Easter Vigil
Jonah 1:1-2:1
April 11, 2009
On the cover of your bulletin there is an introduction to this service. The third paragraph read, “When we have settled into our pews for the watch, we hear the storytellers among us sharing the stories of our faith—the stories of God’s salvation history and the covenants which he made with our peoples. These are our “family” stories.”
These ARE our family stories. And in every family there is a black sheep—that odd cousin that you truly hope won’t show up for the family reunion this year. The uncle that when he gets a bit tipsy tells that same embarrassing story about when you were three. The aunt that has recently begun to wear her underwear on the outside of her clothes. Every family has one in some form or another.
Biblically, tonight, we have Jonah. We have just finished reading some pretty incredible stories of obedience and faithfulness. In Genesis, God spoke and all of a sudden inanimate objects are falling into place. The stars assume their positions in the sky, the water flows downstream, the rocks assemble into mountains, the trees bud and blossom. God speaks and creation obeys.
Abraham is told to take his son, his ONLY son, the son he waited years and years to conceive. And Abraham is told to sacrifice that son, to kill him; pour out the blood of Isaac on the altar. Abraham loads up the donkeys, sharpens the knife and sets off with Isaac blissfully ignorant of his fate. At the last minute God changes God’s mind, but Abraham was fully prepared to obey the command.
The prophet Isaiah foretells a time when all of humanity will be fed abundantly by the hand of God. The people will speak and the nations will come running to know the Lord, the one God of Israel. A word shall be uttered and all of the earth will obey.
Then there’s Moses. Every Israelite, down to the last child, is a slave in Egypt. Pharoah is the god of kinds with power of life and death over the civilized world. God told Moses to speak to Pharaoh, to directly go into his present and speak to his face. Moses is to demand that Pharaoh free his entire slave work force. Granted, Moses worked in tandem with Aaron, but he went nonetheless over and over and over again. He not only spoke to Pharaoh, he threatened Pharaoh. He obeyed the command.
The next reading you will hear will be the reading about Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego—the three young men who refused to disobey God. They refused to bow to the king Nebuchanezer, even knowing that their obedience to God would bring them sure and certain death.
These are great stories. And what speaks loud and clear from them is the word, “Obedience.” Obedience, obedience, obedience. All of the characters in these stories are obedient to God the creator. When we listen to them, we can almost be inclined to think that for us, the average believer, there is a shred of hope that we too could be obedient to God’s every word.
But then we hear the story of Jonah. And hope for obedience is shattered in an instant. Jonah is that odd cousin, the embarrassing uncle, the weird aunt wearing her emotional underwear, so to speak, on her sleeve.
God speaks, “Go to Nineveh.”
Jonah goes to Tarshish.
God speaks through a storm.
Jonah says, “I’d rather be thrown into the sea and drown, than obey.”
God sends a fish to give Jonah a little time to cool his heals and think about his actions.
Jonah apologizes, he even recites all the mercy that God has shown him, but he never, ever agrees to go to Nineveh.
Jonah becomes fish vomit.
God says yet again, “Go to Nineveh.”
Jonah says, “Oh fine.”
Jonah proclaims to the people of Nineveh, “Forty days and Nineveh shall be no more.”
The people respond, “Sackcloth and ashes we shall wear to show our repentance. We’ll even throw sackcloth on the cows and sheep for good measure.”
God says to Nineveh, “I’ll show you mercy.”
Jonah says, “I wish I were dead.”
The rest of the story that didn’t get read tonight goes something like this: Jonah went off to pout and God made a bush sprout up overnight to shade Jonah from the heat of the noonday sun. And Jonah kept vigil waiting, watching, and hoping that at any minutes Nineveh would spontaneously combust. But God was true to God’s word and showed mercy on the Ninevites, and to make matters worse, God caused the bush to wither and die.
And Jonah said, I’d rather be dead.”
And God said, “What? I can’t show mercy to whomever I please?”
The end.
Friends, we’re standing on the edge tonight. We’ve spent 40 days, FORTY DAYS, contemplating our own sinful nature, our own disobedience toward God. We’ve been shedding our preconceived notions about ourselves, our God, our faith. It’s been a long journey. And in a moment, we’re going to hear the story of all stories about mercy.
God’s son came into the world to redeem the world, but the world didn’t want a redeemer, certainly not a crucified redeemer. So God’s son was beaten, tortured, mocked and hung on a cross to die. A disposable human being, because we said, “We’d rather have him dead.”
And God’s answer to us was “Mercy and Life.” God raised Jesus from the dead, extending mercy to everyone, EVERYONE—the sinner, the worse sinner. The worser sinner and the worstest sinner. God’s mercy extends from the Israelites to the Ninevites. God’s mercy extends to the obedient believer and the less than perfectly obedient believer. God’s mercy is for the person who fudges on their taxes just a teeny tiny bit and to the one who robs a bank at gunpoint. God’s mercy is for the person who reads the tabloids to catch up on all the Hollywood gossip and for the one who has slandered and lied and caused heartache to another human being. God’s mercy is for the one who has accidentally run over a squirrel and felt horrid about it and for the one who has purposefully taken a human life. God’s mercy is for anyone who has ever spoken hateful words to a sibling and to one who has strapped on a bomb and blown up an entire marketplace out of hatred.
Maybe we don’t like that odd cousin Jonah because when we look at him we see ourselves. We’re much more like Jonah than we care to admit. Some days we’d rather be dead than extend mercy to those whom we’ve deemed to be undeserving.
Maybe Jonah isn’t so odd after all. Maybe in the mercy shown to Jonah, we see reflected the love and mercy of God for us, you know, we who are average, ordinary, not too obedient believers but not too horrible sinners. But we are sinners in need of mercy, nonetheless. Amen
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