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From January 22,
2006 Get Up and Go Jonah 3: 1-5,10 - Mark 1: 14-20 Even after a year here, I still haven't gotten my bearings here. Just when I'm positive I am driving west, I discover I'm really pointed north. I've never thought of myself as directionally challenged - until now. Maybe it's this new affliction that has me see something I might have otherwise have missed in this week's scripture readings. What stands out is that both Jesus and Jonah had a knack for knowing which way was which. Consider Jonah. When God told him to get up and go to Ninevah to preach repentance to that enemy city, Jonah knew exactly where it was God was sending him - directly northeast. And when Jesus came down out of the wilderness to begin his public ministry, he, too, knew where he needed to go--straight to Galilee's shore to recruit disciples. They had the four directions down pat, these two. But unlike Jesus, when God told Jonah to get up and go, the guy got up and went a direction God hadn't intended. Jonah jumped on board a ship sailing west to Tarshish, a seaport perched on the outer edge of the known world. Better the edge of nowhere, Jonah reasoned as he quickly counted out his fare, better the edge of nowhere than smack dab in the middle of brutal pagans. Better nowhere doing nothing than lose his voice (or worse, his life!) proclaiming repentance in some nation where folks didn't deserve his God's forgiveness in the first place. Now even if you didn't go to Sunday school, likely you know that defiant Jonah's westbound trip came to an abrupt end when shipmates tossed him overboard, where he was promptly swallowed up by a humungous fish. After three days and nights of prayer in the belly of that water beast, Jonah found himself spit up onto dry land, right back where he started. "Get up and go to Ninevah," God said more firmly this time, trying to keep from chuckling at the sight of this willful, junior-high-minded prophet flopped out on the shore, soaked to the bone, covered in sand and seaweed and heaven knows what else. "Get up and go," said God. And this time Jonah got up and went. Then the most unexpected thing happened. Instead of murdering Jonah the moment this prophet of the Lord opened his mouth, Jonah's enemies all repented. From the king all the way to down to the shoeshine boy, the doors of the Ninevites' hearts flung open and God's love waltzed right in. What a marvelous preacher Jonah had to have been to inspire every single soul in Ninevah to make a spiritual about-face like that. Not! Jonah was no masterful proclaimer--he was, well, painfully repetitive. For the three days he walked across the vast expanse of Ninevah, all Jonah had to say was this: "Forty days more, and Ninevah shall be overthrown." You've got to know the people heard God, not Jonah, speaking. Any other foreigner referring to an impending overthrow would have been hauled off for questioning, never to be heard from again. "Forty days more, and Ninevah shall be overthrown." Only God could manage a miracle from a bleak message like this. Only God could transform a gloomy, doom-y one-line sermon into something so gracious and merciful that a whole city would willingly turn around. The same kind of thing happened at the sea shore sea that day in Galilee. "Follow me and I will make you fish for people," was the stranger's opening line. It was his only line, as a matter of fact. Only God tucked inside those few impossible words could possibly convince four hard-working, family-supporting, people-depending-on-them fishermen to drop those nets of theirs and get up and go. Only God could make the strangest summons feel like the most natural thing in the world. Isn't God good ? Isn't God gloriously good ? Even before Jonah or Jesus said a thing, even before God nudged Jonah and Jesus saying it was time to speak up, God was preparing their audiences to hear and respond. How God went about accomplishing these turnarounds, I have no idea. All I know is that God did and still does. Somehow God readies the human ear to respond to the good news. Then God sends someone to deliver it. That's the only way I can describe what happened one Sunday shortly after I had moved to Paducah. I had the strongest urge to get up and go to Walmart not long after worship that afternoon. Walmart? I could go there any time, I told myself, waving at my urge like a fly at a picnic. But the urge persisted. And so I got up and went. I don't think I had been in the store but a few minutes when I spied a woman pushing her cart in the produce section. "She looks interesting," I thought to myself. I felt a need to talk to her, if only because she reminded me of a family friend. "Hello, my name is Karen. A little voice inside my head just told me to strike up a conversation with you. Even for me that opening line was just a little too over the top - so I said nothing at all to the woman as she continued on down the aisle. I did nothing. I said nothing. But God is good . Over by the yellow squash, a moment presented itself. One of us spoke. The other responded. Before you know it, I found myself inviting the squash woman and her significant other to church. And the rest, as they say, is history. Like the disciples and the people of Ninevah, it didn't take much to convince Karma and it didn't take much for her to convince Sue when Karma got home from shopping that afternoon. Why? Because God had been getting those two ready long before that Sunday in Walmart. The God who gets the credit for this gift in our midst is a God whose faithfulness we can trust. The God who readied the ears of the Ninevites, the God who prepared the hearts of four fishermen, the God who saw to it that Karma and I would cross paths in Walmart is a God we can trust. This is a God we can count on. A God we can be sure is working every angle to see that God's great good news is heard by those who have need of it. And so good is God, so faithful, so devoted that even when we go a direction that God didn't intend, as Jonah did, even when we're willful or unwilling, even when we're all mixed up and don't know north from south, east from west, even then God can still manage to get the message of the good news where it needs to go. Think about this with me. Even as you and I sit here this morning, there are people in and around Paducah whom God is getting ready to receive us. And at the very same time, God has been lavishing us with something infinitely good to share with them. Something life-changing and hope-giving. Something that restores souls and binds up the broken-hearted. Something that would have people know that their questions, doubts, concerns, and spiritual journeys are welcomed here. God has been gifting us with a whole range of "somethings" that will not be proclaimed in Paducah if we don't step in that direction and proclaim it. When we leave this morning to share the good news, you and I aren't being asked to do God's job. God's job is to ready people's ears to hear what we have to share with them. God's job is to nudge each of us in the right direction at the right time. God's job is to get us back on course whenever we go west instead of northeast. You and I aren't being asked to do God's job. All we're asked to do when we leave today is to notice the nudge when it comes. And then to get up and go speak the good news God has given us - even if that's just a line or two offered from the heart. The timing, the direction, the audience, the results - all of this belongs to God. All that is asked of us is - in faith - to get up and go. Amen. © Rev. Karen Winkel |
"Never place a period where God has placed a comma." - Gracie Allen
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