January 25, 2009, More Real Than Reality

Jonah 3:1-5 & 10
Mark 1:14-20
In the weeks since Christmas the commercials have announced the closing of Circuit City, that everything in this chain of Electronic Superstores must go at unheard of prices. So a week ago, I went to the store. Against the side wall were the flat screen televisions, each professing to be better than the one beside. At the center was a 54” High Definition with 380 pixels. There were sales signs reporting “Unheard of Prices, Drastically reduced 60% Markdown”. In front of this technological wonder stood a group of men, and two twelve year old boys, all looking transfixed. I quickly took out my cell phone to ask if my wife if we had enough, and was told no, when one of the 12 year olds spoke to the other saying: “You know, it looks more real than reality.”

Just then two of our members appeared behind me as one said “Come to pray upon the economic misfortune of others Pastor?” Which cut me to the quick, the humor of which was that they were in the same store, looking at the same thing, and saying we can't afford the sale either.

That's the story of Ninevah.
One of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World were the Gardens of the Assyrians, no where more splendid than the city of Ninevah. In the midst of a wasteland, there was this oasis, suddenly seven story high walls, carved and painted with idols and fertility gods, with columns and arches, balconies lush with hanging gardens and exotic animals. By saying it took Jonah three days journey to walk through, Ninevah was not a little Village, it was some sixty miles in diameter! Ninevah embodied everything foreign, everything opposing the Hebrews of Ancient Israel, living a Kosher circumcised life with a monotheistic God of Law, Covenant and Commandment. What could one person of faith, from a far off Jewish Village, say to a people so satisfied and full of everything they desired?

The other day, I was speaking with a young man who had been through a horrific series of cancers. He asked, so what do you say to a 40 year old who has been diagnosed with six months to live? There are no pat phrases, no colloquialisms that can make everything seem right. You take the person seriously, because what they are dealing with is deadly serious. You listen, because most of us do not need to be told, we need to speak, to process ideas, to test possibilities, to confess what we believe and what we doubt. You offer hope not that the diagnosis is wrong, nut that using the diagnosis, what do you want to change. In the ancient story of PANDORA's BOX, temptation causes her to open what had been kept locked. As she does everything in the world pours out, the last thing in Pandora's box, after all the other emotions and possibilities are taken out, is HOPE, and underneath the hope is the possibility of change. Finally, you make a commitment, which are very rare in the world today because if you are going to say the words you have to be able to live them out, that no matter the future, they will never be left alone.

The story of Jonah is one of the only books of Prophecy that is told as a Narrative, yet was not an Historic record of fact. Jonah is itself a Parable, the Parable of an Arrogant Man, representing a Chosen people, sent to an Arrogant enemy, a Rejected people. In his self-righteous arrogance, Jonah tries to go his own way, to reject God's Call, the result of which is that he is tossed out even by a group of sailors, swallowed up by the watery chaos of the sea, swallowed up by a monster of the deep. In his isolation and depression, Jonah repents of doing things his own way. Jonah does not repent of his arrogance, he is not humble, not contrite, he still thinks he was right, though he recognizes he was caught, caught disobeying God. Suddenly, the fish can take no more of Jonah and vomits him out at the very place he had tried to avoid. Having been Caught, the Prophet resolves to do what God had commanded, but to do it on his own terms. Where in the story God had told Jonah to prophesy that if Ninevah did not repent they would be destroyed, Jonah attempted to remove the opportunity for repentance. “In 40 days, you will be destroyed.” The humor of every preacher, is that regardless of what is said, the people respond to the word of God. There are times when I would be willing to stand on my head, to bark like a dog to get people to respond in faith, yet often people will come back three, four, ten years later saying “You remember the sermon you preached” and they have reworked and head the word of God in ways the preacher never yet imagined.

Faith is not about people getting what they deserve. This world is not fair. Enemies can turn and repent. If life were fair, all any of us would have to do is follow the rules. But in this life, there are cancers, there is job loss, the 401k we thought we had saved by investing we actually put at risk, divorces happen, airplanes hit buildings, people we do not know can perceive us to be enemies. There are times when it seems hard to believe in happily ever after. Yet, we take one another seriously, we listen to one another, we never give up hope of change, and we never give up on one another.

Faith is perceiving life differently. More Real than Reality. Not seeing things as they are, not as perfect because nothing that has been or is has ever yet been perfect, but different. As we review the work of the Church today and commit leaders for the near tomorrow, we recognize there are many ideas we have tried out, exploring, only to determine that the time is not yet ready, part of leadership is assessing the time and the means, and the possibility of considering reality differently, not only what is right, but what is faithful.

According to the Gospels, Jesus was walking along the shore when he saw a group of successful fishermen. Fishermen take what is natural, what God has given, and fishermen use all their skills, their experience and their relationships to gather what God has created for different purpose, as food for hungry people. Jesus called the fishermen, to use their gifts differently, instead of being fishermen to become fishers of men and women gathering people for new purposes.

What we routinely ignore is that the Disciples had another life before this. They had to choose to let go what they had known, to leave their hooks and nets and gigs and snares, to trust where God would lead, to trust that they were called. We like to add to our resumes, to add to our experiences, without acknowledging that at times we are called to repent, to let go the way we always have done, in order to consider faith differently.

Throughout Christian History, we have recalled that Jesus was asked for A SIGN, some proof that what he was doing was right. According to the Gospels, Jesus said, the sign I give you is the Sign of Jonah. Which superficially has always been taken as for three days Jonah was in the belly of the whale taken to the depths of Sheol in order to be brought back to do what God intended. The problem with that allegory is that Jonah was not truly changed, not humbled in doing God's work as Jesus was. The point of the Sign of Jonah is not that Jesus was Jonah, but that we are. There are times when we can be a pretty arrogant people; a people who believe we have the sole ownership of the Truth of what is Right. What Jonah was asked to question is whether he could allow himself to be used by God, whether the whole nation of Israel and the Great City of Ninevah, and WE could allow ourselves to be used by God? What if life, and faith, are not about all we can have? What if it is not about possessing the 54” HD 360pixel flat screen at the expense of others' losses, but instead seeing life as more real than reality, by perceiving ourselves as being part of the lives of others. NOT that you are God's Gift to your Family, or that you were sent by God to fix your brother. But to stop and recognize that what you do for others,... visiting the person who is shut in,... shoveling the walk of someone else,... offering an idea for someone else's advancement,... giving away what you have that others need,... this is what matters, what helps us perceive life differently.