Capitol Hill United Methodist Church

God's Mind...Changed?

A sermon preached by Rev. Ginger Gaines-Cirelli at Capitol Hill United Methodist Church January 22 2006. 3rd Sunday after Epiphany.

Text: Jonah 1-4, Mark 1:14-20

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Any of you seen the extraordinary story of the rat snake and the hamster? I first caught a glimpse of the photograph of the pair on CNN a couple of days ago and then again in the Post Express paper on Thursday. Back in October, folks at a Tokyo zoo presented the 3 inch dwarf hamster, Gohan (the name means "meal"), to Aochan the 3 foot rat snake after the snake refused to eat frozen mice. But instead of eating the hamster, the snake seems to have decided to make friends with it! The photograph is hysterical, showing the two creatures, unlikely bedfellows. Clearly, this story has caught the attention of the masses-we love this story! All the "natural laws" seemingly ignored, the life of the hamster spared, for the sake of what appears to be fraternity. Excellent.

But I wonder: can we get as excited about "mercy" when it means that our own lives and agendas and personal sense of "justice"-the way things should be-get ignored…
Jonah shows us a very human response to that question as his story draws to a close. Here, as the saying goes, is the rest of the story… [Read Jonah 4]
Jonah had his reasons for catching the first ship out of town when first asked to go to Ninevah.
The Assyrians were infamously wicked and brutal.
He had his reasons for wanting the Ninevites to "get theirs."
He'd gone to a lot of trouble and had put himself at considerable risk to go there and proclaim destruction-so, by God!, it better happen. That's the plan. That's what he's been expecting and working on…
He had his reasons for being angry with God.
The issue in question is God's justice-where is it?! Jonah would rather die than live in a world where sinners get off the hook so easily (I can just hear him-"after all, I got swallowed by a fish for cryin' out loud!")
He had his reasons for sticking to his guns, marching out into the desert and pouting and raging.
He seems to think that he knows what is right better than God…and he's waiting to prove God wrong. He's there waiting to see what will become of the city-you see he fully expects the Ninevites to return to their evil ways. "God, the chump…"

But regardless of Jonah's understandable-and even reasonable-disagreement with God and his anger at God, it doesn't change what happened. In chapter 3, verse 10, the story tells us that God's mind changed.
I wonder-did God's mind change or did God simply make a new decision based upon a new reality?
[Perhaps God always had the Ninevites' repentance and conversion and God's subsequent mercy in mind and so, when that's the way it played out, mercy was the choice (much to the chagrin of Jonah!)]

We could speculate all sorts of scenarios for the motivations of various players in the story, but at the very least, we find this to be true: based on the response of the Ninevites to the call from God to repent, based on that new reality, God revealed a divine flexibility-a divine capacity to change the expected plan in order to show mercy.

In my former parish, a poster hung on the wall of the church office that read, "Blessed are the flexible, for they will not get bent out of shape." This is a good reminder to us of a very holy calling in the church. Here in the church, perhaps as much or more than anywhere else, we tend to be rigid in our sense of the way things should be. Each and every one of us has an idea about how the sanctuary should look, what the pastor should do or say or look like, what the priorities should be, where furniture belongs, what the worship should include, who should do what, where the money should go, how people should act, what they should wear…you get the point…

The revelation of a flexible God doesn't suggest that there is no need for faithfully, prayerfully discerned guidelines and practices and expectations. Rather, the revelation of a flexible God reminds us that, at the heart of our calling as Christians, is GRACE-a willingness to be present to people with love and forgiveness. God's grace is God's eternal, loving presence and activity in the world to save and heal. That is what we are called to emulate. That is what Jonah is unable to embody.

And frankly, no one ever said that being a Christian-a real, practicing disciple-would be easy. To emulate the grace, the love and forgiveness, of God is kinda a stretch for us human beings. But that's exactly what we're called to do…to be flexible, gracious, open and present to the reality that has emerged and is in front of us-even when it hasn't happened they way we thought it would or should-that is what we're called to do. You see, as Christians, we recognize that God has been flexible with us; God has been gracious, merciful, forgiving, patient, present, encouraging with you…and so the burden is on each of us to do unto others as God has done unto us.
One of the things I'm reminded of again and again is that God is willing to believe in our capacity for change and goodness much more than we are. We are much less willing to believe that we or-heaven help us-the people we can't stand are deserving of forgiveness or are capable of real conversion…

Many commentators on the stories we've heard today suggest that the common theme is repentance and conversion-turning away from one thing and toward another-turning toward God. I don't dispute this assessment. But the thing that strikes me as much as anything is God's willingness to be flexible, to meet people where we are and see the hopeful possibilities for our lives even when we're nobody special, even when we're at rock bottom, to believe in us human beings even when all the "facts" and well-placed expectations would argue against it. Just look at God's calling Jonah- self-centered, prejudiced, moody… Just look at God's calling the people of Ninevah-brutal and wicked… Just look at Jesus calling the plain old fisher folk along the sea of Galilee… Just think about the fact that God calls you and me!

If Jonah had been flexible and gracefully accepted God's gracious and merciful activity in his life and in the place he'd been called to serve (Ninevah), he might have been able to experience signs and wonders among the people of Ninevah, he might have learned some new things, made some new friends, and grown in his understanding and relationship with God. But because Jonah made a different choice to be stubborn and rigid when things didn't play out according to his agenda, the story closes with his sitting in the scorching heat, alone, angry, resentful, expecting the worst, and wanting to die. The question for us: where are we?

Sermons from other years:

2007

2006

2005

2004

2003

Capitol Hill United Methodist Church is a Reconciling Congregation.
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