The Upload
Posted on Jan 23, 2015 by
Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
I pray you have had a blessed week!
I know I usually write about our Gospel text each week, but this week I just can’t help but comment on our Old Testament text, Jonah 3:1-5, 10. The book of Jonah is a comedy. It was intended to be a funny story for its day that had a very serious and hope-filled message to offer.
God, went to Jonah and said, go to Nineveh and proclaim to them "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" (Jonah 3:4). Now, initially Jonah did not want to do that, and we all know the part about him jumping aboard a ship to head the opposite direction, then how he got thrown off the ship only to get swallowed by a whale, then being spit out by the whale and finally going to Nineveh. But in the part we read this Sunday, we are told that when Jonah finally did as God told him that the people of Nineveh actually changed. When God saw that they had changed, “God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it” (3:10).
In his message to Nineveh, Jonah never offered them any hope; he only said that they would be overthrown. Yet, for some reason, they changed, and that is one of the radical surprises of this story. The Ninevites repented, said they were sorry, and God changed his mind about destroying them. Jonah didn’t like that. Jonah thought it was unfair. In fact, Jonah was right, it wasn’t fair, but it is the way God operates, and for that we all should be very, very grateful.
The real point of the story of Jonah is to remind us that if God can love and forgive the people of Nineveh, God can love and forgive anybody, including us. And if God can love and forgive anybody, so can we.
What if God is calling us? What if God is calling us to do something we don’t want to do? What if God is calling us to extend not only God’s mercy but our mercy, not only God’s love but our love, not only God’s forgiveness but our forgiveness to people we don’t like or to people we don’t believe deserve love, and forgiveness and mercy?
In our world today, there are so many who are in need of forgiveness. There are so many who are in need of hearing that they are loved, not only by God, but by us. Maybe some of us are even those who need to hear this good news.
Today, we are challenged to think about how shall we respond to God’s call for us to be Jonah today and be those that preach God’s love? Will we be those who do as Jesus proclaims in our Gospel text and repent and believe in the good news (Mark 1:15)? Will we change our minds about what is important and alter the direction of our lives to follow more closely God’s call?
God’s call is a difficult call to respond to. In many ways, we are like Jonah, running away from God’s call and hoping God will not find us. But we can’t run from God. We can’t hide from God. He is a loving and persistent God who has called us to repent, believe the good news and proclaim it.
So, how will you proclaim the good news? The world is waiting for each of us to proclaim this good news, and the world needs to hear this good news.
Have a blessed week.
Shalom,
Pastor Dave