Spare the
Rod, Spoil the Preacher
Pastor Mathew Magera – 8/19/18 – Sermon 301
St. Thomas Lutheran Church, Trufant, MI
To God be the Glory!
Grace and peace to you from
God our Father, from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit.
Amen.
We have reached the end of
the book of Jonah but just as we are hoping to learn something the book is over
and it leaves us, I'm afraid, with more questions than when we started reading.
In the fourth chapter of Jonah, we come face to face with what appears to be
the same Jonah we found in chapter one, the Jonah that fled from the Word of
God rather than trusting it. We don't seem to find the Jonah who was changed in
the belly of the fish and who preached God's Word to the Ninevites. After his
conversion, we expect Jonah to continue in the ways of God, to understand, to
respect and to revere the Word of God. Instead, what we see here is the old
Jonah creeping back into the story, a bitter Jonah, a vengeful Jonah.
I don't know about you but
when I read the end of the book of Jonah, I feel incomplete, as if I'm missing
something. If you really consider the dialogue that is taking place between God
and Jonah, if you really consider the screenplay as it plays out in our minds,
there is a great tendency to feel as if something has been left out and it begs
us to ask a few questions of Jonah and also of ourselves. When I read the
fourth chapter of Jonah, worries begin to creep up and I’m not sure if I get
the answers I need. I believe you might also have the same questions whether
you know it or not. I want to bring these questions out into the open to show
how real they may be for you and what we can do with them in our daily
vocations as disciples of Jesus Christ.
Jonah has come out of
Nineveh. His preaching is over. God relented and chose not to bring destruction
upon the city. Jonah felt this was very wrong and he became angry. Why doesn't
God just wipe them out anyway? If you remember earlier this summer when we went
through the story of Elijah in a competition with the prophets of Baal. Baal's
prophets called out all day for a response from the god of fire to light up
their altar, but there was no response. Elijah, after soaking the altar in
water and praying once, receives the response from the one true God and the
sacrifice is burned up. The prophets of Baal then confessed the God of Israel
as the one true God. But, that conversion was short lived as Elijah led all 450
prophets into the valley where they were slaughtered. Jonah felt God's
relenting was inappropriate and that the Ninevites should still die for their
sin and so he complains to God, no he whines to God, expressing his
displeasure. And thus begins Jonah's appearance to want things his own way,
that if God spares the rod on Nineveh, Jonah would become spoiled, and I don’t
mean the spoiled brat as the popular phrase alludes to, but spoiled like when
you leave food in the refrigerator for too long and you begin to smell
something just a little fishy. Spare the rod, God? Then just kill me now. Jonah
gives up. The question that arises from this is what happens when we are not
quite in line with the mission of God?
I know we've felt this way
before on our faith journey. We want this but God wants that. How many times
does that come up? We have busy schedules, fixed incomes, and other barriers
but we have a God who wants us totally invested in worship, in the study of the
Holy Scriptures, who wants us to be not just stewards of what we have but
faithful stewards. We reserve our faith stories to the privacy of our minds and
hearts but we have a God who commands us to share our faith publicly. What
happens when we are not quite in line with the mission of God, when we are like
Jonah, conflicted over what God does and who God is in relation to what we want
God to do and who we want God to be? God, you want me to do what? I'm not doing
that.
So, Jonah, then, after
arguing with God over what will happen to Nineveh, stomps his feet like a young
child and goes to sit to watch and see what will happen. Jonah has had a rough
journey. I mean, can't we sympathize with him for a minute? It started in the
rocking boat on the sea, then rocking in the waves themselves, being entombed
in the belly of the fish, then having to walk through the very city he was
afraid of, and now he sits outside the city rubbing his hands together because
as sure as he came and did what God told him to do he was going to sit here and
watch something get destroyed. It's like going to Disney World and not getting
to see Mickey Mouse, Jonah was going to stand right in front of that castle
until Mickey comes out. Jonah wants to see some untamed wrath.
God is merciful to him and
causes a plant to grow to give him shade in the hot sun. Okay, now that feels
pretty good. Before long, God appoints a worm to eat the plant so it withers
and then a hot east wind that brings Jonah great discomfort. Jonah whines
again, about this plant. He whines about the plant. I mean, you can't make this
stuff up. He could have complained about anything but he complains about a
plant. He could've gotten up and made a better shelter but no he just sits
there doing absolutely nothing and complains. The withering plant. The worm.
The sun. The wind. Jonah sits there pouting and whining. So, this begs the
question, what happens when we don't appreciate the circumstances in which we
are planted to do ministry?
I've heard a number of grievances
over the years. Our church is too small. Our people are too old. There's a lack
of this. There's a lack of that. There are no youth. There is no money. It's
too hot in here. It's too cold in here. The snow is too deep. The ramp is too
long. The speakers are too quiet. Boy, I don't know about you but aren't we
starting to sound a bit like Jonah complaining about a plant? So, what happens
when we don't appreciate the circumstances in which, and the gifts through
which we are planted to do ministry, when we find ourselves struggling over
what we don't have instead of placing all of our effort into that which we do?
These questions, that of the
mission of God and of the circumstances in ministry, are what carry us through
to the end of the book of Jonah where we are then burdened even further. The
book of Jonah just ends in what appears to be a conversation that would surely
continue beyond the pages. There is no sense of completion. Jonah was still
sitting there. Did Nineveh end up getting destroyed? If God changed his mind
once, would he change it again for Jonah's sake? Does Jonah ever figure God
out? Does Jonah ever stop rebelling and complaining? These questions come from
this lack of closure or completion and it leaves us unsure and confused. What
happens when we are stuck and in a way of life that appears to have no closure?
We gather each and every
Sunday with these questions. They may burden us. They may be suppressed either
intentionally or unintentionally, but they are still there. And then, when we
leave each Sunday and go out into the week we may still have those questions.
We are dealing with this burden in our lives, this brokenness, this disease,
this impure thought, this diagnosis. We are dealing with all of this and we
don't know how it's going to end. We don't know how it's going to end. If only
we knew the end... it would be so much easier to take action in ministry. If
only we knew that what we are trying so hard to do would be successful... it
would be so much easier to take a leap of faith. If only we knew... but we
don't. Do we?
When we find ourselves in
these positions of discouragement, of question, and tension, we find something
else within Jonah chapter four. Think about this with me, please. When we look
at Jonah chapter four we see something that we have not seen before in the rest
of the book. When we look at this chapter we see that God is about as close to
Jonah as he has ever been. This is the first time in the book of Jonah where we
actually see a dialogue between God and Jonah. When Jonah is despairing, when
Jonah is conflicted and where we are brought into an abrupt end before we find
a sense of closure, there is God as close to us as ever.
I find this to be
encouraging in times like I have been describing, to know that especially when
we are without answer, without closure, in tension or discouraged that we find
Jesus, our hope, to be as close to us as we could ever ask or imagine. When feeling
as if we would rather just give up, Jesus comes to us because he knows that is
where we need him. This gives us faith that when we find ourselves in these
situations that we too can depend on God to be close to us when we are in
tension, when we are discouraged, and when we are lacking that closure.
There once was a highly
distinguished professor who was often called upon to speak through the region
in which he taught. Regardless of the distance of his travels he always called
upon his faithful chauffer to drive him to each of his events. After a while,
during a drive to one of the professor's speaking engagements the chauffer and
the professor were talking.
"I've heard your speech
so much I could recite it in my sleep," the chauffer said.
"Oh really? Would you
like to offer my speech this afternoon?"
The chauffer laughed a bit
but expressed he could surely do it without missing a single word. The
professor took him up on his offer. Before they reached the auditorium, the two
exchanged their uniforms, as it were. The audience members had never met the
professor before so they would have not been able to notice if someone else was
speaking in his place.
The chauffer made his way
into the auditorium and gave a fantastic speech, possibly even better than the
professor had done. It was such a good speech, in fact, that he got a standing
ovation when he concluded. As he began to make his way off the stage the host
for the event motioned for him to remain. He came up to the chauffer, who had
just made this amazing speech and he whispered into his ear, "You have to
stay on stage so the audience can ask questions." You can imagine the
beads of sweat that started to form on his forehead. As he walked back up to
the mic, he saw one lone member of the audience standing at the microphone.
Perhaps it would be an easy question to answer and he could escape offstage.
Unfortunately, the audience member asked quite a difficult question that sought
quite a bit of detail and elaboration in response. The chauffer looked up,
thinking of how to respond and he saw the professor standing in the back
looking right at him. The chauffer moved his mouth toward the mic and said,
"This question that you ask is a great question and it’s such an easy
question to answer that I’m going to have my chauffer come on stage and answer
it for you."
When we think we can do it
on our own, it's as if we are the chauffer who knows the speech backward and
forward. But, then when we are under the lights and put up against the
questions that seem to be unanswerable, Jesus is there for us to provide the
answer as he is the answer himself. He is the one in whom we trust that our
questions will not be left hanging forever. He is the one in whom we can give
our questions to, the weight given to him like the weight placed on him while
he died on the cross. He takes our questions to the grave and he becomes that
answer for us and we look to that day when our questions will be fully
answered, when we are at peace. That day is coming but in the meantime, we can
trust Jesus with our questions and we can place our hope in him.
So, though the book of Jonah
ends the way it does, we still find the presence of God in and throughout as it
moves toward its end. Likewise, we too, though our lives may reflect the end of
the book of Jonah through the questions we have, we also still find the
presence of our Lord Jesus Christ in and throughout our questions, answered or
left without closure or completion. Even now in our worship we find the
presence of our Lord Jesus Christ in our tension, through the words of our
liturgy, our call to repentance, the announcement of forgiveness, in our hymns,
remembrance of our baptism and our gathering together at the table of our Lord.
And so, as you continue in worship and leave from here even without the answers
you are looking for, may Jesus Christ's presence be imperative in your life,
that he might be the answer you need in your daily struggles and in your quest
to be his holy disciple. To God be the glory, now and always. Amen.