Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
January 29, 2006
Book of Jonah
It’s old American Indian tale, you’ve heard similar stories…. A young brave found an eagle’s egg, and not really knowing what else to do with it, he placed it into the nest of a prairie chicken. The eaglet hatched with the brood of chicks and grew up with them. It grew up thinking it was a prairie chicken and did what the other prairie chickens did. It scratched in the dirt for seeds and insects to eat. It clucked and cackled and flew in a brief thrashing of wings and flurry of feathers no more that a few feet off the ground. After all, that is how prairie chickens were supposed to fly.
Years passed, and the changeling eagle grew bigger and stronger. One day, it saw a magnificent bird soaring far above in the cloudless sky. Hanging with graceful majesty on the powerful wind currents, it soared with scarcely a beat of its strong golden wings. “What a beautiful bird,” said the eagle to an old prairie chicken. “What is it?”
“That’s an eagle – the chief of the birds,” the old chicken cackled. “But don’t you give it a second thought. You could never be like him. You’re only a prairie chicken.” So the changeling eagle never gave it another thought. And he lived and died thinking he was a prairie chicken.
Last week I made some rather unkind remarks about Pat Robertson and his unkind remarks about Ariel Sharon and the serious stroke he suffered. Recall that the ever-sensitive Robertson said that the stroke was God’s punishment of Sharon for his willingness not only to work with the Palestinians but also to even give them back some of the land in Gaza. In my humble opinion, when it comes to being a minister, Robertson is far more prairie chicken than eagle.
However, having said that, I must also say that I once knew some church members – good and faithful folks and good friends – who insisted that Pat Robertson and his television program had turned their lives around. They heard something from him – obviously something I have never heard – and it moved their lives in a new direction. It was a humbling thing for me to have to step out from behind all my correct opinions and preconceptions and admit that in their case, clearly God had used even Pat Robertson in a positive way. I hate it when God does that to me…how dare God fool with my opinions! This unpredictable God who catches us by surprise, interrupts our regular patterns, and challenges our assumptions. When God comes along even the prairie chicken can soar like an eagle.
I am reminded of a reflection by Ann Weems:
Here we are, you and I, called to be God’s Holy People.
You say you’re not the holy type,
But I’m not talking about holier-than-thou.
I’m not talking about religious ritual
And the last thing I mean is self-righteousness.
I’m talking about us. I’m talking about paying attention
To the things Jesus taught people
Ordinary people, people like you, people like me…
Look at the disciples, ordinary people called to follow,
Called to be God’s Holy People,
Called to live in this world with tender hearts.
Live holy lives…impossible? Is anything impossible with God?
That old woman, Sarah, thought it impossible to have a child,
The lepers thought it impossible to be healed.
The disciples thought it impossible to feed five thousand with
Two loaves and five fishes.
Mary and Martha thought it impossible that their brother
Lazarus was alive.
The lame thought it impossible to walk…
The blind thought it impossible to see…
Here we are, ordinary people, called to be Holy People of God.
If you have eyes to see and ears to hear,
See and hear God’s holiness in your life.
That sounds good, but she isn’t talking about me, is she? Common, ordinary me, living my common ordinary life? Called to be one of the Holy People of God? No, she’s not talking about me…I hope she isn’t talking about me. I’m, just a prairie chicken scratching for seeds and bugs. I’m happy being a prairie chicken. I don’t soar with the eagles – I don’t want to soar with the eagles. No, God couldn’t have anything special in mind for me.
“Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah…” Yes, we are back to Jonah – stubborn, angry, fearful, bitter Jonah. Jonah, a man who would rather nurse a grudge than forgive; who prefers punishment over mercy; who grumbles and complains about a God who dares to show grace to “those kind of people.” Jonah, a narrow-minded, surly, unpleasant man. I doubt he ever received a Valentine’s card on February 14th, and probably not many dinner invitations either. I wouldn’t want him in my house, with his constant complaining about God and the world, and his whining about unfair life is to him. And yet, this is a man called by God to do God’s work…. not once, but twice, work that Jonah doesn’t want to do. What could God have been thinking?
The great German pastor, Helmut Thielicke, had a treasured old photograph that he always kept near his desk. It was a snapshot of a nativity pageant. But not just any pageant. A group of rather grizzled looking men are wearing white robes and holding candles in their rough hands. Another group of men is kneeling before them, feigning terror. It is clear that they are supposed to be the angels, speaking to the fearful shepherds. Why this photograph? Thielicke explained that it was taken in a prison. The men in the photo were all convicts, hardened criminals whose lives had been transformed by Christ. These thieves and thugs were dressed like angels. For Thielicke, it was a marvelous parable, a visible reminder of the power of God to overcome human sin or any barrier.
Jonah runs, he gets swallowed by a fish, he sulks under a plant. But no matter what, he cannot get away from God, and as unwilling as he is, he also cannot escape from being the person, the vehicle, through whom God’s will is done. And that’s the way it always is with God, folks. The Book of Jonah is not really a story about Jonah at all. Nor is it a story about a big fish as much as I love stories about big fish. This is God’s story and God is the primary actor, again a God who cannot be limited or confined by our definitions and expectations. This is a God who makes promises, promises that run beyond all destructive human hopelessness. And this is a God who intends to keep those promises, who intends to bring a newness into our world that not even all our old tired patterns of fear and hate and violence can overcome. What the Book of Jonah affirms, indeed what the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth affirm, is that God’s promise and God’s resolve are at work, even though we and our world do not notice, even though we and our world do not always resonate with or even welcome that work.
But this is where it gets interesting. God doesn’t really care about our opinions. God doesn’t even care about our resistance. What God cares about is us. In his classic book, The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis depicts Satan explaining to a cadre of assistant devils what they are fighting against in their warfare with God. He says, “Remember, disgusting as it may seem to you, God really loves those weak, filthy, human vermin that crawl the earth. Hateful as it may seem to you, God really wants them finally to be happy. His Master Plan is to win them the free, unforced recognition of His love, and the free unforced response to it.”
Words of Old Testament professor, Walter Brueggemann, come to mind: “God does God’s work, to be sure, but the story of the Bible is the story of enlisting and recruiting human agents to do the things that God has promised. God’s power explodes in our midst, and we get pushed out beyond our conventional horizon…pushed out to do God’s own work of promise and liberation.” “If you have eyes to see and ears to hear, see and hear God’s holiness in your life.” We can talk about Moses and Samuel, Mary and Martha, we can even talk about angry Jonah, being used by God in spite of himself. But we miss the point if we do not see that what is to be seen is God working in and through us. We see ourselves as prairie chickens, we are most comfortable as prairie chickens, but God sees a church filled with eagles.
Jonah had his cherished ordinariness intruded upon and broken. He wasn’t sure he liked it, but like it or not, he discovered that his life was saturated with the reality of God. That would be my hope for this church, in our meeting today and in this year ahead. We’re going to reveal some big plans, we’re going to face some big challenges. But along the way can we just set aside all of our agendas in order that we might be pushed out beyond our conventional horizon; that we might discover the God who loves us so much that God simply will not let us go, who will find us wherever we are, and who is determined to form and shape us, ordinary prairie chickens that we are, into the Holy People of God.
In the words of Lutheran pastor, Mary Anderson, “For all our imperfect following, for all our resistance, for all our questioning of our capabilities and responsibilities, God’s will is done. In the end God gets what God wants. Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done. As we pray, so shall we follow.