Humble Beginnings
Jonah 3:1-10
Sermon preached on Sunday, February 1, 2009
by Rev. Patricia Pearce
"The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 'Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.' So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, 'Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!' And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: 'By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.'
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it. "
{prayer}
I'm one of those people who is referred to as a fairly "late adopter." Does anybody know what I mean by that? Yes, Kip? … right. And I've heard it in reference mostly to technologies. It was years before I got an answering machine. It was more years before I got a cell phone. Well, this week I want you to know that I succumbed, and I got an iPod – although it's a different brand, but same idea. And this is what happens if you're a late adopter: you get to walk around for a long time thinking how foolish those people are who walk around with ear buds in their ears. You think oh, this is so ridiculous. And then you think, well, maybe I'll try it. And then it's like, really cool, and you find yourself sitting on the bus with your little music piping into your head. So then you switch over to the other side. But I sort-of thought, well, if I wait, if I can be so un-hip that in fact I'm hip – you know, I'm working with that: if you don't adopt any of it, you're kind of, like, hip, you know?
But anyway, I digress. How did we get from Jonah to iPods? Good question. You see, the danger with iPods is we can walk around with our own little sound track, and we don't have to listen to the stuff that's coming in from our surroundings, from the people around us. And it struck me that this story of Jonah is so amazing – and it's not amazing because of Jonah. Jonah is like this bumbling, reluctant prophet who finally goes along with things, but then he's really grumpy at the end when the Ninevites actually see their wickedness and turn around. And then he's, like, he's totally angry with God. So this story is not really amazing because of Jonah. What makes this story so amazing is the people if Nineveh. These people who lived in a milieu of empire – a very strong empire at the time, that was used to having its way with the nations around it, was used to acquiring wealth and power. The people grew up in this situation of entitlement and privilege.
Now, if you're in that situation and you hear somebody coming and saying, "Nineveh's going to be overthrown, because you all are so lousy" (I may not be particularly eloquent today… Kip and I were at a party last night, and I didn't get enough sleep, but anyway…) You know, in most cases, what would happen to that person, that prophet? This message would not be well received. The person would either be booted out, or possibly even killed. Power doesn't take well to the messenger, as we know. But for some reason, the people of Nineveh were willing to take the ear buds out of their ears, to stop listening to their own little sound track that told them that things are the way they ought to be: they ought to be affluent, they ought to be powerful. They took their ear buds out enough to listen to this message. And when they did that, they came to an understanding that, in fact, they needed to repent. They needed to turn around.
And, of course, the king: the king follows the people. The king is not the leader in this story. The king is the follower. And that's often the way it is. It's the people that begin the movement. And then, when there's enough of a groundswell of support for change, shall we say, then the leadership gets on board. Then the king gets off his throne, takes off his robe, strips himself of his symbols of power and status and puts on sackcloth. And everybody in the entire nation – even the animals – are clothed in this garment of humility, this sackcloth, in which everybody is equal.
How often are we willing to listen to those stories and listen to those messages that challenge our ways? It is not comfortable. It takes a lot of courage.
During these upcoming months, we are looking at healing the wounds of oppression. How does that happen? In our Tab.edu series, we're looking at the legacy of slavery. How do we heal these wounds of oppression? And in March, next month, we will be celebrating a blessing ceremony with people of the Lenape nation here in Pennsylvania, the original inhabitants of this land, this land upon which this church is built. Are we willing to take the ear buds out of our ears, and listen to these stories that challenge us?
We have to do that. We have to take that step, or else these oppressions and these wounds just get passed on generation to generation to generation.
One of the things that came to my mind as I was sitting with this text, and about our reluctance to really hear these painful stories, I remembered when I was an undergraduate, and I was working on my music degree. For my honors thesis I did some research on early jazz. I went back to the journals that were published at that time to see what they were saying about jazz. And it was very enlightening to see how the white musicians were held up, and the black musicians were dismissed or spoken of disparagingly. What began as sort of a musical inquiry soon turned into a sociological study. And I included that in my thesis, and my advisor wanted me to take it out. He wanted me to take out this commentary on the racism that was prevalent in the music world. Interesting. Maybe we don't want to hear these things. Maybe we want to excise them from our accounts.
So over the course of these weeks as we think about what stories do we need to hear, that will affect us and perhaps challenge us to change our ways, there is in this scenario many players. Yes: the people of Nineveh. There's also Jonah, this reluctant prophet who finally says, "alright, I'll do it. I'll go to these people, I'll tell them what they need to hear. I'm sure they won't listen, but I've gotta do it. I know I've gotta do it." And to his surprise and dismay, they listened.
Sometimes we will find ourselves in the position of the people of Nineveh, challenged by stories and messages that we may not want to hear. Sometimes we find ourselves in the position of Jonah, having to speak a truth that we don't want to speak, and yet, God needs us to do it. Because God, in this story, is the impulse towards justice and wholeness. God is not, in this story, a god of tribalism. God is just as passionately concerned about the people of Nineveh as God is for Jonah and his people.
So let us be instructed by this story. No matter where we find ourselves – and we may find ourselves in different places in this story at different times. But let us heed the challenge to speak when we must, to listen, even when it's painful.
Let us be in silent prayer.
© 2009 by Patricia Pearce. All rights reserved. Please consult the author at tabernacle@tabunited.org if you wish to use the text of this sermon, in whole or in part.
