Jonah 2:10-3:10The Worst Sermon in the History of the World

Sermon preached July 19, 2015

Opening - failure

Erin and I were talking after she got back from the Senior High Mission Trip and she wastelling me about how wonderful it was - with the exception of one thing. This one thingwas a devotion conducted by one of the leaders from the organization that put togetherthe trip. He started the devotion by asking the youth to get real quiet and introspective -and then to go through every single failure in their life, one at a time - relive andremember this and list them out.

I told Erin if I had been there and been asked to do that, I would have ended up curled upinto the fetal position. Can you imagine doing that?

I clipped an article written by a Jewish educator talking about the importance in Jewishlaw of acknowledging failure and regrets, especially right before Yom Kippur - theJewish Day of Atonement. He asked a whole range of people of all ages to write downtheir failures and regrets:

Minor ones:

I did not purchase an exercise bike when it was on a great saleI was callous in breaking up with a girlfriend.

But then major ones:

I never said thank you to my father.I gave up on too many dreams.I could have done more to help my brother when he was despairing and depressed.

Jonahs call and failure

God sent Jonah to help some people - the people of Nineveh - who were lost and hadcreated a society full of violence and injustice. And he failed. Jonah ran in the otherdirection and got on a ship to far-away, exotic Tarshish, God came after him in the stormand put him in time-out in the belly of a great fish.

And after Jonah repents of his rebellion and racism and self-righteousness God has thefish vomit Jonah up on the dry land.

Yes, vomit...thats what the Hebrew says. We like to clean the Bible up sometimes, but

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there is pretty gross and graphic language in here...because the Bible is real-to-life, not apious book of sweet religious sayings. Actually the Hebrew word is even more graphicthan vomit. Because the writer is hitting us over the head, making sure we understandJonah didnt float down to earth in the arms of an angel. The whale hurled the contentsof its stomach, including Jonah, up on the beach.

One of Gary Larsons Far Side cartoons depicts this by showing a bearded manstanding at his front door. He is dripping wet and his clothes are in shreds. Hiswife opens the door. She looks at the disheveled, bearded man with disgust andsays, For crying out loud, Jonah! Three days late, covered with slime andsmelling like a fish! And what story do I have to swallow this time?

But God gives Jonah another chance. And so Jonah doesnt go home, he goes to Nineveh- on a mission to preach repentance, to preach the grace of a second chance. Jonah is aman on a mission.

Gods Mission

Id like to step back and think about what God is up to here. Jonah is on a missionbecause God is on a mission. A rescue mission.

We see the beginning of that mission in Gods call to Abraham to leave his country andhis people and go to a land that God says Ill tell you about later and Ill take your oldworn-out body and Sarahs worn-out infertile body and youll have children and Ill makea great nation of you, a nation that will be a blessing to the whole earth.

Why? Because were lost...separated from the God who made us and weve plunged theworld into violence and cruelty and suffering. Paul tells us in Romans that the wholeworld is groaning, waiting for God to come to the rescue.

So God came to rescue us. In Abraham, supremely in Jesus Christ. And God notices,God sees and God cares when there is cruelty and injustice. Like there was in Nineveh. And God sends people like Jonah on a mission, to lead them from cruelty to justice, tolead them from paganism, to knowing the living God.

Its as if where there is violence and suffering, when people are lost, it in a waykeeps God up at night. It grieves Gods heart.

If youve raised children, you probably had a few or more than a few sleeplessnights when your children were teenagers - waiting for them to come home wayafter curfew - or just lying there in despair, praying for them. Man, it hurts, itaches, doesnt it? Thats something like how God feels when he sees - and hedoes see, he is not far-off and disinterested - people lost, people suffering, people

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committing great evil.

Big world. Lots of cities. Lots of people. Lots of lostness and suffering. But each andevery instance of it grieves Gods heart and God is at work to heal and save us and sendspeople like Jonah and you and me on a great mission to reclaim the world.

Our part in Gods mission

And so God drafts Jonah into something marvelous, wonderful, world-changing. To saveNineveh - the biggest city in the world, the capital of the strongest empire in the world.

All of us long to be caught up in something bigger than ourselves, some great adventure,some grand mission. Something that tests us and pushes us and even involves sufferingand sacrifice.

This is what so many of the great stories are about - Beowulf on a mission to slay thegreat monster Grendel; the epic Lord of the Rings - you see it in great movies like SavingPrivate Ryan - when I first read the Lord of the Rings decades ago; when I first sawSaving Private Ryan, I was in tears. There is something deep inside us that craves this;there is something inside us that tells us that we are built for something greater than thestunted vision of human life offered by our culture.

On our Alaska trip we took a van tour to the Yukon and our driver/tour guide wasa woman who lived with her husband and daughter way out in the wilderness fivehours from the nearest store. And she races in the Iditarod. She has a pack of herown sled dogs, she feeds them moose and elk meat that they shoot and butcherthemselves, and every year she races them in the Iditarod. It begins in March -still winter up there - and covers 1,150 miles. Our guide told of nights where itgot to 60 below; of storms where she couldnt see her hand in front of her face; offrostbite. Why do people do things like that? For the adventure. For the testing. For the challenge.

The Kingdom of God is the greatest adventure you could ever go on. Its Gods missionto reclaim and heal every square inch of this suffering world. From the slums of Nairobiwhere hundreds of thousands live in shacks made of scavenged wood and metal; to theprison camps of North Korea; to the tribes living in the rain forests of the Amazon andNew Guinea who live in fear of evil spirits; to the increasingly atheistic cities of Europewhere millions are spiritually lost - God has his eye, God has set his heart on every personin the whole wide earth - and its not just the people - God grieves over the suffering andcruelty we inflict on animals, over our failure to care for the earth - every child, womanand man, all creatures great and small, every inch of creation - is claimed by God and heis at work to bring it all back to him and one day there will be a new creation where Godrules in love and mercy and all shall be well, every manner of things shall be well.

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It was for the Kingdom of God that Jesus came - his first sermon, his mission statement -The Kingdom of God is at hand, repent and believe the good news. And as he called thedisciples to follow him and be part of this mission, so he calls us too.

And if we dont...

But we live in a cynical age of radical individualism, where the greatest good issupposedly self-fulfilment. We used to believe in big dreams, great adventures - putting aman on the moon - and some of you remember the sixties - where maybe some of youhoped and believed that you were part of a movement that was going to bring radicalchange for good. Thats pretty much all gone. And weve retreated into ourselves.

But if we do that - if we make pursuing our own private good the purpose of life - oursouls will shrivel because we are built for something greater.

Putting ourselves at the center paradoxically does not enlarge us, it diminishes us. We aremeant for so much more. Let me ask - is there anything you are living for besides payingthe mortgage, saving for retirement, improving your putting stroke, advancing yourcareer, planning the next vacation? In your life is there some kind of cause you areserving that grips your heart, that when you think about it sometimes you get so excitedyou cant fall asleep? If not, why not?

Everyone gets to play a role

Every single one of us is invited into the adventure of Gods mission.

You say, I cant...Ive failed. Well, failure doesnt disqualify us.

Look at Jonah. Would you choose him after he rebelled and ran away? But Goddoes.

Look at the apostle Peter. No one failed Jesus more completely, besides Judas,than Peter did. And who does the Lord make the leader of the church? Peter.

Look at the Lord Jesus himself. Rejected by the religious leaders, abandoned byhis closest friends, dies by crucifixion - a method of execution designedspecifically to torture and to shame and humiliate - a mocking sign over his head,King of the Jews - some king you are.

But in the Kingdom of God, failure makes you useful.

You become more open to following Gods will, not your own; you become moremerciful to those who have also failed; and you operate out of a motivation of

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gratitude to God for giving you new chances. Failure qualifies you for service inthe Kingdom of God.

You say, I cant - Im going through too much suffering. Well, God uses our suffering forgood purposes. Its one of the ways he fulfils the promise in Romans of bringing goodout of the worst we experience.

Tim Keller explained it like this: Many of us buy into the thinking that the worldis basically a fair place and most people really dont suffer that much and thosethat do, usually brought it on themselves in some way, their suffering is their faultin some way.

Well, our suffering knocks that out of us and we learn that suffering can strikeanyone at any time and most often its not any ones fault. And it makes uscompassionate. Motivates us to do something for people who are hurting. Because weve been there ourselves.

Both failure and suffering can change us for the better. Can. Because suffering andfailure present us with a choice - they can make us more self-absorbed - self-pitying,bitter, angry - or they can teach us to turn towards other people who have failed, who aresuffering, and show them compassion and love and mercy. Dont waste your suffering,your failure by turning inward.

Oh...and you may say, I cant, I have nothing to offer. Im not talented, smart, whatever.

Well, take a look at Jonahs sermon. Pretty terrible. No introduction, noillustrations, no humor. One line - forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed.

This sermon reminds me of the cartoon showing a woman shaking handswith a pastor as she leaves church. It has the caption of her saying,Thank you for your sermon. It was like water to a drowning man.

But this terrible sermon - is amazingly effective. The text says that the people ofNineveh believed God - from the lowest all the way to the King - every level ofsociety affected - and the whole city - its a huge, sophisticated city- took threedays to walk through. And they all put on sack-cloth - not only a symbol ofrepentance - remember, this was a rich city that got rich through conquest andcruelty - they are renouncing their ill-gotten gains; they fast to demonstrate theirinner emptiness and they throw themselves on Gods mercy. And God forgivesthem.

And not because of Jonahs spellbinding preaching. Because the Holy Spirit usedJonahs lousy preaching to accomplish Gods good purposes. That is a great

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comfort to me. As someone once said, God can land a straight blow with acrooked stick.

No excuses

God always blesses to make us a blessing, God always heals to make us into healers

We have to get out of our comfort zone - Abraham, Jonah, the disciples, all were called todo something that made them vulnerable, moved them out of their security zone.

You have to ask yourself, if there is noplace where you can say youre moving out of yourcomfort zone, being stretched and challenged and inconvenience, and giving of yourselfand your resources - are you really living for God and his mission?

We cant say I dont have talent or smarts to do this - God doesnt need them, all he needsis our willingness

The call

All around as there are people who are lost, lonely, despairing, suffering. All around us isa world where there is darkness and evil. And yet, right in the midst of it, Gods kingdomis coming to life. You and I are invited, called to be part of something far greater than us,and yet something where we can make a real difference.

Lets start small - you can help with the Diaper Depot next Saturday, simply by beinghere and talking to the people we serve - listening to their stories, showing them love andacceptance.

Lets start small - you can help with Sunday School - with the new Safe Sanctuary policy,we need each class to have a helper to assist the teacher. You just have to show up and bethere and be helpful. And let Jesus love the children through you.

Or maybe theres something else stirring inside you - whatever it is, lets talk. You canuse the signup card in your bulletins.

Closing

There is a great scene in the movie Lord of the Rings when Frodo Baggins is told byGandalf of the terrible power of the ring that Frodo owns. Frodo learns that he will haveto travel to the dangerous lands of Mordor to get rid of the ring.

As Frodo looks down at the ring in his hand he says that he wishes that the ring had nevercome into his possession.

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Wise Gandalf says, So do I, and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not forus to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.

So what are you going to do with the time given you ? Amen.

Endnotes

Eugene Petersons fine book Under the Unpredictable Plant and Tim Kellers sermons on Jonahwere sources for this sermon.

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