January 25, 2015: May God’s words alone be spoken, may God’s words alone be heard. Amen.
What a glorious day this is, as we welcome into the household of God, Greyson Thomas George, and we are so happy to welcome the family and friends of his parents Aubrie and Kevin. Now, it is appropriate that we talk about water today, given there is a baptism, but also, perhaps to talk about fish, parents, children – and of course, the workings of God in all of it.
And in our scriptures, we have loads of water. In the gospel, Jesus is walking by the water (not on the water yet), and calls out to the very folks who work in water – those who fish – to follow him. But, it is the Hebrew lesson where we get the best fish story.
I don’t know about you, but I like a good fish story, and we certainly heard one today in the Hebrew lesson about Jonah. Well, actually – we didn’t, did we. The lectionary, for reasons I can’t understand, will give us long narratives of other Hebrew scriptures – going on and on about one thing or another, but this week, the story is started in the middle, and we miss the best part!
Today’s text begins with “The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh…” A second time. Well, let’s back up a minute here, because the first time the Lord told Jonah to go to Ninevah, it didn’t go so well.
Now, we all may remember what happened – it is, after all quite the fish story, isn’t it? This is one of the Sunday School standards, the story of how Jonah was swallowed by a big fish (well, actually, the stories of Sunday School usually said a whale, so we will stay with that). Now, whenever I think about this story – the story of Jonah and the whale – I am reminded of a story about a little girl and her elementary school teacher…
A little girl was talking to her teacher about whales and how she had heard in Sunday School about how a whale had swallowed Jonah. The teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because even though it was a very large mammal its throat was very small. The little girl remained steadfast in her position and reiterated that indeed, a whale had swallowed Jonah.
Irritated, the teacher again stated that a whale could not swallow a human; it was physically impossible. The little girl said, “I’m not sure how it happened, but when I get to heaven I will ask Jonah.” The teacher replied smugly, “What if Jonah isn’t in heaven?” The little girl replied, “Then you ask him.”
Now, this whole fish story happened because Jonah refused God’s first request to go to Ninevah. Yeah sure, he goes the second time God asks, but the first time…well, Jonah did not want to go to a place filled with people, the Assyrians, who he felt were not good enough for him, much less the Lord Almighty. So he just basically told old Yahweh to “talk to the hand” ‘cause he wasn’t listening.
Hmmm, bad choice there Jonah.
So, ignoring the Almighty, Jonah gets on this boat for Tarshish, so he can go shopping, or whatever it is he wants to do, that clearly does not involve any side trips to Ninevah. The Lord is NOT happy. Storms rage, seas swell, and overboard goes Jonah (at the hands of his shipmates – who know not to mess with someone powerful enough to whip up waves).
So, Jonah ended up in a whale for three days. Now, think about that a bit… it’s all wet, probably slimy, and most definitely dark in the belly of that whale, and then, after three days and three nights of hangin’ in that mess with God only knows what else, Jonah sings a song of praise to God. And God answers his prayer with the whale spitting him up on the shore. Now, the commentators will tell you that the real translation is vomited up on the shore. Ewwwwww! Yuck!
I remember when I was young, my dad was about to spank me for God only knows what. You know you are in real trouble when parents call you out by your full name, so I knew I was in deep. My Dad would say to me “this hurts me more than it hurts you”. Yeah, okay… I’d think, how possibly does that work, after all, I’m the one who will have trouble sitting for awhile. Of course, I didn’t say that out loud – I’m not that stupid. And apparently neither is Jonah. And afterwards, I was told to “think about what I did.”
But these days, spanking, for the most part, has been replaced with the “time out”. And while the method is different, the words that accompany the punishment are still the same: “Now you go and think about what you just did”. Well, in a sense, Jonah was placed in a time out – okay, so it is not on a cute little chair next to an egg timer, it’s a dark and wet belly of a whale, but hey, a lot has changed in a few thousand years, and well, God can do whatever God wants to do.
So often we see the time out, this time in the whale, as the punishment that God has placed on Jonah. But unlike today’s time outs, I think it was what followed the punishment. Jonah’s time in the whale was the salvation, not the punishment, and that’s why Jonah exclaims in his prayer, “‘I called to the Lord out of my distress, and he answered me.”
You see, Jonah was drowning in the seas churned up by God – now THAT was a punishment. God was not happy at all with Jonah’s behavior and was making quite a fuss about it. Jonah, tossed overboard, was drowning. Jonah was about to die, and along came his salvation – the fish. That whale was not a punishment, but God’s grace, and Jonah knew it, but perhaps not at first. The way the story is told now, Jonah at one moment is angry and disrespectful, and the next, reverent. But I suspect that it wasn’t so peaceful in the belly of the whale, and that a transformation took place…over time.
Like anyone in a time out, we rail, we fight, we are angry. And then, we quiet down. With no distractions, no TV, no Internet, no phone calls, we are with only ourselves… and God. The walls of that belly was a place where Jonah could shout, pound fists, and stew. And, like a child who does the same when sent to their rooms, eventually, in a moment of exhaustion, will quiet down sobbing. Whale time is a time of fight, a time of anguish, and a time of quietness. When we finally settle into that quiet, that is when we finally, unwittingly sometimes, invite the holy in.
So Jonah needed this whale time, and so do we all.
How many times in our lives have we felt apart from God, even angry? Particularly these days in the midst of so much tragedy and despair around the world. It can cause many of us to struggle to reconcile our understandings of God and our experiences as humans.
And our struggles do not have to be on the scale of global atrocities, to push us to into despair, darkness, and even anger. They can be personal, deeply personal. These are our own whale moments, when we cry out “why did I lose my job, my home?” “why did I have to bury my child, or my wife, husband, partner?” These are the times when we are disquieted in our souls and even angry at God and the world. Why does this happen? This isn’t fair! And so often during these difficult times, good meaning folks tell us that this is just “God’s plan.”
Well, I can tell you that just stinks! I don’t believe that everything is “God’s plan.” I don’t believe that at all.
Things happen – good things, bad things, and God is there for us in all of it – grieving with us, rejoicing with us…all of it, and all the time. And I believe my Dad may have been right, it is hard for the parent.
God anguishes in the pain that Jonah has inflicted upon himself. As any parent does, it is hard to watch a child fight against themselves, to be in distress, to be in pain. But God is there to love us through the anger and the hurt. Like a mother with her child who is in pain, physically or emotionally, God cares for us. God loves us unconditionally, even when we cannot return that love, even when we do not love ourselves.
The priest in my home parish, the Rev. Phillip Wilson, often told a story about when he was a special education teacher. There was a young boy, who I’ll call Chris, who one day was banging his head angrily against the wall. Phillip ran over to the child and put his arms around him. As the child flailed his fists, Phillip held him tight and said “I love you, and my love for you is stronger than your hate.” After awhile, Chris stopped fighting, and began to hug Phillip back, sobbing.
God’s love is a lot like that – sometimes we need time to be angry, and then to let the holy in, so that we can feel God’s love all around us. We need our whale time every now and again to give us a chance to really connect with God, to reconcile our hearts, to express our anger, and then to open up to the love that will remain after we have had our chance to fight with the wind.
Jonah was given a great gift, and he knew it.
May we recognize when we are in the belly of the whale, and the grace that comes from that journey.
Amen.
Rev. Diana L. Wilcox
Christ Church in Bloomfield & Glen Ridge
January 25, 2015
Third Sunday After the Epiphany
1st Reading – Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Psalm 62: 6-14
2nd Reading – 1 Corinthians 7: 29-31
Gospel – Mark 1:14-20
