A sermon based upon Jonah 1: 17-2:10, NIV
Preached by Dr. Charles J. Tomlin,
Flat Rock-Zion Baptist Partnership
January 14th, 2018, Winter Bible Study 2018, Sermon 2 of 4
When my wife traveled to Europe, I purchased an app so I could watch her plane in the sky. It’s amazing to catch a view of all those planes from radars stationed all over the world.
When you fly, or even when you plane watch on a PC, you get a completely different view of the world. Somehow it all seems small and connected. As the Bete Midler song says, “From a Distance, there is harmony!...From a Distance, there is more than enough…”
In our second message from Jonah, we also get a unique view and perspective; not from high in the sky, but from the deep, from the bottom ‘of the deep blue sea.’ But this is no tourist destination. Jonah, the reluctant prophet, has been thrown overboard, and has been swallowed by a big, hungry fish.
“IN MY DISTRESS I CALLED….”
Interestingly, Jonah does not have to be here. He has volunteered for this trip. It seems that he would rather be anywhere except in the will of God. Jonah instructed the sailors to throw him overboard (1:12) to save their ship. But Jonah is no hero like Leonardo Di Caprio character on the in Titanic, sacrificing his life for others. Jonah would rather be dead than obey his God who loves the whole world.
From our point of view, Jonah is foolish. If Jonah had gone to Nineveh, he might still be alive, even if his life had been at risk. But here he is, following his own wishes, stubbornly going it alone. In short, Jonah ‘does it his way’, remember Sinatra and Elvis’ theme song: “I Did it My Way!” Jonah, did, so now, here he is, at the bottom---rock bottom.
So how does it look at the bottom, Jonah? Is it more peaceful, more satisfying, more fulfilling, and more meaningful? It doesn’t sound so, when Jonah says: “The deep surrounded me” (2:6). As I write, news reports are saying that US has greatest drug problem in the world. We have so much wealth, freedom, rights; but we are also the most addicted country in the world. We are a country were money, power and sex means abuse and corruption. Our own freedom leads to living hallow lives that end in desperation and despair.
As churches empty and faith wanes, we are sinking faster than a rock. But at least we are still free! Would we also, as a people, rather be anywhere, on our own, rather than be in the will of God, or doing the work of God? But what is that? Let’s read on.
SALVATION COMES FROM THE LORD…. (v. 9)
There is one thing you should start to see more clearly, from the bottom. It’s something you can’t always clearly see while living your life ‘on top’. What Jonah begins to see first, is that he is definitely not where he should be.
Most of us know this to be true. Even at the bottom atheists instinctively pray. Why is that? Why is it that even the most self-secure and most self- assured people, also pray in a time of crisis? Why was it, right after 911 that the churches were filling up? Why is it that Universities have prayer vigils and act like church communities when tragedies strike? What is it that finally drives us all to our knees? What is it that we can see at the bottom that can’t normally see? What Jonah sees, is what we all will one day see. if there is any salvation at all, as one translation says, ‘salvation belongs to our God!’ (NET, v. 9).
Jonah sees, what the atheistic French existentialist Philosopher Jean Paul Sarte also saw, when he examined life without God and rightly entitled his fatal diagnosis of that examination: No Exit. There is no way up or out without faith in God who is our only true hope. This too is now Jonah dilemma. His decision and the result reflects our own, when we also don’t want God, or to go God’s way, and we let the world choose for us. Then, the world throws us into the waves so we, without making a real choice, eventually sink in the deep.
But as Jonah realizes he is sunk, something unexpected happens. Might it also happen to us? That is my hope. As Jonah is being swallowed up by the forces of life into death, he finally gains the insight he did not have before. At the very bottom of life, in the dark and in the deep below, he starts to look up and revisits his need to pray to the God whom he now realizes is his only hope. It is there all alone, on rock bottom, all swallowed up that Jonah prays. He sees his hope, and claims it. He cries out his only last hope, as it is realized: “Yet you brought up my life...” Jonah prays. You God are my only way out.
Here, reading Jonah’s prayer, we should also see that this is not a simple children’s story, nor is it a straight forward story about a runaway preacher, but this is the human story, a faith story, an allegory, of what is true about every human life. We will all one day find ourselves where we never dreamed or imagined we would be. Like that worker in the Las Vegas hospital, who expressed its own feelings, as the mass of wounded came in, after being shot by a shooter from a hotel window: “Is this real!” (http://www.11alive.com/article/news/nation-now/is-this-real-seven-hours-of-chaos-bravery-at-las-vegas-hospital-after-mass-shooting/465-8e2953ae-2127-447f-9a51-42cec4cabf27).
When I, as a teen, I was critically injured in an auto crash, but still very alert. As the pain increased, my first thought was ‘I can’t believe this is happening to me.’ It was like a bad dream. Like most, I’d never thought the worst. I never thought this would happen to me. However, this was the reality that came to me, and if you are conscious enough to realize and reflect, the worst could, and in some way, will come to you to, and to anyone or eventually everyone. The worst happens to someone every day. As our Christian faith affirms, this is a fallen world. It is a world, still in process, going somewhere, and it has not yet arrived at it’s final destination.
While some might realize such a threatening reality to all of us, and turn to ‘howl at the moon’, or ‘curse God and die’, as Job was tempted to do, the only right and most reasonable conclusion is the one Jonah made that was expressed near the end of this prayer: “Salvation belongs to our God!” Why does Jonah take this route, rather than to merely ‘die’ his in isolation and ‘quiet desperation? Why does Jonah choose to reach and make a leap of faith into the dark, and trust God?
It is certainly an option to refuse to come to faith, to choose faith, to risk faith, or to return to simple, childlike faith. Why does Jonah choose to turn to God for his ‘salvation’ or ‘deliverance’ as some translations have it? What we see here, is that in Jonah’s plight, he also realizes that his situation is not innocent, and what is now happening to him was also not necessary in this moment. In other words, Jonah, does not have to be here. He is like the Prodigal Son in Jesus’ parable, he could have done otherwise. He could have chosen differently. Because he has chosen foolishly to go his own way---a way which now puts him at rock bottom, he understands that he had the capacity to have done better. The ‘salvation’ he now sees in in God, is a salvation that was a ‘salvation’ from God, but needed to also be ‘chosen’ and ‘lived’ and ‘obeyed’ by him, as he chose God.
God gave Jonah the capacity, the mind, the will to choose and to decide. God fitted him, and chose him, and gave his gifts and expected Jonah to us them. So, why did he choose to do otherwise? Well, why do any of us ‘choose’ to stupid, life threatening things? Why do we have gifts we never use, do things that shorten our lives, or fail to ‘trust and obey’? Have you ever ended up in a place you have foolishly chosen, then realized you choose wrong? Haven’t we all made a wrong turns, gone down the wrong roads, made a poor choices? This is the stuff of life---the stuff, that we learn and grown from.
But just as we can learn from most everything we do, there are, in our lives, lines we dare not cross, mistakes we can’t learn from, and there are dead ends, or points of no return. Temporal Life, that is human life, and is physical life; does have it limits. Remember those guys in fly suits, who were using their “Go Pros” to film themselves flying off mountains, defying the laws of nature or physics, and daring the rocks not to ‘come up and hit them’? You know the story: the physics won. While most of us would not dare tempt natural law this way, but what about the fool tempts God, the fool who only lives for the ‘god’ he wants, or the fool who thinks that his or her life is their own life to live any way they want? What will he/she crash into that proves them wrong? How will it look when we get what we want, but we end up not wanting what we got?
In the 60’s and 70’s, the sexual revolution exploded in American culture. Lines that were once considered sacred where crossed and many felt ‘set free’. While a new spirit of ‘openness’ was released into our culture, few of that world were thinking about why rules and taboos about ‘sex’ had been imposed by Victorian cultures? Few thought about the consequences of these actions. Now, today, as we see New Reporters, Sport Stars, Politicians, Business Leaders, and even Presidents weakened and often destroyed by scandals, can we see why some of these ‘taboos’ and ‘conservatisms’ were in place? In another realm, the sexual revolution launched an a new spirit of ‘freedom’ or as the French say, “Laize Faire” into the culture, and now, in recent days, we read and heard reports of School Teachers, who teach and educate our children, being overworked, under-supported, and over-stressed. It all boils down, not to ‘bad kids’, but to the breakdown of a culture, where there are no rules, no disciples, and no moral lines, with moral authority of leaders to have the power to do what is right and say what is wrong. We are a culture who got what we wanted, and now, are beginning to question, do we really want what we got? (http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/10/26/559914440/teachers-report-stressed-anxious-students-in-the-age-of-trump).
“…GOD’S LOVE FOR THEM (v. 8).
The story of Jonah, like his prayer, has Jonah admitting his own foolish choice and his consequential despair, but the story does not end there. The profound statement of desperation turned to hope comes when Job “remembered’ the Lord. Instead of ending in judgment and Hopelessness, this story turns toward hope, as Jonah casts himself upon God’s steadfast, faithful, redeeming love. This was the place, Jonah did not want to go before, but now he has no other choice than to place himself at the mercy of God’s faithful love. This is what his prayer means when he says, “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you,
LORD, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple (v.7)” Then Jonah, continues by quoting something that sounds like what he learned as a child: “Those who cling to worthless idols turn away from God’s love” (v. 8). Powerful, but how is it true?
Do you realize what you lose when you go after unnecessary things, when you leave God out of your life, when you put something else ‘first’ in your heart, in your family, or in your way of deciding how or what you live? When misplace the ‘love of God’ that is ‘for you’, and your personal relationship with this God who loves, who wants to guide you, help you, save you, that you have traded all that loving power and spirit, for an impersonal, stupid, life-zapping ‘idol’ who can’t hear, see, or care about you? You may ‘care’ and give your soul to the idol you have bowed down to, but that ‘idol’ cares nothing about you. Why would we do such a thing? Why did Jonah idolize his own choice over his obedience to God? Jonah did, for what he thought was ‘good’ for him, or what he wanted for himself, or what he didn’t want to see in others. Jonah choose ‘other’ than God’s will, and what Jonah choose to be his ‘concern’, or his ‘ultimate concern’ (Tillich) became the god of his life. But this was no true God, but was still a god, that now, would, in the end, result in him being cast ‘overboard’ without love, and without life.
Sometimes, as a pastor, I still am amazed at what can have in life, and what great potential we have as human beings, as a church, and as the people of God, and what we say we want, but I’m am also constantly disheartened, by what we also choose not to have, and not to become, as we continually choose life without putting God and his ‘life’ first in our lives. What do we think we can really have, or really become? I’ve mentioned before, a book I read recently about how 80 year old, Baptist evangelist and professor, Tony Campolo, has a son named Bart, who has now cast away his faith in God, and became a humanist minister for the University of Southern California. In a brutally honest book, Bart Campolo, the son, writes about ‘Why I Left the Christian Faith’ while the Father writes about ‘Why I Stayed’ in the Christian Faith.
One chapter that grabbed my attention, was as the Father, spoke about speaking at the University of Pennsylvania, several years ago, before all those scandals began there. Tony Campolo, being a University Sociology Professor, who has faith in Jesus, tried to reason with many of those students about why, they needed “Jesus”. His argument was amazing, as he shared with them how Jesus was the perfect example of who we all need to be as human beings; caring, empathetic, understanding, merciful, and faithful. If you ask anyone what a human being should be, Jesus fits the bill, in any psychology book, any sociology book, any book of literature of philosophy. In Jesus, Campolo explained, Jesus took on flesh to show us how to be human beings.
After putting the message of Jesus in words most of those students could understand, some wanted to know more, so Tony went to talk more with them in a smaller group. He reaffirmed you can’t be or keep being a humanist, or a fully actualized human being; that is, you can’t reach your full potential as a human being, unless you somehow grapple with Jesus’ life, example, his promise of what and who we can be, is itself, as gift from God---that is, from a loving God---who came to us, lived with us, cared with us, and died for us, and was raised from the dead---all to mercifully model, share, and enable us to live the kind of human life that was lived by Jesus Christ. But do you know, even after all of this, after admitting that this was something they needed after acknowledging that Jesus was someone they needed, most of them said this was something they just could not accept for their lives.
While those students, have long graduated, and gone on to live their lives, I wonder what they now think of needed Jesus after all the sex and hazing scandals, abuse and even deaths, that have occurred among students adrift in the world, at a university that can teach and believe almost anything, except Jesus. Can they now see, as Jonah saw: “Those who cling to worthless idols, turn away from God’s love for them.”
We also, like Jonah, and like those students in Pennsylvania, have no other real, true, choice in life, than to choose the love that has chosen us. Do you realize this too? It is not easy for those who have freedom to realize that even freedom has limits or that the spirit of love calls us to have only one true love. In recent days evangelicals argue about whether or not there is a hell, or others wonder how God could allow so much suffering in the world. It’s hard for minds who haven’t been humbled to realize that life has limits. In the question about hell, or suffering, which both are similar questions that point to the true restriction of human freedom, for the sake of life, not death. Those who are most free find it most difficult to accept that we really have no choice, except to choose life, and to choose love. How can remain and realize you are free, unless to choose the love that cause you to be and do right?
For me, the only reasonable answer about hell, suffering, pain, and death too, is that we humans live to learn that the only true choice we have is to love. As CS Lewis observed, the door to hell is Only locked from within, in our hearts and in our choice to chose or reject or only choice—which is Love. This is why when the NT speaks of Jesus unjust suffering and death, Jesus is understood to be in three day in the earth as Jonah was in belly of the big fish. Jesus chose to accept his suffering for others and for love, because he trusted that love would deliver him, and the God who is love did.
No comments :
Post a Comment