A sermon by
David Roquemore
Camp Hill Presbyterian Church
July 25, 2010
Jonah 3
Revelation 21: 1-5
Matthew 5: 1-16
The Word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. Having run away from his call, repented in the middle of a storm, promised loyalty to God in the belly of a fish, Jonah now hears the call a second time. He is given a new start, a fresh opportunity to obey. Here is God’s amazing grace: even as bad a prophet as Jonah gets a second chance.
The call is the same: go to Nineveh and proclaim God’s judgment on that city. God gives us mercy, another chance, time and time again, but keeps calling us to do the same thing. We might not want to do what God calls us to do, and we might disobey. God is patient, and forgiving, but does not let us off the hook until we do what we are called to do. The spiritual life involves a progression, and can’t move to lesson two until and unless we complete lesson one. That is what God is doing with Jonah: he must obey the same instruction as before. He must go to Nineveh and call for repentance.
Jonah is reluctant to go. He goes and does what he is told, but only that. There is not any enthusiasm for this project. He fulfills the letter of the commandment, but doesn’t seem to expect much or be fully committed to it. He’d still rather be somewhere else, sunning on the beaches of Tarshish.
But what results! When Jonah proclaims, “yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown,” the people put on sackcloth and ashes. They repent. The king proclaims a fast that extends even to the livestock and house pets. No animals shall have any water! The cattle are to be draped in sackcloth! This is a serious proclamation of repentace. There is a contrast here: Jonah’s own people, Israel and the city of Jerusalem, had heard the word of the Lord from prophets and had only occasionally repented, never with this degree of seriousness. The people of God didn’t take the Word seriously; the Ninevites required even their animals to fast! God’s people take God lightly, while the enemies are struck by the warning of God’s judgment.
The king proclaims this fast, and calls on everyone to turn from evil and violence. Turning back to God will save the city. The warning that God’s judgment will come in forty days is a form of grace: they have time to change and repent. When the people do repent, God does not go forward with his threatened judgment.
So there are two cities: Nineveh the violent, to which God calls Jonah to preach, and Nineveh the repentant, which finds mercy at God’s hand. We read today also the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem in Revelation, and we see the contrast between the earthly city and the city of God. Two cities, and the link between them is God’s grace and how they respond to it.
We are residents of a city even as we are part of the Church. Like Jonah, the Church has a message to proclaim to the city. The Church has a glimpse of the city of God, and brings this glimpse to bear in our common life in the city on earth.
This week you sent missionaries not to Nineveh but to Maine, to Mission At The Eastward. For our devotional thought each day we read one of the beatitudes, which is why we read them this morning. We sought to bring hope and blessing to the people of Maine. And we did – we believe we did that.
We put new roofs on two houses, one of an old friend of MATE and ours, and another for an invalid widow. We built the framework for a roof on a mobile home, so that the snow will slide off; the homeowner says that at 70-something, she is too old to climb on the roof and shovel the snow! We did numerous projects at another family’s home, to make it better for the winters. And we undertook MATE’s most daunting project ever: there was a house where the sill on the top of the foundation, the huge beam that holds up the house, was rotten. So our crew jacked up a 200 year old farmhouse and replaced the sill. All in a day’s work.
How is this a blessing? Doing this brings peace of mind to people who have no other way to get things done. Doing these things teaches people that Christians will help others because Jesus says do it. Doing these things gives people hope that the gospel is real. And in doing all of that, we learned, we receive blessing from Jesus. There is much to be said about the beatitudes, but we are reading Jonah today.
So, then – how are MATE and Jonah related? When we went to MATE, the city was not suddenly converted. The cattle did not even repent. That pesky chipmunk eating the one woman’s flowers would not stop his rampage, despite our presence. We did not see the same results that Jonah saw in Nineveh.
Yet we brought blessing to the city, to MATE. And now we ask ourselves, what about our fair city? What about Camp Hill, or Harrisburg, or Pennsylvania? How do we bring a word of warning and a word of hope and blessing to our city?
We do it just as we do at MATE: by living the beatitudes, by showing mercy and peace, by recognizing and mourning our spiritual poverty, by understanding that our ways fall far short of God’s ways. We do it by living in these ways in relationship with people, with one person or two or two hundred, and demonstrating the love of God for us.
Jonah goes and despite is reluctance, obeys. When he does, the results are astounding. Amazing. Beyond all expectation. Such is the power of God.
You may have heard that Scott Planting is leaving MATE after 35 years, so that they can find someone else to lead it before he retires. Hearing the stories this week reminded us that demonstrating the love of Christ to even one person can have astounding and amazing repercussions and results over the years. Such is the power of God.
God has the power to convert even Nineveh, even Camp Hill, even us. Do we believe it? Do we believe God will act through us, or do we think life will go along pretty much as usual? Let me tell you: God will act, by the power of the Holy Spirit, to reveal the grace of our Lord Jesus to everyone. God will act, and how does God act? Through our actions, yours and mine! Let’s get to it.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
