Immediately!
Year B
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Psalm 62:6-14
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Mark 1:14-20
May the words of my mouth… O God… speak your Truth…
It was the last straw… it was the straw that broke the camel’s back… I mean… there’s only so much you can stand… so much weight of wrong… you can carry… so much that’s at odds with your values… with your core beliefs… before you have to say something… before you have to do… something… and even then… especially then… you’re not about to waste time… not about to move slowly… not about to ask permission… the time for talking is over… it’s time to act… and to act immediately…
Two weeks ago… we heard the first eleven verses of Mark’s Gospel… about John’s call to repentance… about Jesus’ baptism… and the voice from Heaven said… You are my Son… the Beloved Truth Teller… in You I am well-pleased…
In our reading from the Book of Jonah… Jonah is charged with calling Nineveh to truth telling… to repentance… and as you may remember… in the preceding chapters… Jonah tried to escape God’s call… tried to sail to Tarshish… to the end of the known world… but he was thrown overboard because he was the cause of turbulent seas which threatened to break the ship up… and he was swallowed by a whale… he was consumed by something which kept him from seeing what was going on around him… and what was going on around him… was the promise of God’s unmerited forgiveness…
We don’t know exactly what the Ninevites were called to repent from… but when the news of Jonah’s warning reached the king… he issued a proclamation which said [in vv. 7b-9]: 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… he said… God may relent and change his mind… he may turn from his fierce anger… so that we do not perish…
The story says it would have taken three days to walk across Nineveh… and Jonah walked for only one day… he didn’t cross the whole city… and we don’t know how loudly he was able to shout this warning… so I wonder if this story says less about Jonah’s success in reaching every ear… and less about whether the king’s proclamation reached every eye… or whether it says more about the breadth and depth of God’s forgiveness…
But repentance isn’t just saying… I’m sorry God… please forgive me… and repentance isn’t only truth telling… repentance involves a new heart… and a new mind… and new hearts and new minds don’t speak the same old words… don’t believe the same old beliefs… don’t perform the same old actions…
Bp. Brian Maas… from the Nebraska Synod of the ELCA writes… once Jesus starts preaching… the action verbs start rolling… because the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near… it’s time to repent and to believe… not only that… it’s time to follow… Mark doesn’t say that the first four disciples have heard Jesus’ preaching… but they certainly repent… practice metanoia… change their minds… and choose a new direction for their lives… the bishop continues… faithful living has consequences too… arrest… repudiation… condemnation… even death… including the death of biases and prejudices… privilege… and the insistence on one’s way… one’s ego… and one’s facades…
Jonah was swallowed by a whale… he was consumed by something which kept him from seeing what was going on around him… and so I wonder… what consumes us… what keeps us from seeing what is going on around us… what allows us to see only what we want to see… and hear only what we want to hear…
Paul’s words in 1 Corinthians exhort us to be in the world… but not of it… to honor our relationships… and our feelings… and to deal with the world… but without attachment… without believing that the things we see… and the things we do… are all there is… it finds some expression… for example… in our belief that the Body and Blood of Christ are “truly and substantially present in… with… and under the forms” of consecrated bread and wine…
If you were… I believe… fortunate enough… to hear Amanda Gorman recite her poem “The Hill We Climb” at Wednesday’s Inauguration… you heard her say that what just is… isn’t always just-ice… that our nation isn’t broken… but just unfinished… that we are striving to compose a country committed to all cultures… colors… characters… and conditions of man… and that we don’t think we can form a perfect union… just a more perfect one…
So what do we leave behind as we move along The Way… Isaac Villegas… pastor of the Chapel Hill Mennonite Fellowship writes… in 1Corinthians 7… Paul describes a “passing away” of the current “form of this world.” The systems of power… the moral codes… the value structures… none of those deserve the deference of our political will or our economic lives… instead… Paul writes… deal with the world without making deals with the power brokers… because the form… the structure… and the core of this order is a sham…
The United States is the city of Nineveh… and part of our corporate structure… is systemic racism and white supremacy… and Pastor Villegas quotes historian Saidiya Hartman who wrote… “Abolition is a synonym for the end of the world.” Abolition is a synonym for the end of the world… because when you abolish slavery… when you abolish biases and prejudices… as Bp. Maas said… when you abolish thinking that others are worth less than you… that they’re not even human… then an entire way of life passes away… with its particular industries… and economies… and social customs… and language… and knowing nods… and dress codes… and ideas about who ought to live on which side of the railroad tracks…
And the unknowns of the new world order can be so terrifying… that if you can just prevent or negate the ballots of people of color… then you can maintain the status quo… and there are even some who are willing to kill in order to maintain it… the only hope is to embrace repentance as a structural overhaul… and the only question worth asking… is how will we love our neighbors… as the present order passes away…
Simon and Andrew left their nets immediately… James and John responded to Jesus’ call immediately… there was no time to waste… now think about how long it took for the 15th Amendment… which allowed African – Americans to vote… to be passed… not until 1870… think about how long it took for the 19th Amendment… which gave women the right to vote… to be passed… not until 1919… think about being recognized by the country in which you live that you are co-equal with white men… I imagine one thing you’d think is… whatever has been is done… it’s time now for a new thing… for new work… for us to respond to God’s call… so let’s go… there’s no time to lose… it must be done immediately…
Richard Rohr wrote… the early church surely knew the liberating effect of the presence of the Holy Spirit… perhaps the apostle Paul’s teachings had so much impact because he restored human dignity in another time of widespread oppression… slavery… and injustice… in the corrupt and corrupting Roman Empire… Paul shouts… “One and the same Spirit was given to us all to drink!” (1Corinthians 12:13). He utterly levels the playing field… You… all of you… are sons and daughters of God in Christ Jesus… (Galatians 3:26)… in Paul’s estimation… the old world was gone forever… and a new world was born… in which everyone is free…
And I’m convinced that this new world already exists… but it’s just below the surface level of what we see… and what collectively we’ll allow… just as the Body and Blood of Christ exist just below the surface of the bread and the wine… and after 2,000 years… we are still living into a more perfect relationship… with God in Christ… and with each other… and it’s my prayer… and I hope yours too… that the majority of us can confront the present realities… the way that Jesus and the disciples did in Mark’s Gospel… and birth God’s new world… immediately…
