This Week's Light Service Sermon

Light Service Sermons for the Month
Transformation of God's People
The Reluctant Witness
DATE: January 23, 2000
TEXT: Jonah 3:6-11

A year ago I was talking to our Confirmation class about the Bible book of Genesis and the creative genius of God. I am not sure how the subject got around to milk but I shared the story with them of riding home after church with my dad and often stopping at the local dairy on the way home to pick up some bottles of milk.
"Did you say 'bottles of milk,' Pastor?"
"Yes, bottles of milk that had little paper lids on them that you removed before pouring off the cream that was on top."
"What do you mean 'pouring off the cream'?"
"Well in those days the milk would separate and the cream would rise to the top and Mom would pour that off for cooking or using in her coffee. There was no such thing as 2% or skim back then. If there was I never heard of it."
"What did you do with the bottles?"
"We put them out on the back step so the milkman could pick them up when he came to deliver the milk on Wednesdays."
"You mean they would deliver the milk to your house?"
"Yes and orange juice and ice cream too?"
"Boy, that was a long time ago, I bet before color TV."
"Try before TV, period!"
This little incident is but one small example of a truth that we experience in much more profound ways every day of our lives. It's the fact that we interpret what we see and experience through filters. By "filters" I mean certain perspectives -- often ingrained -- through which we sift our impressions and that dramatically affect our conclusions. The class's amazement about "bottled milk" is perfectly understandable given the fact their experience is primarily cartons and mega-grocery stores.
"Filters," of course, have two ways of working: for us and against us. When our assumptions are accurate, so are our conclusions. Clear filters lead to clear perceptions. Yet too often our filters are clouded by misleading notions, false perceptions, inaccurate information which lead us to conclusions that hit wide of the mark of reality. Our mind gets all cluttered up with "all those people are bums," or "there is only one way to do this! or "milk only comes in paper."
This fact has critical implications for our walk of faith. We can become so preoccupied with what we believe to be the truth that we fail to see it even when it hits us between the eyes. One of these filters is how we see God. Jonah is our case in point this morning.
Now we all know about Jonah and the whale, how God ask Jonah to go to the great city of Nineveh and say to the people, "The Lord has seen your terrible sins. You are doomed." Afraid of the assignment but even more afraid of God, Jonah, the Bible says, "ran from the Lord." He boards a ship heading in the opposite direction of Nineveh. A few days later a wind blows up and nearly swamps the boat. The superstitious sailors finally force Jonah to tell all, how he is the jinx causing their predicament. He offers to let them throw him into the sea believing that will calm the storm.
"No problem Jonah!" And over the side he went where he is swallowed by a big fish that turns him around and vomits him up on the very Babylonian coast he was trying to avoid.
Jonah is like most of us who instinctively think of God as adversary, not friend. Most of us see God as one who calls us to perform impossible tasks, live up to impractical standards, tasks and standards which we do not or can not meet. As a consequence, we know he must dislike us; that he is displeased with us. Therefore, we assume that only through the most heroic efforts to live an exemplar life can we possibly hope to win his favor. Even then we fear that he is probably too busy with global concerns to take an interest in the details of our life.
The good news of Jesus challenges our natural assumptions about God. Jesus declares that God loves us instinctively and takes such good care of us that whatever happens is to our benefit. Jesus provides us with an exceedingly positive filter for viewing God and his work in our lives.
Yet the "adversary filter" is already powerfully in place. Add to this the human limitations of our understanding. When it comes to knowing what God is doing behind the scenes in our lives, we see only the tip of the iceberg. The result is that we're prone to think his hand has turned against us whenever we experience a setback or disappointment or tragedy.
Most of us find that our view of God vacillates considerably. When things seem to be going well, we assume that he is pleased with us and affirming us--that he is our good friend and companion. When circumstances appear unfavorable, we assume that our worst fears are being confirmed; God doesn't like us after all. He's finally getting even with us and working to thwart our plans.
I remember talking to someone a few years ago who was sure she was being set up. She had just escaped a traffic accident and was positive that God had protected her. However, she ended the conversation by saying, "Frankly, I think the Big One is still coming."
Jonah is a Bible example of someone who forever misinterpreted God's intentions. First, he didn't want to go to Nineveh because 1) he didn't want to get caught up in all that "end of the world" stuff. 2) He was certainly afraid of what the Ninevites might do to him if he were to preach to them doom and gloom. And 3) he was afraid of God. So he ran.
This fear of God and His intentions is throughout the Bible. For instance, when the angel appeared to Zechariah that his wife would bear a son, Zechariah "was startled and was gripped with fear." (Luke 1:12). When the Holy Spirit appeared to Mary to say she was to bear a son by the name of Jesus, the Bible says "she was confused" and the angel had to assure her "not to be afraid." (Luke 1:29-30) When the angels appeared to the shepherds near Bethlehem, they had to calm them down with "Fear not; we bring good news of great joy." But the most tragic was Herod who feared that Jesus would usurp his authority. Indeed, the Bible says, all Jerusalem was " troubled" (Mt 2:3) Indeed, we find all through the Bible the initial human reaction to God's presence was fear.
However, we also see throughout the Bible, the fact that God continues to give us wisdom to see things from his viewpoint. Getting back to Jonah, "once again the Lord told Jonah to go to that great city of Nineveh and preach his message of gloom." What else could Jonah do. "Jonah obeyed the Lord and went to Nineveh." There he preached to them about their sins.
But instead of getting angry at what Jonah said, the Bible says they listened and repented. They asked God for forgiveness and he forgave them.
The fact that God became human in Christ is the supreme reminder of how fully committed he is to relating to us in our human condition, to meeting our needs and to working out a plan for each of us that reflects his best for our life. This is implied by the prophetic name given Jesus at his birth--Emmanuel, meaning "God with us."
When God shows his true colors, his genuine character to be loving and forgiving, Jonah gets ticked off. And he says, "I knew from the very beginning that you wouldn't destroy Nineveh. That's why I left my own country and headed for Spain. You are a kind and merciful God, and you are very patient. You always show love, and you don't like to punish anyone, not even foreigners."
All of this presents us with a considerable challenge as Christians. Since our tendency to think of God as adversary is so deep-rooted, we need to make a continual effort to concentrate on the grace-centered perspective of Scripture. We need to be reminded constantly that God does have our best interests in mind in every situation we encounter. We may be totally unable to see how this can be true, but that doesn't change the reality of it.
When God relents with Nineveh, Jonah did what every self-respecting fire and brimstone preacher does when God turns the other cheek and refuses to burn those he condemns as stinkers, Jonah sat down and sulked! He says, "I am angry enough to die!" You can almost feel the " little boy who didn't get his own way" side of Jonah. "There you go again God; being all goody, goody and forgiving. They deserve to die. Well nuts to you!"
We need to remember the lessons we've learned from experience of God's grace and protection. All through scripture we find God's heart to be first and foremost loving and merciful. It's especially important to remember those times when our negative impressions of what God has done proved to be mistaken or when an apparent problem or obstacle proves to carry with it hidden blessings.
There is a true story of a little boy who invited his mother to attend his elementary school's first teacher-parent conference. To the little boy's chagrin, she said she would go. This would be the first time that his classmates and teacher met his mother and he was embarrassed by her appearance. Although she was a beautiful woman, there was a severe scar that covered nearly the entire right side of her face. The boy wondered why God had given him such an ugly mother and never wanted to talk about why or how she got the scar.
At the conference, the people were impressed by the kindness and natural beauty of his mother despite the scar, but the little boy was still embarrassed and hid himself from everyone. He did, however, get within earshot of a conversation between his mother and his teacher, and heard them speaking.
"How did you get the scar on your face?" the teacher asked.
The mother replied, "When my son was a baby, he was in a room that caught fire. As I was running toward his crib, I saw a beam coming down and threw myself over him and the crib. I was knocked unconscious but fortunately, a fireman came in and saved both of us." She touched the burned side of her face. "This scar will be permanent but to this day, I have never regretted doing what I did."
At this point the little boy came out running toward his mother with tears in his eyes. He hugged her and felt an overwhelming sense of the sacrifice that his mother had made for him. He held her hand tightly for the rest of the day.
May God grant us the wisdom to see our lives from his standpoint of grace. May the biblical message of Christ's protection, provision, forgiveness and perfect love for us be the filter through which we interpret everything that happens to us. And may we have the divine capacity to think twice whenever we suspect that God is acting against us or loves us with less than the infinite love which he promised to us through his son Jesus.
Let us forever strive for a view of God that never thinks twice but sees him consistently as our closest friend. Far from being an oddity, Jesus' goodness to us is an ongoing reality each and every split second of our lives.
AMEN