Wise words

I went to an act of worship for the first time in nearly a month on Wednesday. We are on our way for a time of recuperation in the Lake District but as I have little energy I have had to take the journey steadily. So we called into our favourite cathedral on Wednesday and did Evensong which included these words from the Apocrypha, the second chapter of Ecclesiasticus. 

They are words encouraging us to keep going when it is hard. I needed to hear them. Whenever I do Evensong there is always a word for me. I’m finding it hard to keep going at  the moment. So maybe I need to read these words a lot over the next few weeks...

My child, when you come to serve the Lord,

    prepare yourself for testing.

2 Set your heart right and be steadfast,

    and do not be impetuous in time of calamity.

3 Cling to him and do not depart,

    so that your last days may be prosperous.

4 Accept whatever befalls you,

    and in times of humiliation be patient.

5 For gold is tested in the fire,

    and those found acceptable, in the furnace of humiliation.

6 Trust in him, and he will help you;

    make your ways straight, and hope in him.

7 You who fear the Lord, wait for his mercy;

    do not stray, or else you may fall.

8 You who fear the Lord, trust in him,

    and your reward will not be lost.

9 You who fear the Lord, hope for good things,

    for lasting joy and mercy.

10 Consider the generations of old and see:

    has anyone trusted in the Lord and been disappointed?

Or has anyone persevered in the fear of the Lord[d] and been forsaken?

    Or has anyone called upon him and been neglected?

11 For the Lord is compassionate and merciful;

    he forgives sins and saves in time of distress.

12 Woe to timid hearts and to slack hands,

    and to the sinner who walks a double path!

13 Woe to the fainthearted who have no trust!

    Therefore they will have no shelter.

14 Woe to you who have lost your nerve!

    What will you do when the Lord’s reckoning comes?

15 Those who fear the Lord do not disobey his words,

    and those who love him keep his ways.

16 Those who fear the Lord seek to please him,

    and those who love him are filled with his law.

17 Those who fear the Lord prepare their hearts,

    and humble themselves before him.

18 Let us fall into the hands of the Lord,

    but not into the hands of mortals;

for equal to his majesty is his mercy,

    and equal to his name are his works.

Moving on again

Our fifth move in a month - shattered! 

One month on...

A month ago today I keeled over in my kitchen after inhaling rather too many mould spores in it. 

We've been on the move ever since. I can't breathe in my home so I've had to leave it. Since the 20th August we have been in a hotel on Hastings sea front for a week, then a tiny holiday let in Icklesham for a week, and this last fortnight, house sitting overlooking the sea and enjoying this glorious view every day. I've loved watching ships and boats go past and on a very clear day seeing France across the Channel. Tomorrow we move into another hotel, are viewing a potential temporary home some distance away we might rent for six months and I commute into work for when I'm better. We are mentally drained from living out of suitcases and being out of control of our future for a while. Our cats are in a cattery and it is unsettling. I know people have been shocked when I've got upset and I say I'm struggling but I am! 

This week, due to the generosity of a friend we are moving north slowly to use a cottage in the Lake District for some proper rest and recuperation so I might have a chance to return to work a little bit in mid October. I am still coughing, having violent hot sweats moments after any activity and am sleeping loads. I've brought books and DVDs with me but can't concentrate on them. I go into a shop and have no idea why I'm in it. 

Suddenly my health and my home and my ministry have been taken from me. I haven't been to church for three Sundays and that is worrying because I haven't felt I've wanted to go. I haven't lost God, I'm just very disorientated. I need to read some Psalms in full including being in the dark, angry and with unanswered questions. I have no idea what is happening in my Circuit and what they are doing and saying. I will be able to lay that aside once I'm away from this area. 

I keep coming back to Cardinal Newman - I think these are deep and profound words. I hope despite all this God still knows what he is about... Here's Newman writing on March 7, 1848:

God was all-complete, all-blessed in Himself; but it was His will to create a world for His glory. He is Almighty, and might have done all things Himself, but it has been His will to bring about His purposes by the beings He has created. We are all created to His glory—we are created to do His will. I am created to do something or to be something for which no one else is created; I have a place in God's counsels, in God's world, which no one else has; whether I be rich or poor, despised or esteemed by man, God knows me and calls me by my name.

 God has created me to do Him some definite service; He has committed some work to me which He has not committed to another. I have my mission—I never may know it in this life, but I shall be told it in the next. Somehow I am necessary for His purposes, as necessary in my place as an Archangel in his—if, indeed, I fail, He can raise another, as He could make the stones children of Abraham. Yet I have a part in this great work; I am a link in a chain, a bond of connexion between persons. He has not created me for naught. I shall do good, I shall do His work; I shall be an angel of peace, a preacher of truth in my own place, while not intending it, if I do but keep His commandments and serve Him in my calling.

Therefore I will trust Him. Whatever, wherever I am, I can never be thrown away. If I am in sickness, my sickness may serve Him; in perplexity, my perplexity may serve Him; if I am in sorrow, my sorrow may serve Him. My sickness, or perplexity, or sorrow may be necessary causes of some great end, which is quite beyond us. He does nothing in vain; He may prolong my life, He may shorten it; He knows what He is about. He may take away my friends, He may throw me among strangers, He may make me feel desolate, make my spirits sink, hide the future from me—still He knows what He is about.

Acts of Kindness

I am sorry the last blog post was so miserable. I am trying to make the best of what is going on at the moment. We are all very tired - there are three of us in our latest temporary home, and two of us as you see are so exhausted we've just laid down on the bed. All this moving about is too much. 

I am determined while off sick to do some writing. When I blogged from sabbatical every day people found that helpful. So how about I blog during this period of exile from work and from our home and we try to see what God is saying? I am struggling with people saying they are praying for us, what is the answer we want in prayer through this? As I said yesterday all I want is to rest in my own home in my own bed. But my theology and my spirituality are about a God in the mess, a God who is incarnate 

in the mess and a God who can take a good shouting at in lament and despair. Weirdly those psalms that say no it is NOT okay today and no your sugary sweet faith won't do and yes it is shite today and I'm going to tell you God are my favourites! So perhaps God is here as we face potentially eight moves in two months! 

Today I've been thinking about random acts of kindness. We are staying for a fortnight in a lovely house overlooking the sea and countryside through the kindness of one of my church members while she is away.  After this we are staying in the home of a Supernumerary minister and his wife while they are away. Kindness makes a difference. An offer of help, a "how are you" and staying for the answer, one small act of practical help or a kind message when you are feeling rough can make all the difference. I've been touched today by two messages. This morning the President of the Methodist Conference sent me these words: 

Ian, I’m so sorry that you are having such a rough time. Please know you are in my thoughts and prayers at this time. May you have a sense of peace and heal well. Micky.

She is so busy but I was remembered. 

Then tonight last years President sent me these words. 

Dear Ian,  I hear and read you are in bit a mess at the moment, if I can call it that and so sorry to hear that you and Lis are nomadic  as well as your ill health issues.

I am writing to offer you some pastoral support if you require it.

She is also very busy and I was remembered. I don't feel very remembered locally, it is a strange thing to one day be Superintendent, and then not have a clue whether all is well out there! I also received tonight a lovely message from three preachers in the same family saying they will take any service when I am back with short notice if I am not feeling strong enough. Small acts of kindness can make a huge difference.

I went to a funeral recently in Shoreham, and had to change trains at Brighton. With time to kill I went outside the station and I spoke to a homeless man called Simon. I gave Simon £2 for a cup of tea, we had a long chat. He said to me "thank you - you are a gentleman" - not because of the £2 but because, maybe for the first time in ages he'd been listened to and respected..

So tonight I want to say to my readers, if there is someone in desparate need you know, one small thing can make a difference to their wellbeing and worth. An e mail, a text, a phone call, can I get you some shopping, a visit, offering to take something off their diary, small practical things. To say we are praying for you is all very well, but sometimes we need to be the answer to our own prayers.

I know Luther called the epistle of James an epistle of straw because he felt there was no meat in it, but I find James a challenge. In the end if I am to be judged as a Christian, I will be judged by how genuine my Christianity was. 

What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good[b] is that? So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.

What difference, through kindness can we make to people today? 

Travelling on again

Meena is very confused. "Why are we packing again?" her face asks, "are we going home now?"

Most of you will have heard by now that I have been signed off sick for at least two weeks by the doctor, following a nasty flare up of an old lung condition, caused by too much inhaling of mould spores in the manse which have built up over a long period of time and have now been left so long we are here. Lis and I are not living in the manse for the foreseeable future having a nomadic life enforced on us through circumstances we find ourselves in, moving from hotels, to cottages, to house sitting, to house sitting again then we hope to a long term rental the Circuit Stewards are trying to arrange for us. It isn't easy living out of a suitcase, and adapting to different surroundings. Three cats find themselves in prison and one is on the move with us, wondering what on earth is going on! 

I am led to reflect on the need to react quickly to events that happen in life. I am told not to return to my home. I pack what I need to function in a case and my study is in a Sainsbury's bag. I can't find anything! Most of what I need I didn't pack. More seriously how would we cope if suddenly we had to move to protect life itself? The news is full of accounts of refugees, on the run with nothing, but fleeing is the better option then staying put. 

This is not a new problem - remember the children of Israel who for generations after leaving the tyranny of Egypt lived out of tents in the desert. They got cross, they got stressed, they wanted a safe home quickly, they turned on the authorities for an explanation - read in Exodus the tongue lashing Moses gets! 

I have desparately, really desparately, missed leading worship today on the first Sunday of a new church year, the first time in 22 years I have not been able to do so. Indeed I haven't even been to church today, sleeping most of the day, apart from a late lunch in the pub in the village we have been staying in this week, and getting the key to the house we are staying in for the next fortnight from tomorrow. I then fell asleep through Vanity Fair, woke up to some dreadful impressions show, turned the channel over to Match of the Day as Mrs Wife was asleep by this point and I got the remote off her, but then I fell asleep again! I keep coughing, losing my voice, going hot which feels weird and feeling faint. It's ridiculous! 

I am being told by some to see this time of sick leave as a gift, I am being told by others when I start being negative to have more faith. I don't want to be here in this place. I don't want lungs that don't do mould. I want to be in my own bed in my own home, but I can't be and I have to come to accept that else I'll go crazy. There is that bit of the covenant prayer about being laid aside. I am there at the moment and I have to find peace in being there. 

When we are in uncertain places we need a bit of certainty. The thought of Christmas in a strange place is a interesting prospect. But I hold on to some hope and those with faith with nothing do this too. At the end of the journey stressed and exhausted and not trusting very much, the people receive this amazing promise: "It is the Lord who goes before you, he will not fail you or forsake you. Do not fear or be dismayed."

From a position of vulnerability I commend this certainty to myself and to others who may be beginning this year not very positively and in a place they would rather not be. All will be well, won't it? 

A sermon written while watching football!!!

How does it feel to be rejected? When you go for an interview and are not appointed, when at school they picked the football teams and no one wanted you because you were rubbish, when because of the colour of your skin, or where you live in the town, or because of your sexual orientation you aren’t wanted. They do it in football if you lose. Reject you and sack you. I will be honest with you, I wrote this with my tablet on to my left with the match. At this point in the sermon Harry Maguire made it 1 -0 !

Rejection because we are just not good enough – like that Tommy Cooper joke. I went to see a man dressed up as Tommy Cooper on Friday night and we had the classic Cooper joke: I went up into the attic and found a Stradivarius and a Rembrandt.

Unfortunately Stradivarius was a terrible painter and Rembrandt made lousy violins. So the painting and the violin would be rejected.

Imagine growing up in Rye – many of you did – and leaving and coming back to preach in this church that you grew up in. You were known in the Sunday School, as a young person and part of the community until your early 30’s, you go away and then return to your home church as visiting preacher. It was never easy for me to return to my home church The Folly in Wheathampstead to lead worship. Most of the congregation were related to me. My Mum would say after the service “why did you say that? Why did you pick that hymn? You went on a bit!” Imagine Jesus returning to his home synagogue in Nazareth after a period of good ministry away.     

By the time Jesus returned to his home town of Nazareth, the stories of his healings and miracles had spread far and wide.

Even the people in his home town had heard of his popularity, so you would expect that he would have been accepted by the hometown crowd and welcomed with open arms. Unfortunately, that was not the case.

Jesus was surprised by the unbelief of the crowd. He is rejected. And we might ask why. For starters, most of the people were poorly educated if they had any education at all. They could not read the precious scrolls in the synagogue, so the only way they could learn their religious heritage was to listen to the rabbis, who were educated. Jesus did not have the formal training required for rabbis, so in the eyes of the people, he was just a local boy who was “putting on airs”. To make matters worse, the scribes in Jerusalem had been spreading rumours about Jesus—rumours which had also reached Nazareth. For example, he had been accused of working with the devil.

Their rejection hurt him.  Mark tells us “he could do no deed of power there” and “was amazed at their unbelief.”  Their blatant rejection hindered his ability to do deeds of power among them; at the most, he could only “lay his hands on a few sick people and cure them.”  How beautifully this passage illustrates Jesus’ humanity.

Like us, he felt the pain of rejection, not only with his homecoming but increasingly through the rest of his ministry and ultimately on the cross.  The Gospel today points out how the participation of the people through the exercise of their faith was strategic to Jesus’ effectiveness to transform lives; they were not simply observers, but participants in Jesus’ work. The same is true of us today.  And their rejection of Jesus resulted in their own rejection of what he was capable of doing for them.

There is a relationship between what we give and what we receive. Twentieth century theologian and writer, Frederick Buechner, was right I believe, in asserting that miracles do not evoke faith so much as faith evokes miracles.

 Mark tells us in this chapter that Jesus recognized that he was a disowned "prophet without honour,” and as a result, he withdrew from the close familial and neighbourhood ties of the past and began in earnest the creation of a new community, a new family in God, and a new political-economic-religious order, which we call the “kingdom of God.” It’s never easy to go back. We’re trying to sell my mother’s house in the town I grew up in. It’s hard to know I have no reason to go back now once the house has gone. People in the town have moved on and so have I.  I went back to the church I did youth work in the other month for the first time in over 20 years. It was a large family place then, it is now tiny and elderly and struggling.

Jesus recognized on that day he went back that God’s work could only be built by going beyond his own immediate community. Sadly. He hit the seven last words of a church that will die. We have always done it this way.

So, we get the second part of the Gospel story for today.        

He sent forth his disciples two-by-two to discover that potential community among those whom they met or healed or taught or stayed with in their homes across all of Galilee. 

And among those former strangers, Jesus build an alternative community to the one that struggled to understand and embrace the mission to which Jesus called it and therefore rejected all of it.

We are members of that new community. We are participants in God’s plan. Through our open hearts and acceptance of others we welcome the stranger and the loved one to the Kingdom of God. We become partners with God in the transformation of lives. 

He sent them out with only the barest of essentials- one cloak and a staff. He wanted them to trust God to provide for their needs. They were to concentrate on their mission. Plus, Jewish custom at that time was to offer hospitality to travellers. Jesus wanted the disciples to stay at the first house that offered them a place to stay in each city or town that they visited, rather than moving from house to house.

Jesus wanted the disciples to know that they would travel the open roads of Palestine penniless and expecting to be welcomed with open arms, especially in their own home towns. He also wanted them to know that the Gospel message was a hard one to preach and a hard one to hear-not popular, not easy, and not automatically earning respect, especially at home.

Those who refused to show proper hospitality, or those who refused to listen to the disciples’ message, were to be treated as pagans. As such, the disciples were to do what the Jews did after they walked through Gentile lands-namely, shake the dust off of their feet as they left. Not only did this warn the offenders, it freed the disciples to move to more fertile territory-just like Jesus did after the people of Nazareth rejected him. And it reminds us that authentic ministry is hard. Sharing the Gospel to the comfortable is hard and sharing it to those who know nothing of it is hard. Letting go of things that aren’t working in churches is hard, and even more so leaving behind awkward people who hamper the future. We need to be bold when we discern a direction and not let the negative voices put us off.

What does this episode say to us as Christians working together in this town?

Here we see one of the few failures in Jesus’ ministry, but it also shows his human side. Like Jesus, we will all face failure at some point in our lives. We’ll feel like Frank Spencer – remember that classic episode “I am a failure.” Failure is hard because society has conditioned us for success, but it has not adequately prepared us for failure. Sometimes things just don’t work. We’ve done our best.

Those who accept God’s call to follow him will face rejection in its many forms-persecutions, insults, hostility, contempt, and scorn. They are the common situation for those who accept the call. Just like Christ rejected the way of glory and found glory in obedience and death, we must also reject the way of the world and accept the way of the cross. Christianity is not a religion for those who want success or power in the traditional worldly sense. It is about presenting the good news of Jesus, keeping going after rejection, and rejoicing when people listen and respond.

It was Longfellow who said a long time ago, “Perseverance is a great element of success, if you only knock long enough and loud enough at the gate, you’re sure to wake up somebody.”

Dele Ali makes it 2 – 0 at this point in the sermon writing!

I looked at what you said about yourself on your church website:

“Our gathering together is not a sign of our rejection of the world but of our need for grace before we re-enter society 'to live and work to God's praise and glory'.

For us, Jesus is Lord and through Him, God's Kingdom came on earth. We pray and strive for the fulfilment of that Kingdom of justice, peace, truth and selfless love.”

Together in this place we listen for the challenge of Jesus and think seriously about what he says, talk, pray, and consider it.

Then we become those sent into the world, and to see what happens. It will not be easy, but for Christianity to flourish long term we have to truly live and believe Jesus message again. 

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…