What's the Message?

 

Based on Jonah 3:1-5, 10

            Jonah was not the greatest prophet of all time. Today we are going to spend some time looking at this great story that we find in the scriptures. It is an amazing story, full of lively characters, of incredible and memorable scenes, and some deep questions about the character of God, the one who is both a judge and full of mercy, the one who can be persuaded to change course, a God who responds to us. So much could be said about this story. But I want us to focus on Jonah, his attitude, the way he went about responding to God’s call on his life to go and proclaim God’s message. I want us to think about how God calls us to go and speak God’s message. What is that message? What attitude should we have when we go forth and speak? Jonah gives us an example of how not to go about this. Sometimes we learn from bad examples, and Jonah is one of those bad examples.

            When God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh and cry out against it because their wickedness had gotten God’s attention, Jonah’s response was to go the opposite direction of Nineveh. Now Jonah is not the first person to resist God’s call. Moses is a great example of those who tried to avoid it. He came up with all kinds of excuses. But God patiently negotiated with Moses to get him to finally get to the point that he was willing to do what God wanted him to do. Isaiah also pleaded with God that he wasn’t able to go and proclaim the message, famously saying, “I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips.” Then the angel took a live coal from the fire on the altar and touched Isaiah’s lips with the burning hot coal, saying “now that this has touched your lips, your guilt has departed and your sin is blotted out.” Then, God calls again for volunteers to go and speak God’s message, asking the question, “Who will go for us?” And Isaiah answered with the words, “Here I am, send me!” In both of these examples, Moses and Isaiah, they had their argument with God directly and worked it out.

            But Jonah was different in his resistance to God’s call. He did not argue with God. Instead, he just got up and went in the opposite direction, hiring a boat to take him across the sea. But God wasn’t going to let him off the hook that easily. God sends up a strong storm that threatens to sink the boat. The crew and passengers are panicking, doing everything they can to save their lives. But what is Jonah doing? He’s deep in the hold sleeping. He apparently could care less what happens to him or everyone else on board. His detachment and hard heartedness is astonishing. So, our initial impression of Jonah is that he is not interested in engaging with God or anyone else. He’s going to do what he wants to do, no matter whose lives are put in jeopardy, including his own. Not good.

            The crew finally get out of Jonah that he is the cause of the problem. Jonah says they should just throw him overboard. There’s no point in arguing with God. There’s no reason to figure out some way to make sure everyone makes it out alive. Not only does Jonah not really care about their lives, he doesn’t care about his own. I just get the impression that Jonah just doesn’t care. He doesn’t want to be obedient to God’s call on his life. And if that means getting tossed into the sea and drown, so be it. Wow.

            How little does Jonah know that in spite of his bad attitude, God still hasn’t given up on him. God is persistent. God won’t let up when God has in mind for someone to do something. This is where we get the unbelievable situation where a big fish swallows up Jonah preventing him from drowning. Jonah spends three days and nights locked up inside the fish’s stomach. During that time inside the fish, Jonah prays an amazing prayer. There’s more to Jonah than his stubborn disobedience and lack of caring for anyone. He also has the capacity to come to his senses, to realize that God is his deliverer, that God really cares for him. And God responds to Jonah’s change of heart by whispering into the fish’s ear to cough him up.

            Now that God has literally saved his life, Jonah decides to go to Nineveh now that God has asked him a second time to go do it. Jonah realizes that would be pretty sad if, right after God saved his life, that he should keep on resisting God’s call to go and speak. So, Jonah goes to Nineveh and proclaims the weakest prophetic message in the Bible. “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” That is only five words in Hebrew. No, “Thus says the Lord.” No, “Unless you turn from your wicked ways, God’s wrath will destroy you.” He just tells them that in forty days they will be overthrown. Saying it would be in forty days is interesting. It’s possible that Jonah meant a literal forty days. But the phrase “forty days” was a common rhetorical device that means “a long unspecified period of time.” In other words, Jonah could have said, “It will be awhile but one of these days you are going to get wiped out.” Not exactly a sense of urgency in that message. It’s almost as if Jonah is sort of hoping that the Ninevites won’t act on the warning, thinking to themselves, “so I guess we have some time to keep doing what we do. We don’t have to change right now. We’ll just put that off.” It’s like he doesn’t want them to repent, that he would rather the Ninevites get wiped out. Whether that was in Jonah’s mind or not, he definitely gave a dud of a message of judgment.

            Nevertheless, the people immediately responded to Jonah’s message with an unbelievable amount of urgency and singleness of purpose. The people responded so quickly that it got the king’s attention. And he responds by calling for all the people and animals to not eat or drink and put on sackcloth and repent of their wicked ways right now. I mean, it’s just unbelievable the immediate and dramatic response. In spite of the lamest prophetic message ever given in scripture, the response is the most sudden and total. In spite of himself, Jonah’s message was a spectacular success. And God, who saw this unbelievable response, was persuaded not to wipe out Nineveh. God changed God’s mind. It would not have been just for God to wipe out a whole group of people, 120,000 people plus much livestock, if they all repented. And let me add, they did this without any assurance that God would be persuaded. The king said, “We are going to do this. Who knows? Maybe God will change God’s mind and relent.” They didn’t know how it would turn out. But they did what they believed was the right thing to do and then hoped that God would do the right thing. And, of course, God relented because God is more interested in being loved and worshipped than wiping people out. God is love. God is merciful. That’s just who God is. God’s patience is long and it takes very little for God to forgive. And that is good news for sure.

            But instead of being impressed by the success of his message, and relief that all those people didn’t get wiped out, Jonah is angry! What he wanted to happen didn’t happen. He wanted the no good wicked Ninevites to be wiped out. He did everything he could to manipulate the situation to get what he wanted. But guess what? The Ninevites were more than ready to respond with repentance. And God was more than ready to forgive. Even with the weakest prophetic message ever, things worked out great for everyone. And Jonah was not happy about it. He just could not shake his bad attitude.

            Why did Jonah have such a bad attitude? We are left to guess. Maybe he just didn’t like the Ninevites. Maybe he felt that God should wipe out everyone else so that Israel could be at the top of the heap. Maybe he was self-centered. He only cared about what made him comfortable and when faced with times of discomfort he is quick to shut down and give up. He didn’t want the hassle of going to Nineveh and proclaiming the message so he bailed. When everyone’s life was threatened on the ship he said, “Just let me die.” When the plant that God had given him to provide him shelter was then suddenly taken away and he started getting hot he just called out to God to kill him now. It’s so strange. If Jonah isn’t comfortable but is put out in any way, he wants to blow everything up. He was happy if he got saved from destruction, but he could care less about anyone else and if things didn’t go the way he wants he throws a tantrum and wishes he could die. Pretty sad. You may even wonder why God would have anything to do with Jonah. That says something about God. God knew Jonah’s heart. God knew Jonah wasn’t perfect, that Jonah had an attitude. But in spite of all his flaws and lack of maturity, God called him anyway. God told him to go and proclaim the message anyway. And if God persistently calls on Jonah, could God not be calling on us to go and proclaim the message? I think so. But what is the message? What is God calling us to go and proclaim?

            I don’t believe the message we are sent to deliver is what Jonah gave. We are not called to give out a lame message that one of these days in the long off future God’s going to wipe everyone out. That’s a bad message. It’s woefully inadequate. The basic prophetic message is better than what Jonah said. The basic message goes something like this: “God sees your wicked ways, how you abuse and take advantage of the poor, how you cheat one another, worship false gods, and the like. And God will not hold back God’s wrath forever. God will deliver the oppressed from your oppression. So unless you repent, change your ways, and go back to love God and neighbor, you will suffer God’s wrath. Your choice.” That’s the basic prophetic message. Should that be our message? Is there another message that God wants to speak through us?

            I don’t know what the specific message is that God is placing on us collectively, or what you may be sensing God wants you to speak. Maybe what each of us are to say will be different. Maybe the specific situation we are in will call for a different message. That said,  I think it is our responsibility to speak up for those whose voices are not heard. I think we should call out what is wrong, even evil, in these days. But our words of condemnation need to be balanced with an assurance of God’s steadfast love and mercy. God is just but God is also merciful. What God desires above all else is a world where people love and care for one another. Yes, God gets angry. Yes, God hurts when God sees people getting hurt. But God is love. God loves us, all of us, and not just us but everybody. So, the message that people need to hear is that no matter how much you have messed up you are loved by God. It is possible for you to change your ways. You can make better choices. And you are not alone in this struggle to do the right thing.

            What should our message be when we are prompted to go and speak to others? I can’t tell you specifically what that would be. Every situation is different. The person you find yourself in conversation with has their own sets of challenges. Maybe you have heard the phrase that we should comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. That might sound good but it misses the mark. It comes across too simplistically, that there are good people and bad people. The truth is, each person is a mixture of good and bad. We are all made in the image of God so we are fundamentally good. But we also have the capacity to fail at being our best selves in any given situation. People are complicated and life isn’t always black and white. We have to muddle our way through somehow.

            So, what we say in any given situation is going to be different. There isn’t a tract, or a stock phrase, or a memorized speech, no cookie cutter answers or tried and true sayings. We have to try to listen for what God is putting on our hearts to say. But whatever it is that we are prompted by God to go and tell, that message will be consistent with what Jonah himself said about God in the midst of one of his temper tantrums: “God is a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” That is who God is and whatever we say on God’s behalf should be consistent with who God is. Whatever we say, let’s couch that message with the good news of God’s love.

Remember Your Baptism

 

Based on Mark 1:4-11

             Today is Baptism of the Lord Sunday. It is an opportunity for us to be reminded of what baptism is and what it means for us. It is a good day for us to remember our baptism, to reaffirm our identity as baptized Christians, as we move into this new year and all the challenges and celebrations that await us.

            We heard this morning the account of Jesus’ baptism as told by Mark. The introduction of John the Baptist and the telling of Jesus’ baptism is found in all four gospels. But the details are different in each one. For Mark, as is typical, the details are quite sparse. This means that every word Mark chooses to use has that much more weight. No wasted words or filler in Mark’s gospel.

            As we reflect on Mark’s concentrated account of Jesus’ baptism, I want to focus on how baptism is composed of water and the Holy Spirit. John says that he baptizes with water but the one who is coming, he doesn’t name him, will baptize with the Holy Spirit. Are we talking about two baptisms? Or is it one baptism made effective by two different sources? Let’s take a look.

            Everyone was going out to John in the wilderness to experience a ritual washing of purification that included confession of sins and of repentance. The Greek word translated repentance is the same word that we get metamorphosis. It is about making a change. Repentance is like if you were going north you decide to go south. It’s not just saying you are sorry. It is about making a real change in your life, a fresh start. That’s what this baptism was about off in the wilderness along the Jordan river. Going in the water was about a ritual cleansing, signifying your intention to live differently, to live in a way that is righteous. This is the baptism that John was offering. And it appeared that lots of people were motivated to go out there to receive it. To me it appears there was some kind of moral revival sweeping the land. It must have been a time of great crisis. Society was under great stress. People in general had a sense that they needed to get their lives together. So, a massive movement of people made their way to John.

            As we practice baptism today, we also understand baptism to have an element of purification, of confession and repentance. As we gather around the fount, the pastor asks a series of questions. The first question asked is, “Do you renounce the spiritual forces of wickedness, reject the evil powers of this world, and repent of your sin.” This aspect of baptism picks up on what John was offering: a baptism for the repentance of sins. But there is more to baptism than confession, repentance and ritual washing.

            John spoke of the one who is coming that is more powerful. We read in verse 8, “I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.” What does it mean to be baptized with the Holy Spirit? Is this a different baptism or the same kind of baptism except the Spirit is the means rather than water? We get a hint of what being baptized by the Spirit means when we look at what happens when Jesus was baptized by John.

            In vs. 9, we read, “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan.” Only half of one verse tells us that Jesus was baptized by John. It is almost like Mark is glossing over what is in fact happening. John’s baptism was a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And that is the baptism that Jesus received. What did Jesus need repentance for? Mark has no time reflecting on that. He is rushing to tell us what happens next. As Jesus comes out of the water, he sees the heavens rip open. The boundary between heaven and earth is removed. And then, Jesus sees the Spirit descend on him like a dove. And then, God speaks, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” The sky opens, the Spirt comes down, and God speaks. For Mark, that’s a lot of detail. What happened after Jesus was baptized was much more important for Mark than the embarrassing matter of Jesus receiving a baptism of repentance from John.

            This leads me to a question I want us to think about. Mark glosses over it but it is something to ponder. Why was Jesus baptized anyway? Surely Jesus did not have any sins he needed to confess. Why would Jesus need to be cleansed by the waters of repentance? All I can think of is that Jesus came to John to be baptized because Jesus was representing all of humanity in this ritual act. We understand Jesus Christ to be human, with the exception that he never sinned. He is, if you will, the perfect human. He represents the best of humanity. It’s this idea that Jesus represents all of us that is in play when Jesus comes to be baptized by John. He gets baptized as a representative of all of humanity.

            If this is so, then the coming down of the Spirit on Jesus was about much more than empowering Jesus for his public ministry. If he stepped into the cleansing waters on behalf of all of us, then the descent of the Spirit upon him also has something to do with us. Jesus is representing us when he receives the Spirit. The baptism of repentance that John offered has now become something so much more. Because of Jesus, what happened to Jesus, baptism has become more than a cleansing of sin. It has now become a means by which the Spirit descends on the one being baptized.

            This is where being baptized with the Spirit comes into focus for us. After someone has been baptized, the pastor will sometimes use holy oil to mark the sign of the cross on the person’s forehead, and then says, “The Holy Spirit work within you, that having been born through water and the Spirit, you may live as a faithful disciple of Jesus Christ.” We believe that when we are baptized, in that very moment we also receive the Holy Spirit who works within us the rest of our lives to assist us in being faithful disciples of Jesus Christ. That’s what it means to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. This is what takes our experience of baptism beyond a mere moment in time but a reality that impacts us and continues in us the rest of our lives. Baptism affects us from that point on through the working of the Holy Spirit within us, shaping us, empowering us to be all we are meant to be.

            There is something else that happened when Jesus came up out of the waters. Jesus heard a voice from heaven saying, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” This was a word of affirmation from the Creator. It was God saying, “I don’t just claim you, I love you. I am well pleased with you.” What a gift. Jesus, who represents all of us, is claimed and affirmed by God. It reminds me of way back in Genesis where we hear the story of when God made humanity and said, “Behold, this is very good.” Humanity is being affirmed in this moment when Jesus comes out of the water and has the Spirit descend on him.

            So it is, when you and I are baptized, and as the Spirit falls on us, there is a voice from heaven, our Creator, who says, “This is my son, this is my daughter, with whom I am well pleased.” At our baptism, we are not only cleansed from our sins, not only do we receive the indwelling of the Spirit, we are affirmed by God as one whom God is well pleased. Just as we are. And as the Spirit dwells in us and works within us the rest of our lives, God’s affirmation hangs over us the rest of our days. Is God always well pleased with us? I don’t think we can say that. But that claim, “You are my daughter, you are my son” stays with us all our days. Baptism is a sacred moment where we are claimed as one of God’s children. That stays with us, becoming part of our identity as children of God. Just as Jesus, who represents all of humanity, is claimed as the son of God so we are claimed as sons and daughters of God.

            As soon as Jesus is baptized, the Spirit drives Jesus out into the wilderness. It is in the wilderness where Jesus is tempted by Satan. But angels also wait on him. The wilderness is a wild place where there is testing and temptation, Satan and wild beasts, but also angels. Jesus’ baptism was like getting geared up and fortified for the perilous journey through the wilderness. Possessed by the Spirit and affirmed by God, Jesus makes his way through the wilderness.

            Can we not relate? Our life is like a wilderness experience. Sometimes we feel like we are living in the wilderness. There are tests and temptations all around. We see the marks of evil around us and the presence of wild beasts. As we move into this new year, we find ourselves surrounded with many trials and temptations. What we saw at the Capitol on Wednesday is one of those instances. That act of insurrection reflects the deep division, anger and fear tearing at the fabric of our society. It was heartbreaking. It was ugly. We are in a wilderness right now and are being sorely tested. Witnessing it tempts us to despair about the possibility of bringing our nation together. We are tempted to fear for our country, to be consumed with anger ourselves. We are tempted to turn our backs on one another.

            But that is not who we are, and I’m not talking about our citizenship as Americans. What I mean is, we are baptized Christians. We were washed in the cleansing waters, filled with the Spirit, and claimed as God’s beloved children with whom God is well pleased. This is core to our identity. And because we have the Spirit, we have the potential to produce the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. These are the manifestations of the Spirit that we can bring about in our lives, in this moment in history, in this journey through the wilderness. This is our base line as baptized, Spirit filled disciples of Jesus. These fruits of the Spirit are our guide for how we are to relate to the world, even in the face of many trials and temptations.

            We don’t always get it right. Of course, we fall short. But it is good to be reminded, especially now, who we are and to whom we belong. When there is so much chaos and uncertainty around us, we are able to make our way through all the confusion when we know that we are baptized believers who are children of God. Clear about our identity, and how we belong to God and to each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, we can live our lives with confidence. We can live with clarity around what we are about as we represent Jesus in the world.

            I invite you, as we move into 2021, to commit yourself anew to your discipleship, your followership, of Jesus Christ. Commit yourself anew to work with the Spirit of God that dwells within you to produce the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Begin the renewal of your commitment by remembering you are baptized. And be thankful.