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Tenth Sunday After Pentecost<br />
Light of Christ Anglican Church<br />
The Rev. Mike Moffitt, August 13, 2017


When God Call’s You Better Go


Text: Jonah 2:1–10

As most of you know I was not here last week because I was recuperating from rotator cuff surgery and still am. Jeff did a wonderful job in his sermon and leading the service, and once again I thank him for it.

I’ve not had a lot of experience with surgery in my life, for which I am very grateful and I’m always surprised about how long it takes to recover. I mean when you repair a faucet in the bathroom you assume it will have no repercussions for the furnace, right? Well, I have found out that when you have shoulder surgery the whole body has something to say about it for a lot longer than you would think.

Originally, I had planned to preach last Sunday because I was to have the surgery on Thursday morning on my right shoulder. I couldn’t imagine that it would prevent me from preaching on Sunday as long as I didn’t preach using my right shoulder. No problem. When I had my knee operated on in April on a Thursday I was standing in the pulpit on Sunday morning. I was standing on one leg but standing none the less. Well, Teresa had something to say about it (actually quite a bit) and that’s when I asked Jeff if he would fill in last Sunday, and, boy, was I grateful when Sunday morning rolled around. I was laying there thanking God for my wife’s good sense and thinking about the whole episode being a great sermon illustration for the body of Christ. When one member of the body is hurting or damaged, then the whole body is hurting because of it.

However, as I begin to consider our texts for this morning I saw a more immediate comparison from the Book of Jonah. The fact is that if I had understood more about what my surgery would entail and how invasive the doctors were going to be in the surgery and in all the things they were pumping into my body in the various anesthesia’s and antibiotics, I would have realized there would be consequences that would be around for a while and not just for my shoulder. Ignorance of something can have grave consequences and we see that Jonah. His lack of understanding as to the nature and intent of God caused him to act in a very foolish way towards the command of God. This proved to have significant consequences for Jonah and for those around him.

In our readings this morning we have a portion of three different stories that are actually inextricably linked together as we consider this idea of obeying or disobeying the command of God and the blessings or curses that come with that decision. However, most of our time will be spent in considering our Old Testament passage from the Book of Jonah.

I’m guessing that most of you are familiar with the story of Jonah but I want to open it up a bit further than you may have gone with it. The lead up to our passage this morning is in chapter one verses 1–3,

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah rose 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, away from the presence of the Lord.”

Jonah, a prophet of the Lord, chosen by God decides that he doesn’t want to do what God has commanded, and for some reason feels that if he runs in the opposite direction that God perhaps won’t notice or if he does will see that Jonah doesn’t want to comply with this directive. So he books passage on a ship to Joppa. That night a great storm rises up on the sea and everyone knows that the storm is so severe that they will be drowned. They assume that someone on board has done something so grave that the gods are angry and so they cast lots to try and determine who it could be. Jonah owns up to the fact that he is running away from the clear command of his God and this storm is God pursuing him. He encourages them to throw him into the sea instead of all their cargo as this will be the only thing that will save them and their cargo. Finally they reluctantly agree and heave him overboard into the blackness of the raging sea and we read in chapter 1:15–17,

So they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging.16 Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.17  And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

From the time you are in Sunday school nursery you will hear the story of Jonah and the Big Fish, or whale in some stories. I once saw a children’s book that had a picture of Jonah inside the whale sitting at a small table that he must have found while rummaging around in the whale’s belly and on that table was a lit candle. I would have thought that rather hard to come by in the whales belly but there you have it.

Unfortunately this type of storytelling undermines the point of this wonderful scriptural narrative and renders it into the arena of allegory or a parable meant to teach a moral lesson on obedience but it would lead you to believe that certainly it could not have actually happened. I believe that this book and the story of Jonah should be taken as historical fact and apparently Jesus expected those whom he taught to see it that way too. If you will remember Matthew 12:39–41, where he is confronting the unbelief of the Pharisees and their demand for another sign of his authority, he refers them to the story of Jonah as an example:

But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.”

For those who are a bit skeptical apparently there are at least two "great fish" that would be capable of swallowing a man. They are the "blue whale” and the "whale shark". This week I read several stories that recount people who have been swallowed alive by one of these huge creatures and when extracted were still alive, one had been inside for two days. However, I’m not inclined to debate the issue because you will note that the Bible teaches us that the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights and I firmly believe that God can do whatever he wishes no matter how unlikely it would seem to me and because I believe this story to be true I want to see and understand all that God has for us in this passage. With that in mind let’s turn to our passage from Jonah 2:1–4,

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, 2 saying, “I called out to the Lord, out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.3 For you cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas, and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows passed over me.” 4 Then I said, “I am driven away from your sight; yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.”

I love this prayer and I can’t think of many prayers that have more clarity and depth of understanding. Remember from the last verse of chapter one where we see that Jonah has been in the belly of a great fish for three days and three nights. That has given him a lot of time to think about what he had done in choosing to disobey the command of God. As a parent I was not usually inclined to use the “time-out” method when exercising discipline on our children but I think this may be the most effective time out that I have ever heard of. I’ve attempted to imagine what it would be like to be stuck in the belly of a fish for any time, much less three days and three nights.

At first I assume that he was both surprised and terrified (not to mention grossed out). I would think that when he was first thrown overboard that he was certain that he would simply drown but instead he finds himself in the belly of a fish. Not drowned but not exactly rescued either and so he has time to ponder on what he had done and God’s judgment on him. This prayer was certainly composed later as Jonah had time to reflect on all that had happened (I refuse to believe that he found a stylus and parchment to write on while in the fish’s belly), and he begins by acknowledging that when he cried out in distress while sinking into the heart of the sea that the Lord heard him and responded.

He reflected that that the greatest tragedy of drowning would have been that he would be separated from the blessings of God but because of his apparent deliverance from drowning there was the chance that he would once again stand in the temple of the Lord in Jerusalem, the place of God’s Holy dwelling. As he sat in the belly of the fish the thought of once again praying and worshipping with the people of God was what he longed for. He then looks back at the experience of sinking into the raging waters and the hopelessness that he felt. Let’s look at verses 5–7,

The waters closed in over me to take my life;  the deep surrounded me; weeds were wrapped about my head 6 at the roots of the mountains. I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. 7 When my life was fainting away, I remembered the Lord, and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.

Jonah was at death’s door and he remembers the feeling of the sea weed wrapping around his head and in those brief moments he did the only thing that he could, he cried out to God, the Lord who indwells the temple and he asked for mercy. He remembered that the God of Israel was a real and living God who hears the cries of his people and answers. As he later reflects upon all that happened he can see it in the light of the full story now behind him.

When God commanded that he go to Nineveh to prophecy that the Lord was going to destroy them for their wickedness he did not want to go because he was afraid that they would repent and turn to God and be forgiven. He hated the Ninevites and saw them as the enemies of Israel. God intended to spread his kingdom to all nations and God wanted Israel to walk away from the pride of their nationalism and see themselves instead as the ones revealing that the God of Israel was the only true God and was rich in mercy and compassion. We see this is in the final chapter where Jonah confesses to God why he was unwilling to go to Nineveh in the first place,

and he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster.”

Jonah had not wanted Nineveh spared but he wanted them destroyed. Jonah was being shown that he had become just like the people of Nineveh when he refused to obey the commands of God.

Now as he remembers sitting in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights he also remembers that God had shown him that he was indeed gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. This was why Jonah had not drowned and lived to go to Nineveh and preach God’s judgement to them and to see them repent in sack cloth and ashes. Jonah had been saved so that Nineveh could also know the mercy of God, the very thing that Jonah had experienced firsthand.

The final part of his prayer is the acknowledgement of all this,

“Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.9 But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay.  Salvation belongs to the Lord!” 10 And the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the dry land.

Jonah remembers the ineffectiveness of the sailor’s prayers and the helplessness of the gods to whom they prayed. Jonah condemns the practice of putting faith in worthless idols, forsaking covenant loyalty to the Lord. Jonah has repented of his covenant unfaithfulness and with renewed thankfulness now offers a sacrifice of praise through his obedience to God, the only source of salvation. God’s response was to rescue Jonah by having the fish vomit him up onto dry land. I love the next verse in Jonah 3:1–3,

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” 3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it.

Jonah is invited once again to join with his God in fulfilling his plan and having the joy of being used of God and seeing him move in power and mercy. God was revealing his heart for his creation and wanted Jonah to have the same heart, too.

We read a great example of how this should look in our epistle reading this morning from Romans 9:1–5. The apostle Paul had been sent primarily to the Gentiles to share the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ. He had tremendous success although it had cost him everything, and as he writes to the church in Rome he confesses his heart for his fellow Jews who have turned away from Jesus Christ. Let’s read our epistle together again,

“I am speaking the truth in Christ—I am not lying; my conscience bears me witness in the Holy Spirit— 2 that I have great sorrow and unceasing anguish in my heart. 3 For I could wish that I myself were accursed and cut off from Christ for the sake of my brothers, my kinsmen according to the flesh.”

Paul knew that Jesus had come as a Jew to encourage them to return to the mission that God had originally given to Israel—that they be a light to the nation’s, leading them back to their creator God who was rich in mercy and compassion. Paul had originally gone to the children of Israel to preach the good news, but God had sent him to the Gentiles, a people that he by nature would have loathed. Instead, he faithfully obeyed and bore much fruit for the kingdom of God. Still, he longed for his countrymen to come to faith even though they had persecuted him in beatings, torture, and imprisonment. His radical willingness to sacrifice his own life and even his own salvation that they might come to saving faith, reveals that he had the same heart of Jesus who came and gave his life that they might be restored to God.

Consider the similarity and the difference in our two stories this morning. The invitation to Jonah and to Paul was the same—to share in the heart of God for those who have willingly turned away in disobedience and followed other gods instead. Both of these men claimed to be follows of God, but one choses to disobey the command of God and the other goes willingly. You will notice that they both ended up going—but the one paid a heavy price for his disobedience and the other experienced the great blessing of going in the power and authority of God. God doesn’t discipline us because we are weak or even at times foolish, but he does when we are rebellious.

I love our Gospel story this morning from Matthew 14:22–33. We won’t take the time to re-read it but think about what happened. Jesus and the disciples have had a very busy day after feeding many thousands with a few loaves of bread and a few fish. A really amazing miracle but still an exhausting day, and Jesus knows that the disciples need to rest. He sends them on ahead in their boat to the other side of the lake. He himself goes up on the mountain to spend time in prayer with his Father and when evening comes he goes to join them by walking across the lake, against a strong wind. They see him and cry out because they assume that it is a ghost due to the fact that people can’t walk on water. I personally think that Jesus was having a little fun at the disciples expense while preparing to teach them a valuable lesson. He assures them that he is not a ghost and they have no reason to be afraid. I have to admit that when I read this I can’t help but picture Jesus laughing as he says this. Peter, always impetuous, calls out,

“Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water” and Jesus replies, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus, but when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.” Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?” And when they got in the boat, the wind ceased. And those in the boat worshipped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.”

Clearly there is a lot we could unpack in this story but today I only want us to see one thing as it relates to our theme of obedience to God’s commands this morning. When Peter asked to be allowed to come to Jesus walking on the water that was a pretty bold step of faith, and he was actually walking on water. Sure he took his eyes off of Jesus and instead considered the wind and probably the fact that he had no business walking on water. At the point he begins to sink and cries out to Jesus to save him. Jesus response was not a rebuke but merely an exhortation to trust him. Then he actually pulls Peter out of the water and they walk back to the boat, again I picture Jesus laughing and having a good time with this event. Peter had not rejected Jesus or refused to obey a command he merely acted human, and Jesus knowing him well treated him with loving compassion

This is where our three stories converge into a simple yet profound point. When we are in relationship with God we are to obey his commands or he will pursue us and like a loving Father will bring us back into step. If we choose to simply obey we can expect to have everything we need to accomplish the task that he has given us to do. If we mess up and due to our weakness or even lack of faith Jesus is there to rescue us and bring us back to the boat in safety.

God has commanded us to take the good news of the Gospel to the entire world baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. We are to teach them to observe and obey all that he has commanded and we should do this by example and give our lives to this pursuit. That is the mission and purpose of the church. To not do so is to willingly disobey the command of God and if we are indeed his children then we should expect to be pursued and brought back into obedient faith. If we are not being faithful or pursued then why would we assume that we are actually in relationship with him?

I firmly believe that what we are experiencing in much of the liberal western Protestant church is the same thing that Israel experienced when God departed the temple—no power, no presence, and no effectiveness, just dead orthodoxy. God is calling us to obedient faith in the finished work of Jesus Christ and we cannot hide behind the fact that we feel unprepared or unqualified. We must step out in faith trusting God to go with us even if we mess up. We must be about the business of God’s heart and seek to tell someone about Jesus every day, sharing our own personal story of his rescue. If this is not our heart or desire then something is seriously wrong and we need to cry out, “Lord Jesus save me.”

In the name of the Father, Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen!

©2017 Rev. Mike Moffitt

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