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• Forgiveness and healing--
in our church, among our families and friends, and throughout our community.
• Faith-building-- forming our minds on the mind of Christ, with each household a community of faith and each gathering a cherished opportunity to share and grow in Christ.
• Hospitality-- treasuring everyone who comes our way, striving to be faithful friends and working to help all in need.
• Good Citizenship-- both of the Kingdom of God and the govern-
ments of this world, seeking justice, peace and dignity for all people.
• Caretakers of God's Blessings
thankful for all of God's blessings, showing reverence for God's creation, and living every day mindful of our duty to God.
We Pledge to be a home for one another and welcome new friends on the journey.
Adapted from David J. Schlafer and Timothy F. Sedgwick, Preaching What We Practice. Moorehouse Publishing (Harrisburg PA, 2007)
This lesson comes from Jonah 3:1-5, 10. My Old Testament professor used to say that Jonah is the most wonderful comedy in the Bible. Jonah is the reluctant prophet who does everything wrong. He is unfaithful and disobedient to God until God forces him into obedience. He gets mad at God and pitches childish tantrums.
After Jonah tries to run away, he discovers that with God, you can run but you can't hide. Through his disobedience Jonah is in so much trouble that he winds up in the fish’s belly, fighting off stomach acid without so much as a Tums to help him out. Finally, he utters a prayer of faith, and is spewed onto the shore. Jonah learns that there's nothing like swimming in fish vomit to remind us that salvation, while miraculous and wonderful, is not always a pleasant process.
Jonah decides that he'd better do what God tells him. So, he gets up and goes to Nineveh to deliver his one and only prophecy. The author is a little prone to exaggeration. He writes that Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days walk across. Nineveh was a magnificent Assyrian (Iraqi) city. Archaeologists tell us that the total city was about 1730 acres (less than 3 square miles) in size. But, would it take three days to walk across Arlington, Virginia? Maybe if you had to use a walker. But after all, this is a fish story, isn't it?
Jonah delivers his one and only prophecy in Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown! Much to his surprise, the Ninevites believed Jonah, proclaim a fast, put on the sackcloth of repentance and change their ways. And in the most remarkable statement imaginable, the Bible says that God changed his mind and did not bring calamity upon them.
This really made Jonah mad. Our lesson stops here, but if you read on, you discover that Jonah says to God I told you so! I knew you wouldn’t destroy them that's why I ran away to Spain in the first place. I knew you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. I wish I were dead!
In a hissy fit Jonah builds a hut outside town to sit and pout. And God, who loves us even when we're having a tantrum, makes a castor bean plant spring up overnight to give him shade. Jonah likes the plant and gets in a better mood. So, proving that he has a great sense of humor, God sends a cut-worm to kill the plant. Jonah has another I wish I were dead hissy fit and God gently points out that if Jonah loves that castor bean plant, how much more should God love the people of Nineveh.
Thus we have the story of the worst prophet ever, and how God loves us even when we're stinkers. Good thing.
