“Called to Change”         Dr. Van Kemper

                   Text: Jonah 3:1-5, 10

 

SERMON

     This is the first time I have had the opportunity to stand at a pulpit and preach on Jonah, our O.T. lectionary text for this morning.  But it is NOT the first time that I have prepared a sermon on Jonah.  And herein lies a story.  Back in 1996, on Saturday the 13^th of January, I participated in training for Elders at NPPC.  And one of our tasks was to work in small groups on preparing a sermon on the Book of Jonah.  The point was to try to understand our “sense of calling” to be in service to the Lord as Elders.

Then, on the following Sunday – the 21^st of January 1996 – I served as liturgist for the first time ever and was responsible for reading another text about “calling” – the well known text Isaiah 6:1-10.  Let me read the last three verses of that text to remind you of that text:

 

Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, "Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?" And I said, "Here am I; send me!"  And he said, "Go and say to this people: 'Keep listening, but do not comprehend; keep looking, but do not understand.'  Make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed."

 

I found the last two verses of that text very puzzling, and I remember asking the minister (an interim named Roy Sherrod) just why the text didn’t stop at verse 8, which was so positive, but instead continued to verse 10, which seemed so difficult.  He just smiled and said that sometimes we needed to be reminded of the difficult texts, too.

Well, as many of you know, on the following Monday (the 22^nd), I received a brochure about Ministers’ Week at my SMU anthropology office from the Perkins School of Theology. And I was soon on the road into being called to be a Minister of Word and Sacrament. 

Last week, we sang Hymn 525 – based on the Isaiah text – and I must admit that I never can sing all the way through it without recalling the importance of the story of Isaiah’s calling in my own life.  For that text surely led me to me here among you at Trinity in Oak Cliff.

So, this is by way of letting you know that the Jonah text is – for me at least – tied to another “call” text, that of Isaiah 6.  But, wait, there’s more – as they say on the TV commercials where they offer you the Ginzu knives for $19.95 plus shipping and handling. 

Today, not only do you get Jonah and Isaiah, but you also get the added bonus at no extra charge of the text from I Samuel 3:1-10 that we heard Julie preach about last Sunday. 

Remember: that was the text that told of young Samuel hearing the word of the Lord come to him in the night, not once but three times until he discerned it with the help of his teacher Eli.

But, there’s still more. As I mentioned in the Prayers of the People last Sunday, Julie and I were involved that week in the national PC(USA) conference on Church Redevelopment that took place in Las Colinas.  Its theme was: “A Call to Change.”  And, in fact, the entire church-wide enterprise at redeveloping older, dying congregations is being renamed to “Congregational Transformation”.  At that conference here in Dallas, Julie and I presented two workshops, one on Demographics and another on Strategic Planning – both similar to the ones we have presented here at Trinity, with the exception that we had nearly 50 persons in the first one and nearly 130 in the second one!  About one quarter of the 650 people from all around the country in attendance at this Conference were present in our two Workshops.

So, even more sense of being called into the Lord’s service, especially in being called to congregational transformation!

Then, this week, Julie and I attended the biennial conference of PHEWA – the Presbyterian Health Education and Welfare Association – in San Antonio.  And here comes another free gift added to our original offer of Jonah, Isaiah, and Samuel.  For the key text of the PHEWA Conference was Isaiah 43:19: “The Lord is about to do a new thing.”  Indeed, the “new thing” that we were involved in was the merger of COMANO and UNCL to form PACT; in which both Julie and I will serve as officers -- Julie as the secretary for the coming two years and I as the communications coordinator.

So, after this long lead-in, you can appreciate that the Spirit has been building and building in leading me up to this morning to share Jonah’s story with you.

We all have heard the story of Jonah: the first call, the running away, the being swallowed by the great fish and surviving that; and then the second call (today’s lectionary reading from the O.T.), with Jonah’s irritation at the Lord for actually being merciful to the great city of Nineveh and its people (and animals).

What is surprising about the lectionary text for today is that Jonah himself plays such an insignificant role here.  The narrative focuses on the people of Nineveh and their response to being called by God through Jonah.

The lection begins with Jonah being called by God’s word for a second time – remember that the first time he ran away, but now he finally goes to Nineveh.  Jonah proclaims a short threat to Nineveh: in forty days, it will be overthrown – the Hebrew verb translated here as “overthrown” is used in other places (for example, Genesis 19:25,29) for earthquakes – such as the one that destroyed Sodom!

Well, the listeners to Jonah’s tale knew what had happened in Sodom, and would therefore have expected the same for Nineveh. But, surprise, surprise, unlike the folks in Sodom and Gomorrah, the people of Nineveh “believed God.”

Note that the text does not say that the people believed Jonah or his message.  But they “believed God” -- and so turned from their evil way – that is, they repented. The proof of their belief was visible in the familiar ritual of fasting and putting on sackcloth. 

It is unfortunate that the lectionary reading skips over verses 6-9, for these verses fill out and enrich the drama of the decision made by the city. (cf. Breuggeman, Texts for preaching… Year B, p. 116).

So, let us hear what they did:

 

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.  Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water.  Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.  Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish."

 

The people of Nineveh and their King were not so much faithful as they were filled with action in response to what they heard through Jonah of God’s threat.

These verses 6-9 show that the people and their leaders were very open about their repentance, they were very serious about the need for fasting.  They recognized that their sin – the sin of “violence” – had to be dealt with.  The 9^th verse is curiously reflective, on the part of the King – for he raises the question that perhaps God might relent and change his mind, and that the city might not perish.

In effect, the King of Nineveh hopes that the repentance of the people will bring about a complementary “turn around” on the part of Jonah’s God.  The King of Nineveh, although a stranger to this Hebrew God Yahweh, speculates (“Who knows?”) that this God can be influenced by the actions of the people of this great city. In fact, the King turns out to be a good theologian, understanding that Yahweh does have the freedom to change and to be changed by interaction with humans.  Counting on God’s openness and responsiveness, the King and people of Nineveh act so as to give God a chance to change.

Later on, as chapter 4 shows, Jonah was indignant and even angry that God would turn around in response to the turning around of the evil situation at Nineveh.  In spite of himself, Jonah appears to have been a successful courier of God’s word.  Not only did the people of Nineveh respond and repent, but so did God!

We can see a similar change in God in other Old Testament prophetic texts – e.g., Amos7:1-3,

 

This is what the Lord GOD showed me: he was forming locusts at the time the latter growth began to sprout (it was the latter growth after the king's mowings).  When they had finished eating the grass of the land, I said, "O Lord GOD, forgive, I beg you! How can Jacob stand? He is so small!"  The LORD relented concerning this; "It shall not be," said the LORD.

 

This focus on change or transformation in people and in God was lost on Jonah himself – as the rest of the book (chapter 4) shows all too well.

But, this emphasis on change or transformation should not be lost on us.  Perhaps the key to all of Jonah is to be found in the subtle – and even double – meanings of the Hebrew verb translated as “overthrown” in Jonah’s proclamation (or calling) to the great city of Nineveh.  This verb literally means to “turn” or “turn around” – and thus frequently is used to convey a sense of repentance here and elsewhere in the O.T.  Of course, it also can convey the sense of destruction (as in the case of Sodom and Gomorrah – Genesis 19:25).  But it also can mean to turn or change something (Exodus 7:17; 1 Samuel 10:6), as in changing the heart (Psalm 105:25).

What Jonah does not realize is that this proclamation – or calling – to the city of Nineveh actually was a play on words!  Was God intending to destroy Nineveh (as Jonah seems to think) or did God intend to transform (to save) Nineveh if the people responded to the call for change?  In some ways, Jonah’s brief proclamation “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” is not as prophetic as the King’s statement to the people, “Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we perish not?”

It seems that God always is looking for opportunities to change and to transform.  If people believe in God, and demonstrate their willingness to lay aside evil – especially the violence and exploitation that characterized the Assyrian Empire (of which Nineveh was the leading city in Jonah’s time) – then even God can be called to change.

For instance, we find in the writings of the prophet Jeremiah these words, “Now therefore amend your ways and your doings, and obey the voice of the LORD your God, and the LORD will change his mind about the disaster that he has pronounced against you.” (Jeremiah 26:13)

Which brings the story to us, here at Trinity, in the twenty-first century.

What have we to say, when we hear proclamation after proclamation that this congregation is on a path to being “overthrown?” Does this mean that we are to be destroyed? Or does it mean that we are about to be transformed? Which is it to be – destruction or transformation?

It does us no good to behave like Jonah did.  He pouted, he was angry, but in the end, God won the day, and the people of Nineveh – the outsiders to ancient Judaism – came under the care of God.  They were the Gentiles, the strangers of that time and place, yet God was so impressed by their repentance and their public declarations and manifestations of their belief that God changed and repented.

Some of you sitting there in the pews have expressed the feeling that Oak Cliff is no longer a “nice place” and that too many of the “nice people” who used to live here are gone.  Some of you sitting there in the pews  believe that the “strangers” in this place have turned it into a modern Nineveh, an “evil” and dangerous place.  Some of you sitting there in the pews may even think that our God should destroy the “strangers” and give you back your beloved Oak Cliff – the Oak Cliff that “used to be.”

But, this is not what God is doing in this place.  Just as God recognized and honored the transformation that took place in Nineveh, so too God is recognizing and honoring the transformation that is going on right here and right now in Oak Cliff – and even here within the walls of Trinity Presbyterian Church. 

And I am here to call out to you, just as the King of Nineveh proclaimed to his people, “Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish?” Perhaps, what is going on here is not the “death” of Trinity but its transformation, for surely God is doing a “new thing” here among us.

Perhaps some of you sitting there in the pews do not understand the change.  Perhaps some of you sitting there in the pews do not appreciate the change.  And perhaps some of you sitting there in the pews have decided to follow Jonah’s example (see chapter 4) – of building a booth around yourself and sulking in it, and hoping that all this change will blow away when you come out of your booth next Spring. 

But God would not let Jonah get away with such behavior, and God will not let you get away with it either!

Oak Cliff is a great place, but it is a place being called to change.  And so are we, each one of us here at Trinity.  You can build your little booth, and you can try to ignore the transformation, you even can hope that it will go away, but God has other ideas.  God has brought different folks to live here to take Oak Cliff into the 21^st century, just as God brought so many of you here to carry it through the past century. 

So, in the spirit of Isaiah, in the spirit of Samuel, in the spirit of the PC(USA) Church Redevelopment Conference and its theme of “A Call to Change,” and in the spirit of the PC(USA) PHEWA Conference and its theme “The Lord is about to do a new thing” – and especially in the spirit of the people of Nineveh who responded to Jonah’s words, we at Trinity need to face reality, we need to see the change and transformation all around us, and we need to learn to see this change and transformation as God’s word and work in our midst. For it is the same word and work that the Lord has been laying on the heart of God’s people for centuries – that we all are “called to change.”

 Amen.

© 2003 Robert V. Kemper (e-mail: rkemper@trinitypresdallas.org)