Epiphany 3, Year B, Sun Jan 22, 2012

Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Psalm 62:6-14; 1 Cor 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

I’m sorry to say that the story of Jonah is not about the whale. I used to think it was all about the whale. In Sunday school, I remember drawing a picture of the whale, with Jonah’s legs sticking out of the whale’s mouth, and that’s all I remembered about the story. That may not have been all that I was taught, but it’s all that I retained. But, after all, it’s not about the whale. I’m sorry to say that it isn’t even a whale in the story – that was an incorrect translation. What the story says is that God “provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah….”

Today’s lesson from the Book of Jonah starts out with: “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time…” God had already called Jonah once, and told him to go to Ninevah to preach repentance. And Jonah was having no part of that plan. He didn’t want to go all the way to Ninevah, the capital of Assyria, in present-day Iraq, and he didn’t want them to repent from their sins. The Assyrians were the enemy! Let them perish, as they deserved!

Ninevah was to the East, so Jonah fled as far as he could in the opposite direction. He went to Joppa, on the Mediterranean coast, and got on a boat sailing West. But God caused a great storm, and the sailors were terrified. They wondered who among themselves or the passengers was causing this calamity. Then Jonah admitted that he was fleeing from God’s call. He told them that all would be well if they threw him into the sea. At first they tried to row the boat to safety, but it became stormier still.

So they threw Jonah into the sea, and the ship was saved. Then God “provided a large fish swallow up Jonah”. Jonah prayed for rescue “from the belly of the fish”, and God spoke to the fish, who “spewed Jonah out on the dry land.” Now our story picks up from today’s lesson: as Jonah was sprawled on the beach, gasping for breath, God spoke to him a second time with the same message. This time Jonah decided enough was enough, and he trudged off to Ninevah.

Jonah was about a third of the way into the city, stumbling along with seaweed still in his hair and clothes, looking a bit the worse for wear. He called out and prophesied that in forty days, Ninevah would be turned over. He didn’t use a word that meant demolished, destroyed, disaster or calamity. He used a milder word like turning a glass upside down.

And then an amazing thing happened! Immediately, the people of Ninevah repented! The king ordered everyone to put on sackcloth and sit in ashes. Everyone from the king and nobles to the poorest people and even the animals began a fast and cried out to God to relent and to save them.

We might wonder how the people could even hear Jonah, in the midst of the traffic and shouting and general noise of a big city? It’s as if someone stood on a street corner in Times Square, and called out “Repent for the world is about to end!” (Lots of people have done that, and no one pays any attention.) Jonah had just preached the most effective sermon ever! And the people believed that his words were from God.

How do we know God’s call? It usually is something surprising that couldn’t come out of our own heads, and often it’s something we don’t think we can do – or even particularly want to do. It may be something entirely new. It is always something for the greater good, in the long run, from a wide perspective. Jonah didn’t want to go to Ninevah, he didn’t think he could preach to the Assyrians. He didn’t even want the people of Ninevah to be saved, yet this was God’s plan, for the greater good. And God’s call is persistent, and God’s help is assured.

God’s call to the first Christians was to complete transformation of life. Paul wrote to the Corinthians to cancel life as they all had known it. He wrote, “The present form of this world is passing away.” They thought this meant that Christ would come in glory the next day or even the following week, but it didn’t turn out quite as they expected. The transformation was more subtle, and is still unfolding.

Last week, the Church celebrated the feast days of a series of early martyrs, including Fabian (a bishop of Rome), Agnes (a young martyr of Rome), the Confession of Peter (who was also martyred). This past Tuesday, Church also celebrated Anthony of Egypt, who was among the first monks, and although he died a natural death in old age, he lived his very long life as one dead to the world. This past week we also remembered and celebrated Martin Luther King Jr., a modern person also called to personal transformation, and to prophesy for the greater good, and who ultimately gave his life.

We are also called to transformation in Christ and to trust in God’s call to us. I hope we won’t be called to an experience like drowning in the belly of a whale and I certainly hope that we won’t be called to martyrdom. But following Christ is not always easy or comfortable. We will sometimes be nudged and coaxed and lured by God outside of our immediate comfort zone, and into seeing and experiencing something new.

Now, just to balance things out, I am going to tell a story about a whale. In 2005, in the Pacific Ocean off San Francisco, there was a humpback whale who was entangled in crab trap lines. The lines were 240 feet long, with heavy weights every 60 feet, and at least 12 crab traps, each weighing 90 pounds. The lines were so tight that they were digging into the whale’s blubber. The weight of the weights and traps were pulling the whale underwater, and she was struggling to reach the surface to breathe.

Four divers responded immediately and spent an hour carefully cutting the ropes away from the whale. It was a highly dangerous operation since one flip of her tail could have killed them. The diver who cut the rope in the whale’s mouth said her eyes were following him the entire time. When the whale had been cut free of the lines, she began to swim in circles, and she swam up to each diver and nudged them. One of the divers said later that it felt like she was affectionately thanking them. One of the divers said he felt changed forever by this experience. (SF Chronicle, 2005)

It was a highly risky operation, and the first of its kind to be successful. The divers risked their lives for one of God’s creatures, and they were blessed by her response. We also are called, each in a different way, to give of ourselves for others and for the common good. God may call us a little or a lot outside of our usual experience, and we may only be able to go forward with trust in God’s help.

As we begin our study of the Gospel of Mark, we’ll find that his favorite word is “immediately”. With God’s grace, may we respond “readily” and “immediately”, like the disciples and like many Christians throughout the ages, to hear and discern and to act in following God’s call. The present form of this world is still passing away – from enmity into community, from violence into peacefulness, from self-interest to compassion – in each individual act of self-giving, however small it may seem, in the Name of Christ.