For the Days When All We Hear Is,' We Don't Know.'

Sermon Sunday 5 April 2020                          Jonah Obeyed And Went   Chapter 3:1-10

Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh.

Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

5 The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.6 When Jonah’s warning reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.

7 This is the proclamation he issued in Nineveh:

“By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.

God spoke to one of his messengers. He was called to bring a message to a people who were not his own. To a people he at least feared, if not despised or hated. He refused to go. He ran away, as far away as possible. Bought a ticket, boarded a boat, hid in his bunk, fell deeply asleep.

Jesus told us that God’s eye is even on the sparrow…not one falls to the ground but your heavenly Father knows. How much more so, is he watching over his people. He saw Jonah, He sent a violent storm. He used a hardened sea Captain to call Jonah to prayer. He used seasoned sailors to show us what kindness and faith look like in the lives of those we think have no faith.

Reluctantly they throw the reluctant Prophet into the raging sea, and sure death.

And God appointed a huge fish to save him. And for three days and nights in its belly, he is able to consider his life and possible death. Entangled by seaweed, imprisoned by the bars of the sea, he turns his thoughts and prayers and heart towards the God from whom he has been running.

Jonah was probably like many of us. He was content to muddle along the boundaries of his own life and nationhood. He was content as we learn in 2 Kings 14:25 ‘that King Jeroboam restore the border of Israel … according to the word of the LORD, the God of Israel, which He spoke by the hand of His servant Jonah the son of Amittai, the prophet…’ 

He was content in certainties, in his role, in his life boundaries, in his nationhood. In running away, we learn later that he believed that God would be merciful to Jonah’s national enemies, anyway. Did he see his mission as a waste of time, or did he not want God’s mercy to extend to those he hated?

Jonah gets up from the soggy beach, dries out and goes to Ninevah, a city so vast it took three days to cross.  He anticipated losing his own life in a very painful way, if the city’s reputation was lived out.

How unexpected that a vast city, from the king up, would respond, not to a mild appeal to faith, but to the message of impending judgement and destruction. How unexpected indeed.

They hear. They repent, and they amend their lives.

Imagine seeing your King sitting in the dust, as his repentance.

Notice the decree he issues:

“Do not let people or animals, herds or flocks, taste anything; do not let them eat or drink. 8 But let people and animals be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. 9 Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.”

And in response, God relents.

I have been brought up to believe that God has allowed us a free will. We are not robots, yet.

We can choose and order our own steps. Yet I also have learned that God Himself orders the path.

However difficult it is in these days, where there are few certainties, where national boundaries are being reinforced, people are trying to return home to their homeland and people, where our usual routines and daily certainties have been swept away in a few words from our leaders,

I choose to believe, in these days that God knows what we are living with and through. I choose to believe that as much as his eye is on His creation, it is upon us in these days.

As much as He is able to call and appoint, to relent and have mercy, so too I choose to trust that the same is available to me and to us in these days.

God knows what lies ahead, who might be faithful to Him and His words, who might sit in the dust in response. Our duty in these days, I would have thought, as well as staying at home and doing all the good we can from there,  is to seek God  out, to draw more closely to Him, to pray earnestly for all who work tirelessly for our good, and to trust Him to shield and shelter us in the gathering storm. Amen.