The Sign of Jonah

The Sign of Jonah

Good Morning Friends,

Football games were played on Thursday because today just before sundown begins one of the holiest days on the Jewish calendar. It is a 25 hour fast day where Jews reflect on the past year and atone for their sins. It is about being in a place of doubt and anger in the knowledge that we can never really understand the contradictions of life while still experiencing God working in us as a teacher of compassion. So, today we too seek forgiveness for sins committed and pledge to avoid repeating the same mistakes in the next year. Today we learn that every time we forgive we choose joy. Today we look at and the bridge between the Day of Atonement (Yom Kippur) and the Feast of Booths (Sukkot)…the ten days of awe before the ram’s horn is sounded. Today in preparation we rejoice as we consider with sadness that the Tomb of Jonah has been destroyed this summer as we consider the resurrection and The Sign of Jonah.

Scripture: When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation; it asks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation. The queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, because she came from the ends of the earth to listen to the Wisdom of Solomon, and see, something greater than Solomon is here! The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah, and see, something greater than Jonah is here!

Luke 11:29-32 (NRSV)

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ has forgiven you.

Ephesians 4:32 (NRSV)

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. But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the LORD said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

Jonah 3:1-4:5 (NRSV)

Message: Now is a good time of the year to read the book of Jonah…the Jews do during the fall Holy Days. The images are clear. You all know the story. But let me remind you that toward the end of the Jonah narrative, the wayward prophet builds himself a sukkah. The booth is to serve as an observation point from which he will witness the destruction of Nineveh and its inhabitants. But Jonah, is woefully disappointed because he grossly misread God’s intentions. As we read the Jonah story we are to be reminded that if God would forgive Nineveh, of course, He can and will forgive us if we repent. Jonah did so want to be right. Knowing that we cannot really forgive until we have learned kindness and become compassionate does not change our emotions. Forgiveness is not forgetting. Forgiveness is not pretending. Forgiveness in not a feeling. Forgiveness is not a conditional agreement. Forgiveness in not a weakness. Somehow it is not so simple as putting off the old and putting on the new, for joy is not the cause, it is the by-product. Friends, were it not for God’s loving kindness and compassion maybe this world of ours would just cease to exist.

Pray we rejoice in the sign of Jonah. Pray that though we struggle with repentance we be reminded that all of creation is in God’s hands. Pray we see the possibilities in the tension between the land and the sea, between wakefulness and sleep, between up and down, good and bad, between embracing God and evading Him, between embracing a mission and evading it, between compassion and disgust, between the desire for mercy and the desire for justice. Pray we find truth in repentance and the compassion of second chances. Pray we be kind to one another for it is a characteristic of God. Pray we be compassionate to one another for it helps us to understand what is going on inside others. Pray we break the cycle of anger and forgive each other. Pray we not wait in our sukkah for an apology. Pray we understand that forgiveness is not easy but is also not optional. Pray we understand that forgiveness in not a guarantee of closure. Pray we forgive because we have been forgiven. Pray that we be saved.

Blessings,

John Lawson