Jonah chapter 4 - a sulk about what God does

Have you ever tried to move God off his throne and put yourself there instead? Have you ever tried to disregard everything that God has said about himself and his commands, because you thought you know better?

Well throughout the book of Jonah, we have seen Jonah do this.

In chapter 1, we saw Jonah trying to run away from God. God gave Jonah a mission, and Jonah tried to decline the mission, but God would not let him. He will not allow some patriotic, Jewish prophet to keep him from performing what He wants to do. Go to Nineveh!

So, in chapter 2, we saw Jonah running into God. You cannot run away from God and what he wants so Jonah is almost drowned, is swallowed by a big fish to save him, and then is vomited up on the beach.

Then in chapter 3, we saw Jonah somewhat grudgingly obey God. Jonah went with God’s call on him, but not whole-heartedly. Throughout the book, we’ve seen Jonah try to run God. Jonah has been thinking throughout the book that he knows better than God what should happen to the Ninevites, and so Jonah has been trying to put himself on God’s throne.

In the last chapter of the book, we hope that Jonah finally learns his lesson. We hope that Jonah finally repents, and finally agrees that God can be gracious to the people of Nineveh, and that he does not deserve grace any more or less than they do or we do. But he doesn’t. A disgusted Jonah sits and sulks and cannot cope at all with these dreadful people being given another chance and them responding! And his life long view on God being partial is blown apart and he just loses it. 

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he became angry. The Hebrew word here for angry is literally, “to be hot, blaze, burn” You’ve heard of being hot under the collar. Well Jonah is all that and more!

Why did Jonah respond this way? Remember, Israel and Assyria were rivals in a contest that could leave only one nation surviving. The Ninevites were wicked and cruel, and so Jonah probably hated them, or at least hated what they did. And so he was hoping that God would destroy them.

We should not be too hard on Jonah here. We all sometimes wonder why God doesn’t judge a certain person or group of people.

We judge Jonah, but we judge too quickly. He’s exhausted. Well you would be, wouldn’t you?

If we can relate to what Jonah is feeling here, then the rest of the chapter is for us. Sometimes we might pray as Jonah prays here in verse 2-3.

So, he prayed to the Lord, and said, “Ah, Lord, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore, I fled previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live!”

Jonah, it seems, is not only hot under the collar. He is angry to the point of not wanting to live anymore. It seems that he believes a great injustice has occurred. Jonah’s thoughts were along these lines: ‘The Assyrians should have received the judgment that they deserved. And if that isn’t going to happen then what is the point of carrying on and being your spokesperson? You might as well take my life.’ Jonah is just getting redder and redder, like people get when the blood pressure rises and they just explode.

Then the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

Anger – it is right? Well, yes, I think it is when things in the world are just so wrong. There’s been an uprising perhaps only in some parts of America but certainly outside it that you can’t put children in cages and separate them from their parents, no matter what the story is. So, you write an order to stop that and say “we must keep the families together” but they are still separated and will still be locked up. “I didn’t like the sight or the feeling of families being separated, I think anybody with a heart would feel strongly about it. We don’t like to see families separated.” Perhaps anger at a lack of decent respect for human rights is okay and anger that stuff we thought was long consigned to history in the free world is still happening. Anger is right when the rich are rich and the poor get poorer. The comedian Johnny Vegas was on Channel 4’s “Last Leg” on Friday night and had a live rant about the NHS being underfunded and a government not caring. He was very angry!

Inspired by love and anger one Iona hymn puts it. And parts of the Bible get angry about injustice.

We pretty some Psalms by leaving the angry bits out but sometimes the Psalmist has a meltdown wanting God to get angry: Psalm 79 “Pour out your anger on the nations that do not know you, and on the kingdoms that do not call upon your name.” We become superior and we don’t want those who’ve made mistakes to have a chance.

Anger that just winds the angry person up and the person getting it is just destructive. Someone really really angry rang me up and ranted for ages because they had in their view been wronged in a church. They didn’t accept my version of events or my response and finished the conversation by telling me they needed to calm down. I remained calm on the other end of the phone as they ranted. Football fans do it – if England lose this afternoon against Panama the tabloid press will have a great back page headline that Raheem Sterling is the worst shambles of a player we’ve ever had. I saw a fascinating programme last weekend about England football managers and they showed Graham Taylor who was vilified by the press, and that famous back page of his head as a turnip as England lost to Sweden and the headline Swedes 2 Turnips 1.

Is it right for you to sulk? 

Perhaps cannot cope if things don’t go our way, and we sulk. Some church people are good at that, none here I say quickly but I’ve had sulkers in Church Councils who’ve lost votes on big issues. The stormers out are great fun and I’ve tried hard to understand them. Some people find it impossible to accept a broadening of vision needed to move on.      

Is it right for you to be angry? 

This is the question I’m sure God sometimes asks us when we think our way is better than God’s. God is asking Jonah the same question we would ask of him. It is as if God is saying: “Jonah, I had every right to kill you for disobeying me. In fact, I had more right to destroy you than I did the Ninevites, because you knew about my righteous requirements and chose to disobey anyway. They did not know, and although they were living in sin, they were ignorant of my requirements. Now that they know, they have repented of their sin and so I have turned from my wrath.

You still have not repented of your sin, and I am still being gracious and patient with you.

Often God doesn’t act like we would like Him to. Sometimes we get angry when bad things happen or prayers seem to go unanswered. Maybe it is when we are made to wait for far too long. Maybe it seems that God is blessing others while you go overlooked.

What about God? How does He react to this little dummy spit from His prophet? He who showed tremendous patience towards the Ninevites, once again shows the same patience with His prophet. But He doesn’t want this experience to pass without Jonah learning something though!

We see why Jonah would rather flee to Tarshish than preach fire and brimstone to Nineveh, and why he would rather die than obey God. The answer to both is that he knew God is a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abundant in loving kindness, one who relents from doing harm.

Jonah knew his Bible and knew that God was gracious. He did not want God to show compassion on Nineveh.

He did not want the heathen nation of Assyria to receive blessing and forgiveness from God. In fact, it seems that Jonah disagrees with how God handled the situation. Jonah is trying to tell God how to behave. God’s love and grace is wonderful when it is directed toward Jonah and toward Israel. But God showing love and kindness toward Israel’s enemies? They don’t deserve it!

Jonah knows God’s character and is telling God that he was wrong to give grace to the Ninevites. Jonah, in his anger, is attacking God’s actions saying that the people of Nineveh do not deserve God’s grace.

Well, Jonah, in typical Jonah fashion, does not answer God, and instead sulks outside the city and makes himself comfortable in a shelter.

Apparently, he hoped that maybe God would destroy the city after all, and he wanted to be there to watch it when it happened. And as watched God wanted to give him a visual aid in how God works.

And the Lord God prepared a plant and made it come up over Jonah, that it might be shade for his head to deliver him from his misery. So, Jonah was very grateful for the plant. But as morning dawned the next day God prepared a worm, and it so damaged the plant that it withered. And it happened, when the sun arose, that God prepared a vehement east wind; and the sun beat on Jonah’s head, so that he grew faint.

Then he wished death for himself, and said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” The withering of his beloved beautiful plant is a tipping point for Jonah.

He survived the storm on the boat. He survived being thrown overboard into the sea. He didn’t give up though swallowed by a great fish. He was willing to walk into the enemy’s city of Nineveh and proclaim God’s message. All these things he coped with. But his plant dying-- leading to the sun beating down on him is just too much! ‘I want to die!’ he says. ‘Take my life!’

Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

God asks his question again.

And Jonah said, “It is right for me to be angry, even to death!”

With all this talk of death, if Jonah were living today, he would be considered suicidal. He would be put on suicide watch.

Jonah is furious about a plant. He liked the vine, and wanted to enjoy its shade, and here God had killed the plant, and so Jonah was angry. He is so angry with God he wants to die.

But the Lord said, “You have had pity on the plant for which you have not laboured, nor made it grow, which came up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot discern between their right hand and their left — and much livestock?”

And with that, the story ends.

What a strange ending. Why is the vine there? Why does the story end this way? It seems like the story should have ended after chapter 3. God has mercy on Nineveh. The End.

But that wasn’t the end. Why not? Because the story is not about Nineveh.

It is about God and his dealings with a man whose heart is cold. Jonah wanted the city to be destroyed and did not care for anyone in the city. But he did care for a plant. And God is saying, “Jonah, look what you are saying. You did not cause the plant to grow, and yet you loved it and wanted it to survive. Neither did you cause Nineveh to grow, and yet you want it to be destroyed. And Nineveh is full of 120,000 people who do not know their right hand from their left. In other words, they are ignorant about me and about my requirements. They do not know good from evil. Yet if you had to choose between 120,000 people and a plant, you would pick the plant? The book closes with one final question from God: “Shall I not be concerned with that great city?”

And that is how the story ends. It leaves the reader hanging.

We do not get an answer from Jonah. We do not know what his response was. We do not know if God got through to Jonah’s heart. We do not know if Jonah repented of his ways. We do not know if Jonah learned his lesson.

Why does the text not tell us?

Because the text is not primarily about Jonah. Most people think this story is about God’s love for other nations. It isn’t about that, or the story would have ended after chapter three. A few people think that this story is about God working on the mind and heart of a prophet of Israel. The story is not about that either, because we are not told how Jonah responds.

This book ends rather abruptly. God has the last word. That is how it should be. It is a word reinforcing His love for all. We don’t know how Jonah responded. We might hope that Jonah forgot about his plant. I hope he let go of his anger. We might hope he was able to walk down into the city again and rejoice with those who now rejoice. I hope he was able to tell them a greater message than he did before... one about the God who is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. But I’m not sure he did. I imagine him just going away from all this exhausted mentally and very confused. 

What is this story about?

The story is about you and me. The text leaves us hanging because it asks the question, “What about you? What would you do if you were in Jonah’s place?”

Sometimes we pray “wrongly” as James says, “to spend it on your passions” (James 4:3). We want what we want, not what God wants. Jonah’s experiences warn us about the danger of a wrong concept of God. In his case, the wrong concept was a God only for me. He knew God was gracious yet did not think he should be gracious to Nineveh.

There is a real danger of having a detached knowledge of God that does not transform us into his image, a God for everyone if they turn to him, a God who makes the offer that it can all be different no matter how vile you have been.

The book closes with God asking Jonah a question regarding the fate of the thousands in Nineveh. Its very challenging to end a story with a question. Perhaps before this Bible Month began we thought the most amazing thing about Jonah was God providing a whale, and we’ve learnt now it wasn’t a whale and that there is much much more in this little book.  We have been challenged to focus on the amazing fact that the God of Israel blesses repentant pagans with mercy. The reason the book closes with an unanswered question is because the he wants us to give our answer to what he will do in our Nineveh. Are we really inclusive and forgiving or are we a bit suspicious and is it maybe not all are welcome?

Perhaps we need in a Methodist context to remember some of our theology. The Four Alls of Methodism.

All need to be saved

All may be saved

All may know that they are saved

All may be saved to the uttermost

No-one is perfect but no one is beyond the reach of God’s redeeming love. Through Christ – his perfect life, death and resurrection – all people have the opportunity to respond to God’s love, finding forgiveness for past errors, peace and strength in the present, and confident hope that reaches through our futures and into eternity. We can know that and celebrate that, everyone is included and everyone can witness to it.   

There are no limitations on the work that God can do to reshape and recreate his image in the life of an individual. God himself makes a home in their lives. God’s Spirit begins a work of transformation, recreation and regeneration in the heart of that person which need never end. The likeness of Jesus grows in a person’s life; the mind of Christ takes hold; and the love of Christ grows stronger and stronger until we begin to see, speak and serve with the heart of God himself.

There are no limits to how God can change a person from the inside out. That’s what we mean when we say a person may be ‘saved to the uttermost’. As Jesus said in the little parable we read earlier – there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents…

For Jonah it was too revolutionary, for people who encountered early Methodism it was too revolutionary, and for us today, well… maybe we are growing at the moment because it is at the heart of what we are becoming, welcoming, inclusive, accepting, helping people move on with  new beginning, not being it’s for us not for you in attitude. 

We as a church have always been clear that no-one is beyond the reach of God’s love. Salvation is there for everyone who turns to God, and not just for a chosen few. Turning Ninevites and sulky knackered prophets…

Jonah chapter 3 - unexpected repentence

I read a sermon in the week about Jonah. It was called “The God of another chance.” Let’s recap Bible Month so far. God calls Jonah to preach to the people of Nineveh, which was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. They were extremely cruel and vicious people and so Jonah ran in the opposite direction. He boarded a boat for Tarshish which was in Spain. God intervened and sent a terrible storm to rock the boat. The sailors onboard threw Jonah overboard, where he was swallowed by a big fish. He spent three days and nights inside the fish, which brought him back to Israel and spewed him out onto dry land.

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time.

God is the “God of another chance.” The first time God spoke to Jonah he refused to accept the call. Now God gives Jonah another chance to do his mission. Jonah has thought “I got out of that mad Nineveh project, didn’t I!”  He hasn’t and God calls him again and gives him another chance.

God is persistent and so the word of the Lord comes a second time to Jonah with the same instruction to go to Nineveh. This time, somewhat unwillingly, Jonah does so. When he gets there, he cries out that the city will be destroyed in forty days.

And, astonishingly, there is an instant reaction –  The king calls for national repentance. Not only does he want all people to fast and pray and call urgently on God, but he even wanted the animals to fast as well. In the Ancient Near Eastern mindset, it was possible for animals to sin as well as humans. The repentance here is genuine. It is not just a “Yes, we are sorry for what we have done!” but it is a call to give up their evil ways and to turn from their violence. Genuine repentance is to change one’s way of living. Their hope is that God will yet relent and turn from his anger upon them.

From the king down to the animals they repent, fast and put on sackcloth, crying to God for mercy. It's a preacher's dream reaction: any preacher today likes a bit of reaction to their service, it’s usually “nice hymns” or “we could hear you” but one word from Jonah and the whole city, animals and all, is down on its knees praying for forgiveness. “Perhaps this God will give us another chance.”

You'd think that Jonah would be thrilled at his success - this surely is the preacher of the year. Nineveh was a great city, and he was ready to see it burn. He hated Nineveh, that’s why he ran from the first call, I guess the second call was obeyed because he was knackered, knackered from his sailing trip, nearly drowning, and recovering from fish smells and feeling a little sick on a beach covered in fish vomit. “Okay God, you win.” He walks for three days, sees the place and surely thinks they will be gone through his words: destruction.

The writer of Jonah sees Nineveh was not just a quantity, but a quality, not just a metropolis three day walk across with a population of over 120,000 people plus animals, but an immorality. He takes the symbol of the world’s most ancient impressive evil, magnifies and intensifies it by mass, and sends his timorous prophet into the middle of it. Why does he do that? Because the sins of Assyria – personified by Nineveh – sins such as polytheism, brutality, exploitation, witchcraft, sorcery, alcohol abuse, prostitution, and illicit sex were in abundance. That’s where the prophet of God was going. Nineveh was a walled city, probably eight miles around it. The city walls have been discovered and records have been found that reveal that greater Nineveh beyond the walls extended at least sixty miles outward.

Jonah walked into the heart of Nineveh and said that God’s going to destroy you. You’re going to be ‘overturned.’ The author gives a very interesting word usage in Hebrew. The word for ‘overturned’ is hapak. The Hebrew ear would hear this word and know that there are two distinct meanings to the word hapak.

This word is probably one of the greatest usages of irony in the book of Jonah. When Jonah said that Nineveh would be overturned, no doubt in his mind he meant “overturned” in the same way as Sodom and Gomorrah. We know the results of the overthrow of those cities. So, Jonah was all excited about going into the heart of the enemy and saying, “God’s going to get you!”

Without a divine introduction, without an indictment of their sins, with no explicit challenge to the people to repent and no offer of future hope it is amazing even one person heard him. It is clear, I think, that Jonah was not interested in God’s plan for the Ninevites, nor was he particularly interested in his enemies being spared. Jonah wanted to show up, be in and out as quickly as possible – hence only going one day’s walk into the city – and feel good that he had done what God had asked.

Yet, one sentence is portrayed as the most startlingly effective human communication in the whole Bible.

It causes an entire city to turn to God, that is, everyone in Nineveh without exception, in what can only be described as a virtual model of repentance. Which brings us to the miracle and God’s mercy on the people of Nineveh. We are told that: “the people of Nineveh believe God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.”

The first effect of their new-found belief in God is their acceptance that the judgment proclaimed by Jonah is justified.  Without this recognition, without realizing that they need to repent of their wicked ways, we are left without much of a story, and I’m standing here without a sermon. This recognition manifests immediately in a visible sign of the ritual fast that was begun with the donning of coarse, hairy garments. This is the outward and visible sign of humility and a token that the person concerned is turning their back on the previous ways of their life.

Accompanying this outward sign of humility is the renunciation of everyday food and drink. We are specifically told that each and every person in Nineveh, from the great to the small, turned away from acts of violence.  And we are told that accompanying the miracle is an outpouring of Gods mercy: “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring  upon them; and he did not do it.” We have heard today an out of the ordinary story of an unwilling prophet proclaiming to his enemy with the net result being that his enemy changed their ways, repented of their sins and believed in God. The God of another chance.

There is another meaning to the word hapak. It is used also in Exodus when Moses’ staff “changed.” It ‘changed’ into a snake. The water of the Nile changed to blood. In Hosea 11, that beautiful chapter about God not being able to give up on his wayward children, hapak is used to describe change in the Lord’s heart. This seems to be incredible irony in our story because Jonah walked into Nineveh hoping that God was going to hapak (destroy) the city. But what ultimately happened was that Nineveh hapak (changed).

It’s quite amazing, and it’s all down to God’s grace. It’s even more amazing that the sudden love in between President Trump and Kim Jung Un who were hurling insults and threatening bombs and more the other week, now they are best friends, and people can’t quite get what is going on. Trump said yesterday to a reporter he cosyed up to North Korea to stop nuclear weapons being launched on their family and now suddenly there is no threat from North Korea to anyone, and the reporter said “don’t you care about his human rights record?” Not quite repentance in its fullness.   

The first verse of the next chapter tells us Jonah is furious and goes on to make a fool of himself over a bush. In fact, we never hear what happens to Jonah in the end, we leave him sulking in the desert.

Did God ever get to the bottom of Jonah's anger and absolute resistance to the idea that the people of Nineveh should have a chance to repent?

And why on earth did God choose Jonah in the first place, wouldn't it have been easier to find someone less stubborn? That’s next week’s service! St Benedict reminds us, we should never despair of the mercy of God.  That's where we can differ from Jonah and we need to face our own outrageous prejudice and narrowness story sometimes and never lessen the mercy of God. Why has it now been called the Gospel before Christ, rather than almost not making it into the canon of Scripture?

I want to suggest it is about inclusiveness and a Gospel of second chances, that no one is outside God’s love if they are given a chance to respond and do respond. They, as much as we, good pious people, are given a new beginning, forgiveness, out of the grace of God. That’s the Gospel isn’t it?   Where is Nineveh today? Perhaps Nineveh says it cannot come to God because it is too far gone. Perhaps Nineveh near St Leonards on Sea has met Jonah the Churchgoer, who has said to them “repent, but if you do, I can’t really accept you!” So people who want a new beginning, hope, don’t ever find God to be real because of a holier than thou attitude. None of my churches here give me grief, but there are churches where Jonah sits on the Church Council! “You can’t do that. You can’t go to those people, they aren’t part of our church mission.”    

It’s easy if you’ve not been into church for years, or never, to think you are unworthy, you are broken and selfish. Perhaps if you live in Nineveh, you think everyone inside the church is perfect. But we have a message that we’re in life together and we all need to hear God’s grace every day, whether we are Jonah, struggling with his will, or Nineveh, needing to turn around.

There are Ninevites around who’ve never had a chance of learning a different behavioural pattern. 

“If churches saw their mission as going to those no else will go to, there is no telling what might happen. What if people were invited to come tell what they already know of God instead of to learn what they are supposed to believe?

What if they were blessed for what they are doing in the world instead of chastened for not doing more at church? What if church felt more like a way station than a destination? What if the church’s job were to move people out the door instead of trying to keep them in, by convincing them that God needed them more in the world than in the church?”  ― Barbara Brown Taylor, Leaving Church: A Memoir of Faith

The God of another chance. I want to suggest to you this morning that the major work of the Church is this another chance mission. People are yearning for a different narrative in their lives, especially people who’ve made mistakes or who have been rubbished all their lives. Imagine being forgiven for the first time in your life. Imagine being free of guilt and living differently. Imagine being included in a fellowship you’ve never thought you were worthy of belonging to. It’s never too late. So, around us where the Church is enjoying some healthy development often in partnership with others.

Two stories this morning I thought about thinking of building up those who need a chance to rebuild, another chance. The community centre who every Monday and Friday through an organisation called Dom’s Mission opens with tables of food from supermarkets just past the sell by date and says to people you can buy 10 items for £2.50 and as much bread as you need. The same centre planning to run the local library which was savagely closed by the powers that be, despite local people from the most deprived part of town relying on it.

 That centre saying to the little church that worships in its building and does its work in its building, let’s work together on these things. It’s bringing hope to the community, and new life to that church, which believed it had a mission to the desparate folk in its context but weren’t sure beyond toddlers and Messy Church how to go about it. That’s part of the story of St Helens and Ore Community Centre working together. Some people will say “that’s not church!” I say “it’s very much church.”

Then this week we’ve seen the anniversary one year on of the horrific fire in Grenfell Tower. I heard Rev Mike Long speak at the Superintendents Conference the other week on responding to sudden disaster.  Notting Hill Methodist Church is a stone’s throw away from the Tower.  It was a place of safety, of space, of communal lament, of protest, of peace, the wall outside a vigil and a place to share prayer. A church that found itself besieged by reporters and unpleasantness. A church that was there for its context and a year on still turns outward, and the faith communities in North Kensington have come together powerfully and work together. Mike said after the fire, “There are times when all the words we can say are not adequate and sometimes words fail us because no words can do justice to how we feel, or what we have seen or what has happened. Today is one of those days. What we can simply do is look to all that we have seen today which is good, which is fabulous - people getting together. Let light triumph over all that is rotten, that is desperate and that defies our understanding."

The God of another chance. Churches looking outward, being inclusive, churches that put glass doors in like you, are reminded not only its good in here but the world is out there for us to go into too. The God of another chance offering repentance and forgiveness and a new beginning, even for the most desperate and the most alien of audiences.  

This never too late, another chance thought is the heart of what we believe, isn’t it? I return to Jonah being the “Gospel before Christ.”

The story that makes us who we are tells us Jesus was killed, put away in a tomb, and that, they thought, was that,-it was the end.  Until he died there must have been hope that he would do something to save himself. But when he died it must have seemed like that hope died with him. It was too late. But then, on the first day of the week, when some of his friends went to tend his body . . ..

Part of the story of Jesus is that it is never too late. Part of the story we're given to share is that no circumstance is beyond the power of God and that nobody is beyond the redemption we are invited to accept. The Gospel is not just for "church people" and not just for "good people," but for all of God's children. Our mistakes do not define us, and we are not trapped forever in the messes we make. By the power of God, hope does not die, and in Christ it is never, never too late. Another chance. 

That is the Gospel of Christ. It is never too late, second chances, a new narrative. It is never too late for Nineveh to turn. It is never too late for Jonah like attitudes to turn. It is never too late for people to come to the foot of the Cross and say I need to be forgiven, can you help me, I want to begin again. It is never too late. I hope our little exploration into Jonah chapter 3 encourages us to be open, to never limit God, to not be judgmental and most of all to be part of God’s amazing plans. Jonah didn’t cope with God, I pray we might be a little broader in our vision of his kingdom where all who respond are welcome, and not condemned for all eternity.

Jonah chapter 2 for a Church Anniversary

When life is uncertain you for a while stop and wonder what on earth is going to 
happen next. The world is in many places in a perilous situation, President Trump leaves the G7 summit early disagreeing about trade tariffs and is off to meet Kim Jong Un. We have a President of the United States who tweets madness and we wonder how on earth he was elected and more worrying he might get elected again.  Brexit is in the news every day, do you understand what’s going on? We are leaving the EU but we might be completely leaving and there might be a hard border with Ireland or there might not and we have some sort of backstop. Do you switch off every time it’s mentioned? We’ve arrived at the anniversary of the fire at Grenfell Tower, unavoidable loss of life and scars in that community still very very raw, we have anger over the boss of Network Rail getting a CBE when our transport infrastructure is all over the place.

I’ve been in Blackpool this week and travelled up there last Sunday by train and while I found being on a rail replacement bus from Preston to Blackpool invigorating sitting on the top deck while the driver hit every pot hole and drove so fast we got to the station five minutes earlier than the train would have, imagine doing that day after day after day, or worse, there is no bus, the train is just cancelled.

We have one in four parents in this country skipping a meal so their children can eat. Where universal credit is about to be rolled out Food Banks predict a 52% increase in their usage. That’s pretty scandalous isn’t it. We live in a society where less young people have applied this year to go to Oxbridge and more to go on Love Island. That’s our context. But it’s not all gloom, tonight, ladies, life will feel so so much better. The opening scene of the fourth series of Poldark apparently has him coming out of the sea with no shirt on!

This little chapel has ministered to a context since its opening, we think the world is mad today, but I guess people who sat here before us faced the same grappling with what was going on around her and how to offer an appropriate Gospel and good news as we grapple with, especially in times of uncertainty.

And maybe there’ve been times we’ve faced spiritual uncertainty. You’ve got to be honest to be able to admit to those times, but I suggest you’ve had moments when you have wondered where you go next as it has felt tough just being here and God feels absent or is asking things of you that you really could not cope with.

So how to get Jonah into a Church Anniversary. Well, let’s revisit his context briefly before I suggest three Church Anniversary attitudes we might need or have needed in our story to be an honest and relevant people who can respond to some of the big things in the world because we are seen to live real life like people outside of here do.

Remember Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh. 

And yet God instructs His prophet to go !

I feel desperately sorry for Jonah you know.

Called to be God’s prophet. Totally against God’s task for him. He just cannot do it. He runs away to get away from anything to do with God, on a ship going in the opposite direction, giving up everything, remember the Jews were scared witless of the sea but risking your life was better than going to Nineveh.

He causes trouble on the ship, he offers to be hurled overboard, he faces the storm and surely thinks his life is over, at least he won’t have to go to Nineveh and he’ll get peace.

Cast into the sea, Jonah is swallowed alive by a great fish, is whose belly he remains unharmed three days and three nights. This God, who has been utterly rejected hasn’t finished with his prophet yet. What was the great fish?  The white shark of the Mediterranean which sometimes measures twenty-five feet in length, has been known to swallow a man whole, and even a horse. This may have been the "great fish" in the text. Pretty frightening.

So that’s where we find him this morning, and amazingly, he starts to pray to the God he wants nothing to do with a few days before. Having thought his end was nigh and being swallowed up by a huge fish – you know I used to have nightmares after watching Jaws and I knew the shark was plastic – he finds himself alive and he just wants to thank God for that. Some people think this bit of the book is a prayer journal later, he looks back with thanksgiving that the gift of life his still is. Nineveh is not mentioned in the prayer – I think he thinks he’s got away with not going there – but that’s next week’s service! I think there are three sorts of spiritual direction in this prayer.

First, some deep honesty.  He calls out to the Lord.

"For You had cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the current engulfed me. All Your breakers and billows passed over me."

'I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless, I will look again toward Your holy temple.'"

"Water encompassed me to the point of death. The great deep engulfed me, weeds were wrapped around my head." Notice that these verses are in the past tense.  Jonah was dying.  The "weeds" that were wrapped around his head were slimy sea-weeds and they must have added to his certainty, at the moment, that he was going to die.

He knew his context - within a great fish that had swallowed him whole and he was beneath the surface of the Mediterranean Sea.  No human effort could help him now.  If it was in today's world, some little submarine might be dispatched to locate Jonah, but there was no technology at the time to do the job.  Even today, helping this man would likely be a human impossibility.  Many must come to a place where human help, even self-help will not be enough. 

"I descended to the roots of the mountains. The earth with its bars was around me forever, but You have brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God." As far as Jonah knew, he was as deep as it was possible to be within the earth.  That's what he meant by the "roots of the mountains."  Emotionally and physically, he was at the bottom.  It was like being in prison, with "bars" that were far too strong for him to open.  But at this point, it was dawning on him that he was still just barely alive.  He was just as amazed as we are that he still had some life in him.

I love to think about people when I come into a church building who have sat here before us. I guess they sat on pews. I note new chairs are coming later in the year and you are selling these ones. Every act of worship should enable people to meet the living God, and sometimes the God they don’t believe in very much or the God who is driving them mad. Jonah’s spiritual life was in bits. I have a Geordie Bible on my shelves where God is the Superintendent Minister and Jonah is a local preacher and Jonah is planned at Nineveh Street, and doesn’t want to go because they are all horrible and he’s taught the discipline of the Circuit plan! Jonah knows God has been angry with him, he knew what being thrown into the sea meant, Lord only knows what he was thinking when this great fish opened its big mouth and swallowed him. But now, he reminds God of what God has done and retells his story and where God has met him. We have been here in this village, on this site, in this place, to enable God to be met, but also to enable people to voice life’s complexity with God or simply to be in his presence with little sorted inside them. You don’t know what difference you make through offering decent worship, through being kind, through pouring out that cup of tea, by being with those teenagers who drive you mad on a Wednesday night, by talking to parents at Messy Church, by going into the school, by living here faithfully as God’s people. And you do your best work when people encounter and they are having a rubbish day and you simply do what you are meant to do.

You may remember I was meant to take this service last year but I didn’t make it. Lis has just come out of hospital in Peterborough and we were recuperating in a flat in Peterborough, and my mother had died a few days before, and I’d been with her then had to sort stuff out following her death as you do. A year ago, on Sunday morning I staggered void of energy and unshaven into Peterborough Cathedral for Sunday Eucharist. I felt dreadful. I can’t remember a word of the sermon, but it was important for me to be there, to be in God’s presence, to be with others, perhaps some of them feeling equally as rubbish as I was. To have your wife and your deceased mother mentioned in the prayers was quite something! I went through the motions and was enabled to be. There are people who in the story of the Church need simply to call to the Lord in their distress. To name the problem and wait for God’s presence. So, keep the doors open and keep being in the village for the people who feel swallowed up, entangled by the weeds or like they’re behind prison bars. It is for them as well as you this little church and St Mary’s down the road exist. 

We remember the saints who have passed through this building today. You’ll all have different ones, but I want to remember Alison Spencer. Dear Alison, who wasn’t with us very long but Alison loved to get alongside people, a true friend of Jesus. She never thought about her own situation, towards the end of her life despite indescribable pain, she was more worried about other people and how they were coping with it. She immersed himself in prayer and in the Scripture verses she knew and would quote them at me! An honest, authentic credible Church full of people like Alison is a healthy one.

Then I think we need to remember the end of Jonah’s prayer here, he’s so grateful to God for coming to him, he makes some new promises, because he’s been delivered! He’s not been delivered from Nineveh but he doesn’t know that yet. Remember today this little church has had year after year of faithful response to the God of love who has called it into being and equips it and enables it to grow. A church only grows if her people are grateful and are sacrificial and know that God can do something with them. I’ve known you for 6 years now, I’ve been your minister for a year and a half of them in that crazy time before Tricia came and very bad news for you my friends, I am coming back to be your minister again at the end of February when Tricia begins a much-deserved three-month sabbatical. Sorry about that. But the Circuit is blessed by having you in it, hear that on your Anniversary, you are an inspiration to us and others can learn from you.

I know some of my folk at Pett want to come and learn about Messy Active Teens from you.

What is your voice of thanksgiving and sacrifice today? What do you vow to keep doing?

Well, had I told you six years ago you’d have the only active teenage youth group in the Circuit, had I told you you’d have a successful Messy Church, had I told you you’d move to morning worship rather than the afternoon, had I told you you’d be doing café worship and pop up cafes outside and going into the school regularly, had I told you relations between the two churches would be strengthening, had I told you you’d be a popular and well used venue for community groups to come, had I told you you’d be an example of good practice in Connexional rural material, I wonder what you’d have said? Take time this morning to thank God for your call and your part in this place. Then take time to thank God for being God. Someone wrote this: “Christianity isn’t meant to simply be believed, it’s meant to be lived, shared, eaten, spoken and enacted in the midst of other people.” That’s your call and it has been and it will always be as long as God has use for you.     

Finally, a wacky thought. How does Jonah chapter 2 end?

“Then the Lord spoke to the fish and it spewed Jonah out onto the dry land.”

The chapter ends with a decent bit of spewing out. Spew in the dictionary means to expel large quantities of (something) rapidly and forcibly. Or, to vomit. To get rid of something… A bit of divine vomming onto the beach.

It’s very easy to be Church in a building, to create space for prayer and honesty, to be refilled with the Spirit after a hard time, in the end God requires us to move on. Do we need God to spew us out today where God needs us to be? We cannot be Sunday Christians. We cannot avoid what God wants of us. Jonah is spewed back up on the beach where he started. And God will try again.  Great is his faithfulness!  Imagine us at a Church Council considering a bit of spewing! Where do we need God to forcibly move us out of and into? Don’t burn out, but I wonder what is wanted of this little place next.

Happy Anniversary Ninfield Methodist Church. Thank you for being a place where honest prayers can go up, a place of faithfulness, a place that is prepared to be on the beach again waiting for a new call. The most important thing is the faithfulness of God for you. The faithfulness of God is what has brought you to this point and what will move you forward. When our successors take a long gaze backward and wonder who we were and ponder our faithfulness, be it ever so fragile some days like Jonah, they will be sure of one thing, that we served, and that they serve a faithful God who shall never leave nor forsake.

Alleluia! Amen.

       

Jonah chapter 1

Francis Dewar in a book called “Called or Collared” about ministers has this quote that is really for all of us.

“There is an old Christian tradition that God sends each person into this world with a special message to deliver, with a song to sing for others, with a special act of love to bestow. No one else can speak my message, or sing my song, or offer my act of love. These are only entrusted to me.”

But what if you don’t like the special message or song to sing for others or a special act of love to bestow? What if you just want to do a spiritual runner because you can’t face it and maybe don’t agree with the message or the song lyrics given you or the people you’ve been asked to do an act of love for.  

“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ‘Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before Me.’ But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa, and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”

What is our story today? Are we .. like Jonah .. running in the wrong direction? Now for Jonah .. it was Nineveh. What’s our Nineveh today? Rather than headed toward Nineveh in obedience to God’s word and will .. we’re headed to Tarshish in disobedience to God’s word and will! Which direction are we headed? Nineveh or Tarshish? Obedience or disobedience?

That’s what chapter 1 is all about!

We find this prophet … like some of us sometimes running in the wrong direction. Let’s see what Jonah’s story meant then and what it means today and what it means for us personally.

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 “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah ..” Now the word that Jonah received is a personal word.

God calls him to a task. God has a personal word to say to his servant. Now we’re not told how the word of the Lord came to Jonah. Perhaps God spoke audibly as He did with Abraham. Perhaps God gave him a vision as He did with Peter.

Or perhaps God spoke to him in a dream like he did with Joseph. Or perhaps God simply made an impression on his heart.

It is a personal word. But notice in verse 2 that not only is it a personal word … -it is a pointed word.

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city …” Do you sense the urgency in those words? “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city ..” And great it was! Nineveh was located just off of the Tigris River in modern day Iraq! It was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. Historians tells us that the city was surrounded by walls that were 100 feet high.

And inside those walls were a people of great wickedness and the Israelites knew all about it. They were known for being cruel and heartless. They would often times bury their enemies alive .. sometimes they would skin them alive and leave them for dead! Jonah knew right from the onset what he was to do. It was very clear as to what the Lord wanted him to do. The Assyrians waged war and committed atrocities against the nation of Israel. This naturally evoked hatred and animosity in the hearts of the people against them. The Israelites saw the Assyrians as their enemies. Among the children of Israel, it was viewed as a mark of patriotism to be seen as having nothing to do with the people that your own people regard as their enemy.

This thinking largely informed Jonah's recalcitrant attitude, his refusal to preach to the inhabitants of Nineveh and his attempt to flee to Tarshish.

Just the mention of their name brought out the passions of the Israelites. And how they longed to see God wipe them off the map!

And yet God instructs His prophet to go THERE .. to the wicked and godless city of Nineveh to preach the gospel! It was the last place on earth Jonah wanted to go! Verse 2, “cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” What an assignment!  God has selected His man to go and preach the Gospel.

The call of God comes and shapes us as people, when we are called by God, that call remains with us and we can’t have a day off from it really. I was in a café yesterday afternoon on the sea front while Mrs Wife was having her colours done in the hairdressers, and I kept myself to myself on a table in the corner. I had this shirt on without the collar bit in it. I was off duty. The girl said to me, “you having a break. You look very smart. Can we guess what you do for a living?” So off we went. First guess: van driver. Second guess: security guard. I then said I usually wear something round my neck. They shouted thinking it was wrong, vicar. Then said “What, really?” and laughed uncontrollably. I can’t turn the vicar bit off. When you are called you are called. And you can’t turn it off. And most of the time that’s okay. People are still shocked in the secular world I can talk about ordinary things and do ordinary things outside church! 

We all though want the call to be to nice places and comfortable places. I’ve got a Geordie Bible on my shelves I can’t find where God is the Superintendent Minister and Jonah is a local preacher and receives the Circuit plan and finds himself planned at Nineveh Street, full of horrid people and he has a wobble because they aren’t worth preaching to. Imagine Nineveh in the Stationing Process for ministers.

We’re bigging up St Leonards, Battle and Trinity at the moment to get a minister next year. Imagine being sent to Nineveh.    Jonah doesn’t want to go. That’s an understatement.

He is a faithful servant of God, and yet here he is absolutely bewildered by what God wants to do. He doesn’t want to go to Nineveh, he doesn’t want to offer them repentance. God’s love doesn’t stretch as far as them. Who is a pardoning God like thee and who has grace so rich and free, ah yes, but that doesn’t mean to THEM!   

Don’t think that Jonah is simply running from the will of God .. he is  running from the presence of God. But can you really do that? Remember Psalm 139:

Where can I go from your Spirit?  Where can I flee from your presence?

If I go up to the heavens, you are there;  if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

If I rise on the wings of the dawn,  if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me,  your right hand will hold me fast.

As he ran from the presence of God .. I want you to notice with me a few things.

-the destination of his ship.

“But Jonah arose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD.”

Why Tarshish? I’ll can tell you why! Because Tarshish was as far away as any place on earth in that day! Most believe that Tarshish was in Spain .. over 2000 miles from Joppa!

Tarshish was as far West as you could go and Nineveh was in his backyard just North East of Joppa or modern day Tel Aviv. When you run from God … you always go as far as you can go! When you set sail for Tarshish .. you go without God’s blessing!

Not only note the direction of his steps and the destination of his ship … note -the desperation of his soul.

“ So he paid the fare, and went down into it, to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” His soul was so desperate to run from God .. he was willing to pay the fare .. that is .. the price for a ticket to get on board!

At first his escape seems to be going well. “Made it safely to Joppa? Check. Got the tickets for the ship? Check. Packed suitable clothes? Check. Boarded the ship and off to my Spanish resort? Check.”

Jonah is free of this troublesome God. free. He has escaped the presence of the Lord by going somewhere that the Lord wouldn’t notice or think of looking. What could possibly go wrong? He thought there wouldn’t be any consequences to his actions.  The key word in this passage is ‘down’. Jonah goes ‘down’ to Joppa. He goes ‘down’ into the ship to leave there. He is going down alright in this running from God and soon he will be going down into the sea before going down into the belly of the great fish. Don’t underestimate the consequences of sin and rebellion for they only lead in one direction. And that is ‘down’.

The Lord hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great storm on the sea so that the ship was about to break up. Then the sailors became afraid and every man cried to his god, and they threw the cargo which was in the ship into the sea to lighten it for them. But Jonah had gone below into the hold of the ship, lain down and fallen sound asleep.

At this point in the story Jonah is starting to learn that it isn’t as easy to run away from God as he may think! A terrible storm breaks out.

Notice also that every sailor became afraid and cried out to his own god. They all cried out and were willing to throw everything aside to keep their life.

So the captain approached him and said, "How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god.

Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish." Each man said to his mate, "Come, let us cast lots so we may learn on whose account this calamity has struck us." So they cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him, "Tell us, now!

On whose account has this calamity struck us? What is your occupation? And where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?"

He said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.

Then the men became extremely frightened and they said to him, "How could you do this?" for the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them.

The captain asks Jonah a very good question – “How is it that you are sleeping?” Now, they are in a ‘lives on the line’, ‘every hand on deck’ type of storm... The boat is lurching left and right, up and down, creaking and groaning under the pressure about to break up... and Jonah is blissfully asleep dreaming of the coming white sands down in Tarshish! How was he able to sleep? Now Jesus was able to sleep in a storm, which makes sense for he had control over the storm. But what about Jonah? Was Jonah able to sleep for the same reason? Hardly...for he was the cause of the storm! Jesus slept for He had complete assurance and authority over the storm but Jonah, on the other hand… There was danger all around and yet he slept. What a rebuke it is for the heathen captain to have to wake Jonah up, and tell him to get up and pray!

It is also interesting that the sailors have no idea who Jonah is. They certainly don’t know that he is a representative, a spokesperson and prophet, of the only true God! With Jonah running from God and outside of His will, there is little to distinguish Jonah from any other seaman or traveller. He is a prophet without a message; a light that will not shine.

Like the question from the captain, so the questions from the sailors should have gone deep into the heart of Jonah. “Tell us, who actually are you Jonah?”

This, I believe, was a question from the Lord for Jonah. “Who are you and what are you doing here?” He didn’t want to be a prophet anymore.

He is on the run with no identity. So, they said to him, "What should we do to you that the sea may become calm for us?" -- for the sea was becoming increasingly stormy. He said to them, "Pick me up and throw me into the sea. Then the sea will become calm for you, for I know that on account of me this great storm has come upon you."

However, the men row desperately to return to land but they cannot, for the sea becomes even stormier against them. Then they say, "We earnestly pray, O Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man's life and do not put innocent blood on us; for You, O Lord, have done as You have pleased. So, they picked up Jonah, threw him into the sea, and the sea stopped its raging."

Aware of their dire situation, the sailors desperately ask what they have to do to calm the sea. “Throw me in” Jonah replies, “and you will be saved.” But in a display of kindness that stands out in this desperate situation, the sailor’s row even harder to reach the shore and save Jonah’s life. Finally, though, when there is no other way and knowing what they have to do, the sailors ask the Lord not to hold this innocent blood against them and Jonah is cast into the deep.

I feel desperately sorry for Jonah you know.

Called to be God’s prophet. Totally against God’s task for him. He just cannot do it. He runs away to get away from anything to do with God, on a ship going in the opposite direction, giving up everything, remember the Jews were scared witless of the sea but risking your life was better than going to Nineveh.

He causes trouble on the ship, he offers to be hurled overboard, he faces the storm and surely thinks his life is over, at least he won’t have to go to Nineveh and he’ll get peace.

But then we get the last bit of action before if this was Eastenders or Coronation Street the credits would roll and we’d come back next week for the next episode.

Cast into the sea, Jonah is swallowed alive by a great fish, is whose belly he remains unharmed three days and three nights. This God, who has been utterly rejected hasn’t finished with his prophet yet. What was the great fish?  The white shark of the Mediterranean which sometimes measures twenty-five feet in length, has been known to swallow a man whole, and even a horse. This may have been the "great fish" in the text. Pretty frightening.

We will see what happens as Jonah is in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights next week.

The cost of running away I guess this first chapter shows us is the lengths God will go to bring us back. We cannot run in the opposite direction to his call. We would probably have shrugged Jonah off in disgust and found someone else more willing to take the message to Nineveh, but not so God. If God calls, he calls, the special message, the special song, the special act of love could be needed by us today.

Will we run, will a storm be better, or even drowning to get away or will we try to understand God’s plan and go with him. Perhaps if we’re honest there’s a little bit of Jonah in us.