"Rise Up! Move" - Sermon, January 21, 2018
Community UMC,
Quincy
“Rise Up! Move”
Pastor Andrew
Davis
January 21, 2018
Jonah 3: 1-10
Mark 1: 14-20
In
some ways, we could almost change the words to our gathering song to “I’m gonna
move when the Spirit says move (3X)…and obey the spirit of the Lord.”
We definitely gotta move with the
Spirit, that’s for sure. Yet there are also places we don’t always
want to go into either. What are some of
the places you still go to, yet you would rather not? <Allow for responses>
For the longest time, hospitals was something I avoided and just the thought of
going into a hospital kinda made me turn a shade or two green. Even nursing homes. Yet once I got into the practice a few years
ago, it was a total transformation that I could walk into a hospital or nursing
home with confidence and assurance from God.
Talk about moving when the Spirit says move!!
In
our text this morning, Jonah is called by God to go from Joppa (in modern day
Spain) to the city of Ninevah (in modern day Syria) and deliver a word from God
to the people after God told Jonah that they were committing all sorts of sin
and up to no good, and was going to destroy the city. Yet, Jonah finds every way he can to get out
of going there, first by getting on a ship and getting caught in a storm and
then was swallowed up by a big fish or whale, depending on the translation of
the Bible you read from. It’s hard to
run away from God, though.
God calls Jonah a second time to go
to Ninevah once again, and when Jonah
delivers the word from God to the Ninevites, it only takes the eight little
words that Jonah tells the Ninevites that causes them to move from their wicked
ways (now, if you saw the animated Veggietales movie about Jonah, it was
because they were slapping each other with fish, as the filmmaker used a lot of
Midrash, or taking artistic liberties with the story). Everyone from the king on down repents and
puts on the ashes and sackcloths, even the animals (not sure how the animals
repent too). Except Jonah is not happy
that God changes God’s mind and spares Ninevah by showing the Ninevite people
grace and mercy. Instead, Jonah goes
away and sulks and wants to die because he wanted to see God’s wrath unleashed
on Ninevah and the Ninevites obliterated.
Movement is an important part of
this story, as
There are two primary kinds of movement in this
week’s Scripture reading from Jonah. One
is physical movement. Jonah moves from Spain to [Syria], and then keeps moving
a full day’s journey into the heart of Nineveh. The other movement is the
dramatic acts of repentance by the people and even the livestock of Nineveh.
Instead of facing being overturned, as Jonah’s prophecy announced, they instead
turned over a new leaf. In a way, one might propose even a third kind of
movement, God’s own movement of intention concerning Nineveh from judgment
toward mercy in light of their repentance.[i]
God definitely moves in mysterious
ways and calls us to rise up and move in many different ways in our own lives
along this journey of faith. In seeing
the reaction of the Ninevite people when Jonah sent them the message that God
was going to level their city and when they turned around and moved towards
repentance, God instead offers grace and mercy instead of wrath and
destruction, which Jonah was anticipating and kind of hoping for. How often do we experience such a movement,
when the Holy Spirit gets in the way and moves us in a different
direction? Or, how about when we want to
see wrath and punishment poured out on someone that has hurt us or wronged us, and instead see them offered mercy and
grace? As a friend and mentor of mine
puts it,
God is always willing to go back to the drawing
board with anybody. God is always willing to give us another chance, a fresh
start. This is the common theme of grace
throughout the Bible. Just when you think God's gonna zap `em, God pours grace
all over them.
There are times in our lives and even in the life
of the church where we are going to be like Jonah, we are called, yet we go the
other way only for God to call again, and we may sulk here and there when
something doesn’t go our way. There will
be times when we screw up and need to be the ones to experience God’s grace,
like the Ninevites. While we are not
likely to wind up in the belly of a large fish or a whale like Jonah did
(somehow, I don’t think the Mackinaw at Bucks Lake or large bass or trout at
Lake Almanor could swallow us anyway), God is STILL going to catch up with us
and keep calling us until we move towards following God, and even call us to
move towards repentance or being sorry for our sins. Especially relevant with
the season of Lent a few weeks away. Yet no matter what we do, God is still
going to keep showing grace to us along the way, even when we don’t think we
deserve it and is up to us to accept that grace and move towards transformation. And even when we don’t think others deserve
it either.
Even in our reading from Mark, Jesus calls
simple, yet ordinary fishermen from different backgrounds who have different
personalities, to come, follow and move about with him, even though they may
have no clue as to what kind of adventure Jesus is going to take them on. And some of that would be into places the
disciples did not necessarily want to go either, especially since that journey
with Jesus will ultimately lead to Jerusalem and to the cross, then to carry on
the work of Jesus after Jesus is no longer on the earth. When God calls, we’ve gotta move, whether it’s
to our own Nineveh’s or other places we don’t always want to go.
This last Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, Pastor Ray and
I joined many of our clergy colleagues from the California-Nevada Conference,
the regional body of the UMC at the Mount Hermon Christian Conference Center
near Santa Cruz for the annual Gathering of the Orders with our bishop, Minerva
Carcaño. The long, six-hour drive feels
like it’s daunting enough (like Jonah’s long journey), although during our time
together, one of our bishop’s challenges to us as clergy is to be willing to
move about the places we don’t always
want to go in our ministry. I’ll admit
that there are times when I wonder if I did the right thing in answering God’s
call, yet in the times I’ve been like Jonah and have run away from the call,
God has kept calling me again. The world
is constantly changing and shifting and moving into what many scholars call
post-Christendom, which makes it a challenge to be in ministry, and even a
follower of Christ today. In my very
first sermon here in this church, we had a reading from the Gospel of Luke that
talked about going out as sheep among the wolves, in which it can feel like the
world is full of wolves. As Rev. Dr. B.
Kevin Smalls explains,
In many cities across the world, sociological
dynamics are changing daily. People across the globe are on the move. As these
changes shift, anger often ensues around questions of equality, fairness,
gentrification, displacement of the poor, and changing neighborhood dynamics.
This is a marvelous time to raise the issue of not being afraid to cross the
barriers that are often built around us every day. Congregations, churches,
ministry settings are called to travel to their own cities, communities of
Nineveh, overlook their hang ups, reach out and call people into the community
of God.[ii]
Our keynote speaker for the
Gathering of the Orders was Dr. Alex Awad, teacher, author, and a Palestinian
Christian who has had to deal with the challenges of living through conflicts
between Israel and Palestine while growing up, yet was willing to cross borders
and break down social
barriers. Moving with God might mean
breaking down some of the barriers that hold us back, even the social
barriers. Fear is something that can
keep us back too, such as Jonah’s fear and reluctance to go to Ninevah,
considering there were conflicts in the Ancient Near-East happening during
Jonah’s time as well. However, Dr. Awad
called upon us to look at the challenges around our own settings that are
barriers in their own right, which we have plenty of here. Even though I feel like we are experiencing a
little bit of rebirth and a new sense of energy here in our town of Quincy,
there are still challenges and is an opportunity for us as a church to move
about and help address the challenges whichever way we can.
When it comes to addressing the challenges and
barriers as a people of faith and in addressing and adapting to shifting
populations, it can feel like we are being asked to go to Nineveh. Although this is also the opportunity to call
and invite people to rise-up and join us on this journey of faith, regardless
of what their life situation might be,
allowing the Spirit to move among them.
We do need to be realistic about what we can and cannot help people with
when traveling this faith journey with them, but naming and addressing the
major challenges in our context is the start of listening to where God can move
us when we listen to God’s voice and the prompting of the Holy Spirit. We have people who come here who might be
searching for answers to life’s greatest questions, which I will attest I don’t
have the answers to myself, but am happy to help seek those answers out
together. We have people who might be
here because their lives are in crisis and have nowhere else to turn, in which
we can be the source of showing God’s grace and love to everyone who walks
through our doors. But most importantly,
we should be the place where everyone is invited to experience God’s love and
grace, and are moved towards transformed lives, lives that are full of a desire
to joyfully living out our faith and putting that faith into action by serving
the greater community and making it an even better place than it already is.
While the world is ever-changing,
God still calls us to move. God still
speaks to us in many ways and through the Holy Spirit, and when we listen to
what God’s saying, it’s time to move to do what God is
calling us, or move in the way Jesus called his first disciples on that
lakeshore with the simple words, ‘follow me.’ And once we are so moved by God
through the power of the Holy Spirit, it’s up to us to rise up and answer that
call, whatever form that call from God takes.
While it’s easy to do like Jonah does and run away at first, God’s going
to keep calling again, until we say yes, even if it means moving into the
places we don’t want to go. As we go
into this new week, what are the places in your life that you don’t want to go,
yet God still insists you move towards going there? What are the challenges, the barriers, and
walls you feel like you need to overcome that keep you from moving towards
where God calls you to be?
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