, “who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his anger so that we will not perish.” The word is we’re done, well….Let’s change our ways…who knows?…

In the story of Jonah, those who have taken a chance on God, are finding victory in their lives…even if they go about it in goofy ways. They repented not with any assurance that God would change his mind about them. They repented saying, “who knows?” God might forgive.

God looked down from heaven, heard the mooing of the hungry cows, saw them with their sackcloth on. He heard the prayers of the people and their king wearing sackcloth. He saw that they turned from their evil ways and from their violence. And God had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

God comes through for the people who take a chance on Him (and who call upon him for mercy) in the book of Jonah. The ships captain asks Jonah to pray because maybe his God might save them. Jonah’s God does save them. The sailors prayed for forgiveness even as they threw Jonah overboard…and God stopped the great storm. Jonah prayed for deliverance from inside the fish, and soon found himself on dry ground. And the Ninevites and their King took a chance on God, “who knows?”, and God had compassion on them.

Folks I don’t know where you see yourself in this story, or if you see yourself in this story, but let me suggest some ways you might see yourself or some of your loved ones in it.

You may see yourself in a storm, or far from God, or feel trapped working with people who are far from God. God hears the prayers of people, he sees every act of apology whether it’s goofy, (like putting sackcloth on livestock) or whether it’s heartfelt, as when the king put on the burlap and sat in the dust. He was humbling himself before God. If you humble yourself before God, he will raise you up. That’s what scripture says, Humble yourself in the sight of the Lord and he will lift you up.”

Everyone who took an honest chance on God (meaning they prayed, and they turned from their evil ways)… everyone who took a chance on God in the book of Jonah, was rewarded with God’s favor.

I would not ask you to gather burlap for your selves or you’re your critters…but I do want you to know what works with God, when you find yourself outside his will. What works is true repentance. It’s turning from the wrong and settling yourself firmly with what is right. It’s apology to God for our sin, and it’s letting him work in you for change.
God will take you as you are, but he won’t bless you as you are, or leave you as you are. He will shape you, remake you, rebuild your life and it will be glorious! Take a chance on God

PRAYER
· Lord, are there places in my life that I’ve give up on? Like Jonah gave up on Nineveh? Show me, change me, I’ll take a chance on you.
· Lord, is there brokenness in my life where I’ve given up on the idea of healing? Show me, change me, I’ll take a chance on you.
· Lord, I see people finding help, salvation, restoration, peace as they give themselves to you. Show me, change me, I’ll take a chance with you. --Amen

Prayers From The Deep Jonah 2

Jonah 2:1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. 2 He said: "In my distress I called to the LORD, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry. 3 You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. 4 I said, 'I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.' 5 The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seaweed was wrapped around my head. 6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O LORD my God. 7 "When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. 8 "Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs. 9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the LORD." 10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. (NIV)

Alice’s aunt invited us to use her cabin near Estes Park Colorado when the kids were small…something we were only too happy to do. It was a wonderful vacation spot. And as you often do when kids are young, you stop by one of those innocent looking fishing ponds where the kids are invited to catch trout. They must starve the poor fish, because they jump at the hooks before they even hit the water, and then the fish are cleaned for you, wrapped in paper, and you pay so much an inch for fish. I think our fish bill for three trout was close to 30 dollars. Anyway, we put the fish in the freezer over the frig and enjoyed the rest of our vacation, packed up for home, and forgot and left the fish in the freezer. That would have been fine except an electrical storm tripped the main and the fish not only thawed, they spent a couple weeks getting really nasty. When Alice’s Aunt opened the cabin door, she knew something was terribly wrong…and they seriously considered throwing the whole refrigerator away, but after some ugly work they were able to dispense with the smell.
I haven’t always had good luck with fish, even the dead ones. And my suspicion is that Jonah probably didn’t have much of an appetite for sea food after his experience either.

We’re looking at the Old Testament book of Jonah. And one of the problems with visiting a story like Jonah is we tend to think we already know the story… but I wonder if we really do. The average person usually associates the story of Jonah with one other character. If you ask someone, they will think of it as (what?) its’ the story of Jonah and the ________. (Whale) Right. …the whale’s name is Monstro, and Jonah is running away from his father, Geppetto and he wants to be a real boy, and …beyond that point people get a little fuzzy as to the details of the Jonah story. J I’d like to ask you to pretend you’ve never heard the story before, so imagine what it would be like to hear it for the first time. (got this joke from J. Ortberg)

Last week we looked at the first chapter of Jonah. And if there is one word that describes what God is doing in the first chapter the word would have to be great. God is up to something great. God says to Jonah, I want you to go to Nineveh that great city. Because it turns out God has a great heart…because it seems God has a great heart for that great city. Then Jonah runs the other way, so God sends a great wind, and it produces a great storm. Then the pagan sailors are converted through a great fear. Then God appoints a fish for Jonah, …anybody want to guess what kind of fish it is? It’s a great fish. God is doing something great in this story.

Jonah on the other hand, is a total mess up. If there was one word that described Jonah in chapter one it was the word down. Jonah is going down. God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, and instead it says he went down to Joppa to catch a boat. Then he gets in a ship going down to Tarshish. Then in the ship, Jonah goes down into the hold …the bottom of the boat and there he falls into a deep sleep. Then he gets thrown down into the water in the storm…then down into the fish…and then the fish takes him down even further. Jonah has hit bottom figuratively and literally.

An Israelite at the bottom of the sea… you could not possibly get any lower. The sea was a frightening place, a place of death…Israelites were not typically sea-going people. If you remember their history, they handled seas by walking across on dry land…not boats. Jonah had been the only Hebrew on the ship. And now he finds himself inside God’s appointed fish.

Guess what Jonah does from inside the fish? He prays. He was told to go to Nineveh, he didn’t pray about that. No, he ran the opposite direction. He picks a ship in Joppa…no record that he prayed about that choice. During the storm everyone was spontaneously praying to their various gods, not Jonah. The ship’s captain wakes him and tells him to pray…as far as we can tell he doesn’t pray, he just tells them to throw him overboard. This ‘man of God’ hasn’t talked to God at all so far in this story. Even though pagan sailors have been converted and they’re having a worship service offering sacrifices to the LORD God and making vows. What kind of vows? We don’t know. Maybe they’re promising to lay off the grog, stop cussing, lose weight, and leave the strange women alone in the ports …all kinds of promises they’re making to God. You know…promises like you’ve made when your life has been spared. The sailors are making vows, that’s what it says.

But Jonah doesn’t pray through all of that…he’s not making vows…nothing spiritual is going on in his life ….until he ends up in the sea in a fish. Why do you think Jonah prayed in the fish? …He had nothing better to do. Think about it! What else are you going to do in a fish? Jonah had nowhere else to turn, nothing else to do so (we might say “finally”) he prays.

And let me offer sort of a humbling question, do you know why in our world we often have a hard time praying? Could it be because we have so many other things to do. We have so many things competing for our attention. We have so much noise, so many screens that we can turn on. Cell phones have text, and internet, and some even receive phone. People carry laptops, and have desktops, and big screen TVs…and there’s movies to watch on DVD, even in the car, and the CD players, mp3 players, and the radio. We seldom find ourselves cut off…except a few of us did on Friday….some of you may be still cut off…from electricity …we are.

Just like the sailors, we had a great storm, with a great wind, (did any of you pray while the wind was howling?) and after a few hundred trees fell down, suddenly there was no electricity, no screens, no computer, no TV, no radio except in the car and when it got dark outside, it got dark inside too.

Jonah is brought down, down, down to the bottom of the sea. The whole first chapter has been filled with exciting stuff, but it’s been a disaster because every decision was Jonah’s alone. He’s been the captain of his life, not God, and it didn’t work at all.

In the second chapter we just read, there is no action at all…just prayer.

Just prayer…Maybe because Jonah had nothing better to do. Maybe because Jonah’d finally hit bottom. Maybe because the fact that he was still alive sparked some hope in him.

And so he prayed, “In my distress I called and the Lord answered. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened. You hurled me into the deep…all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, “I’ve been banished…and yet…I will look again toward your holy temple. But you brought my life up from the pit.” He prays, “I with a song of thanks will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed, I will make good.”

If we could take just a little time out here for a second, has anyone here ever been in over your head in life? Jonah would say, “pray.” Is it your own fault that you’re in that situation? “Pray anyway.” Have you been living a life that is contrary to what you believe God wants for you? Pray then too. Are you concerned that your motives are not pure, maybe you’re just looking out for your own best interests? I think Jonah would say, “pray anyway.”

God is never more than a prayer away. And God is so willing to hear. God is so tender hearted toward us that even when Jonah, or you, or I have hit bottom and we’ve nowhere else to go, God still says, “Come to me.”

Jonah prays, and God hears, and Jonah gets delivered on the third day. But again this is an odd book, and so his deliverance is not on the wings of angels, not with a chariot of fire, not with a parting of the sea. In this odd book, good things happen in funny ways here. So after three days in the fish, there’s (let’s say) an unsettling of great fish’s digestive system. You Moms out there, you know that look? …when your child has the flu…and is about to prove their illness once again…they get that look? At God’s command, the fish had the look. And the gurglings all around Jonah became profound. That had to be a gut-wrenching sound from inside, huh?

Verse 10 says, “The Lord commanded and the fish vomited Jonah onto dry land.” Now folks, is that a little more detail than we really wanted from the Bible just a few minutes before we go to lunch? Couldn’t the translators of the Holy writ have chosen a more dignified, churchier, more Methodist term than ‘vomit’ for what happened here? It’s as if this book was written for Jr. High boys. “Vomit” is a great word for them. Just the mention of the word brings back fond memories.

Preacher John Ortberg said, the scripture “is hitting us over the head with it. The writer wants to make sure the reader gets this. Jonah did not get dropped off by an angel. The Fish had a protein spill, tossed his cookies, lost his lunch, launched the food shuttle, took a ride on the regurgitron…ok?” (The only way this story could possibly have been better for 8th graders is if Jonah had finished the whole trip through the fish’s digestion system.

Jonah ends up on shore, not a tragic figure, covered with suffering. Not a heroic figure, covered with glory. But a ridiculous figure, covered with shrimp cocktail and tuna tartar…or whatever else the great fish had eaten.” My best guess is…it was extremely nasty…something like that refrigerator in Estes Park. My two boys like to watch that show “dirty jobs” and one of the only time’s I’ve seen the show’s strong stomached host lose his lunch was when he was grinding bait on a fishing scow. We’re talking something right guard just won’t take care of.

I wonder how long do you think it was before Jonah could laugh about how he looked there on the beach? I’m thinking it was a while…I’m sure his buddies would loved to have seen him come ashore…but no-one would have wanted to take him home in their pickup. Did that odor still lingered on Jonah when he arrived at Nineveh. I’m thinking it might have. “Great message pastor, but what’s that funky smell?”

Most stories are either comedies or tragedies. In tragedy: joy loses, life loses, hope loses. In a comedy: joy wins, life wins, hope wins. What is Jonah? What would you say? Is Jonah a tragedy or comedy? It’s a comedy. Jonah keeps going down, but great things keep happening. Jonah the prophet, who as the “man of God” ought to be the hero of the story runs from God and has to hit bottom before he even prays. It turns out that when people are going down, down, down, God is up to something great. Great things are about to happen for Jonah.

I’m sure the fish would tell us (with a wink) that you just can’t keep a good man down.

What can we take from this? Jonah chapter 2 tells us that people in the worst possible situations can pray, for God hears. People in the deepest holes imaginable can pray, and God is there. And as modern day Jonah’s, mess-ups like you and me, are willing to bring themselves, their situations, their lives to God…God can do great things with them.

The New Testament says, God can do “far more abundantly than we could ask or think.” And as we said last week, anyplace with God is better than any place we might choose without his blessing. Prayer is the language of positive change…no matter what language you pray in, prayer is the language of great possibilities. And deliverance is near when God is hearing the prayers of his people.

You may think God won’t listen, he will. You may know you caused the problem yourself…you may have…that fact changes nothing about God’s willingness to hear your prayer or work with you. In all honesty I think Jonah would tell us it might not be pretty…your deliverance might be an ugly smelly thing (as it was for him.) Jonah would remind us we might not get to keep our dignity…he didn’t keep his…but God will save. You may think it’s too late, it’s not. The situations you’re thinking of …its resolution may depend one someone you don’t think will change…let God deal with that. You can let life (every situation, every problem) let it all call you to pray.

My challenge to you this week is to see every situation as an invitation to pray. The worse it is, the more it needs prayer. The more it’s your own fault, the more it needs your prayers. The more you don’t want to pray, the more you must need to pray about it. From the belly of the beast that has swallowed you whole, pray! God can still do great things with your life. Pray, pray, pray. Do you understand the challenge? Do I need to say it again?

Then let’s pray right now.