Wednesday, March 12th
Stan Flint
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and grant me a willing spirit to sustain me. Then I will teach transgressors your ways, so that sinners will turn back to you.
Psalm 51:12-13
Poor old Jonah. Boy, did. He not have a “willing spirit”! He fled God’s command to go to Nineveh the first time, so God intervened. Ninevah was among the wickedest, cruelest, and most idolatrous cities in the world. Can you imagine how it would go if you went to Bourbon Street with such a message? “Uh, no thanks, Lord?” Yet, as Christians, that is exactly what we are called to do each day in our lives.
So, you may ask, “Where is Ninevah? To whom are we called to deliver warnings and wisdom, offer repentance and guide to deliverance? Or we may ask ourselves, “Do we hear Jonah warning us today?”
Sadly, we don’t have to look far. Acrimony, hatred, fear, incivility, division, deceit, cruelty, greed, and malice are everywhere to be witnessed. All one must do is read the news. Wars and rumors of wars, brothers turned against brothers, children against their families and enterprises, and countries dedicated to evil. The harvest indeed is plentiful but the laborers are few. After all, which of us wants to be the one to say, “This is wrong, stop doing it or you will be destroyed”? Understandably, Jonah was not willing. I guess many of us are not willing, either because we fear the impact it may have on us, our relationships, and/or our welfare.
Still, the call to Jonah is every Christian’s call, and we shirk that duty or ignore the warnings at our own peril and the peril of those we love. Israel faced a similar fate as Ninevah. Their prophers warned them, but they did not repent and suffered captivity in exile for five hundred years in Assyria. They had their warning but ignored it.
Ironically, Assyria is home to Ninevah and its leader, Nehemiah. Everyone from King Nehemiah on down responded to Jonah’s wisdom, turned away from their evil ways and were redeemed. It does not always work that way, and it was more likely that Jonah would be executed rather than obeyed. But God does work in strange and mysterious ways when we have the courage to follow his will. Years later Nineveh, after being redeemed, returned to their evil ways and the city was eventually overthrown. They had their warning.
Jesus compared himself to Jonah in today’s Lenten reading, reminding us that we must heed the wisdom he offers in his warning to confront and turn away from evil. Jesus’s statement strongly implies there will be no second warning. If we do repent and maintain our repentance we will be saved, and we will save many others, as Jonah did. We may not be swallowed by a whale or be commanded to spread the news in the French Quarter, but we are called every day to our Ninevehs. Earlier I posed a question, “Where isour Nineveh?” It is everywhere we go. It is at the grocery, driving our cars, at work, at home or on social media. We are called to confront cruelty, to call out meanness, selfishness, deceit, and callousness and to announce God’s redemption.
“You have to turn on evil and when it tries to hide, you have to go in after it and never be denied. Time is running out. Let’s roll.”
Neil Young wrote these lyrics to his song “9-11”. I do not think anyone would confuse Neil Young with Jonah or Jesus, but these warnings are blaring all around us. Will we have courage to stand in the congregation, in our workplace and in our lives? Will we be “more willing” than poor old Jonah to follow God’s call and more willing than ancient Israel to heed the warning?
Lord God Almighty, grant us the courage and willing spirit to follow your will, your ways and your words. Empower us to call out and turn on evil in all its forms, becoming a conduit for your redemption to those around us. So be it, in the name of the everlasting God, who along with his Son and the Holy Spirit reign forever. Amen.
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