Transcribed from the Sermon preached February 27, 2005

Scripture Readings:  Luke 22:54-62;  Jonah 3:3-4:11

I saw a poster entitled "All I need to know I learned from my dog."  Here are a couple of the lessons we learn:

If you stare at someone long enough eventually you get what you want.

If it is not wet and sloppy it is not a real kiss.

If you do something wrong, always take responsibility for it as soon as you are dragged out from under your bed.

Poor Peter doesn’t want to take responsibility for knowing Jesus.  It could cost him his life.  At the very least the mob could ostracize him.  Not many of us want to emulate Peter, but many of us have.  How often have you turned away from doing the right thing when the going got tough?  Perhaps on the playground when someone was being picked on.  Perhaps to be liked by the "in" crowd we denied being friends with…one of our friends.  Maybe the cost of discipleship or friendship just seemed too high.  Perhaps we didn’t speak up at work when something was unjust, unfair, untrue or cruel.  It could have cost us our jobs, and we do have a family to feed. "It is not like I am single anymore!"  But deep down we know we have been wrong.  We should have stood by our friend, our colleague, our teacher, our God.

            Now Noah has another problem.  Nineveh is not a place he likes.  Why in the world would God think Noah would care enough to go ask them to repent of their sins?  They are not his problem, and he takes off in the opposite direction.  He doesn’t change his mind until his cruise ship hits an ice berg.  Actually, that is not how the story goes, it is not Noah’s but Jonah’s cruise ship that hits the ice berg.  Just checking to see if you are paying attention.  Ok, and Jonah’s ship doesn’t hit an ice berg but a storm; he is tossed overboard and eaten by a large fish.  Talk about having a bad day.  The whale is just trying to get a fish and he got a human.   Let me ask this question: anybody been going in the opposite direction of God’s call, gotten into trouble and suddenly found faith?  "Ok God, if you get me out of this mess I will start buying organic food.   I will volunteer for the PTA at my kid’s school."

Anyway, Jonah apparently doesn’t settle well with the whale’s constitution and he is spit out.  He heads to Nineveh to deliver God’s word, "repent or die."  The people actually listen!  They repent and turn from their evil ways.  Jonah is ready to witness God kicking some serious butt.  He gives an ultimatum but he doesn’t expect it to be followed.  And, at this point, he is hoping Nineveh doesn’t repent, so that they will get what he thinks they deserve.  At least he expects a good show.  He sets himself up on the hill overlooking the city, under a nice shade tree, probably with a couple of corona’s and a lounge chair, waiting for the super bowl of God’s wrath to get under way.  (You can tell I have delved deeply this morning into the cultural history of the sixth century.)

Jonah’s reaction expresses that part of us that gets annoyed at a Jimmy Carter for messing up the action in Haiti.  The part of us that wishes the President would go ahead and kick some butt anyway.  It is like building up to the start of the chariot race in Ben Hur and suddenly having the bad guy break down in tears as his repressed feelings of childhood pain are loosed.  Next he begs Judah’s forgiveness and withdraws from the chariot race. We don’t know whether we are angrier at the fact that the slime bags are not going to get dragged under the chariot or that we are not going to be able to witness it.  How cruel can God be?  The answer is…very cruel.  He takes out Jonah’s shade tree and kicks up a wind storm.  Have you ever been in the California desert during a Santa Ana wind?  Think sand!

            Now Jonah is really angry.  And this is a piece of psychological genius on our author’s part: When Jonah is angry that the Ninevites don’t get punished because they repent, God says, "You are right to be angry."  God is not saying that we are not supposed to feel anger, only that we are not supposed to allow anger to determine our lives.  This piece of information might be helpful in a post 9/11 world. It might help us in our families too.

            But when we are angry we are gonna find some way to express it, aren’t we?  The bush is the last straw that breaks Jonah’s back.  In psychology we call this transference.  We take our anger from something big and put it onto something else.  The issue might be quite small, but we bring along our anger from the other thing.  "I am sick and tired of you putting the toilet paper on so that is rolls on the outside."  The real issue is that you suspect he had an affair, but you are gonna nail him to the wall on this toilet paper issue.  "You parked your car in my driveway for a month.  That does it, I’m not talking to you for three years."  Never mind that dad died three months ago.

            God says "It is right for you to be angry about the bush?"  And Jonah says, "Yes, angry enough to die."  He has had it.  Now God brings him back to the real deeper issue.  "You are worried about one bush.  I’m worried about the people and animals."

            Let’s jump back to Ben Hur.  Whether Judah gets to beat the bad guy in the chariot race or not he still has to deal with his pain and anger, with his own need for forgiveness, for his inability to forgive.  Perhaps our stories this morning are really not about how to tell or watch a story, or just about the characters, about Judah, Ben Hur, Peter and Jonah; these stories are also about us and our need for forgiveness.  It seems that God will haunt us until we finally admit we also need to be cleansed: Cleansed of our anger, of our love for violence, of our fear of violence and ridicule, cleansed from wanting to abandon God.

            It is the passion of Christ, Christ’s willingness to endure violence without retaliation, his willingness to forgive even when there was justification for wrath, his vulnerability exposed in public that somehow, paradoxically, showed great strength, great focus, great forgiving love, great victory.  So whether we are the wimp Peter, or the madly brave and vengeful soldier, or the spectator Jonah cheering the vengeance on, or the bad guy or the bad people, God says to us through the cross, I have received your vengeance, your anger, and you are forgiven.  I love you, no matter what. Now repent and follow me.

             I will remind you that Jacob Anthony, the baby we are about to baptize played the baby Jesus in our Christmas pageant. God calls us like Jacob Anthony to play Jesus, not just as a baby, but right now in our lives.  Let go of the anger and pain, the shame and guilt.  Let go of it all and love.  Peter does.  Peter comes back after his painfully shameful act of dishonor and faithlessness and becomes a great leader of the faith.  If there is hope for Peter, perhaps there is hope for us too.

What a blessing it is to witness this baptism of Jacob Anthony today.  A testimony that even before we can say the words pain, or anger, or vengeance, God comes to us and says, "I love you forever.  I forgive you for those sins you have not yet thought of committing.