1.25.09 Ep3 Miracle of Faith

• Jonah and the whale – it's one of the most popular, and best-known stories in all scripture, but very few people have actually read the whole story
  • If you haven't, I encourage you to take 15 minutes when you get home and read it in your Bible
  • Meanwhile, a short snippet of the little book of Jonah serves as our first reading for today
• The whole story – and it is a wonderful story – goes something like this
  • God commanded Jonah to go to the great, sinful, foreign city of Nineveh and speak God's word against it
  • Jonah promptly hopped aboard a ship that was headed the opposite way and fled – absolutely fled in the oppoiste direction from Nineveh and what God had called him to do
  • Then a huge storm rose up and threatened to sink the boat.
  • The sailors, a susperstitious bunch, figuring that someone must have offended the God of the sea, cast lots to finger the guilty party
  • The lot, of course, fell on Jonah, and Jonah confessed to them that he had offended God by fleeing, and now endangered them by hiding on their ship
  • Jonah then told them to throw him overboard to appease God, and reluctantly that's exactly what the sailors did
  • The storm immediately stopped, and the pagan sailors believed in and worshiped the God of Israel
  • Meanwhile, God sent a large fish which swallowed Jonah
  • That fish swam and swam back toward Nineveh, and eventually spit Jonah up onto dry land
  • Shaking the fish-slime off of him, God commanded Jonah a second time to go to the great and wicked foreign city of Nineveh and preach to its people
  • So Jonah finally went deep into the big city where God had commanded him to go
  • And there in the heart of the city Jonah spoke God's Word saying that in 40 days, that great city of Nineveh would be overthrown
  • With that, from the great king down to the lowliest servant, the people repented of their sins, and they dressed in sackcloth and ashes, and they and even their animals fasted
  • And then we hear: "When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it. [3:10]"
  • God was merciful to the repentant Ninevites, and THAT MADE JONAH ANGRY
  • Jonah went out and sat in the hot desert to look down on the great city, hoping that God would still stir up enough anger to smite the great city for its sin… and he sat… and he sat… and he sweated in the sun… and he sweated some more… and NOTHING happened to the city
  • Then, to Jonah's great joy, God un-asked caused a small plant to sproat and grow, and by the end of the day it had grown into a bush so big that it cast its shade over Jonah, and so he sat there now in the cool pleasant shade still hoping for the destruction of Nineveh
  • But the next morning, God caused a worm to drill its way into the bush, and just as quickly as it sprang up, that bush shriveled up and once again Jonah was subjected to the burning sun – and he was even angrier that his precious plant had died
  • With that, God spoke one last time to Jonah:
    "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he [Jonah] said, "Yes, angry enough to die." Then the LORD said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals? [4:9-11]"
  • And with that question where God essentially says to Jonah, "Why SHOULDN'T I CARE for all those people and animals?" – with that question, the book ends
• It's a great story
  • It has the command to witness, a big fish, a reluctant prophet, a repentant people, a merciful and forgiving God, and a sulking prophet
  • but somehow it's the great fish that has captured every one's imagination, and it's by the great fish by which this story is known
    • Not surprisingly some people worry about whether being swallowed by a great fish really could have happened and set out to prove that it could
    • And other people just think it's just a silly story
    • But they, and sometimes we, miss the point.
  • Listen to that wise old man Martin Luther has to say, as he steers us away from the fish to the real point of the story:
    "… I am tempted to say that no apostle or prophet, not even Christ Himself, performed and accomplished with a single sermon the geat things Jonah did. His coversion of the city of Nieveh with one sermon is surely as great a miracle as his rescue from the belly of the whale, if not an even greater one. For just as the whale had to spew Jonah forth in obedience to the words of God, so Jonah by the word of God also tore the city of Neveh from the belly and the jaws of the devil, that is, from sin and death. [ LW 19:37]"
• So Luther reminds us that the fish is not the big miracle. The really big miracle is the faith that God has created through God's own Word which tears listeners away from the jaws of sin and death
  • And God has created this faith not with a charming, well-dressed, and well-spoken and eager-to preach prophet
  • God has done this with a grumpy, fish-slimed, reluctant prophet who indeed down in his heart of hearts really wanted Nineveh to burn
  • But God's Word, not the messenger, is ultimately what creates faith that frees sinners from death
• For Christians, long after the story of Jonah, the mercy of God has a heart and a form
  • God's mercy from the very beginning was the heart of Jesus' ministry
  • And the form of God's mercy was the form of Christ on the cross who was then raised from the tomb – not for his sake, but for ours, so that we might receive God's merciful and gracious gift of forgivness and life
• So what about us?
  • Faith, even the smallest glimmer of faith, even faith buffeted by doubts (because after all only someone with faith can have doubts) – faith is the big miracle in our lives
    • God has done a wondrous thing in Jesus Christ, and through God's Word spoken, and made visible in Holy Baptism and Holy Communion – God has done a wondrous thing going to the trouble and sacrifice to create faith in us
  • As for our life together, maybe each and every church needs a sign that in big flashing neon letters says, "Welcome all Ninevites!"
    • That is to say, just as Jonah didn't like the Ninevites – they were foreigners, they were sinners, maybe they talked funny – just as Jonah didn't like the Ninevites, there are people that we don't like either
    • But the community of faith is not about who we like or don't like – God's word, much to Jonah's regret, and sometimes even to our disappointment – God's Word, and God's mercy was and is for everyone
    • So Ninevites – whoever it is that you or I don't like – just fill in the blank with whoever it is – Ninevites are welcome in God's house
  • And finally, the next step, is not just to welcome whomever the Ninevites are to us. The next step is to remember that we have been called and commanded very bit as much as Jonah was, and called and commanded every bit as much as Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John were in today's gospel were – we have been called and commanded not just to wait for the Ninevites to find their way to God's house, but for us to go out into Nineveh and preach the Good News that liberates from sin and death
    • The church is ALWAYS an island of grace, in the midst of a foreign land
    • Peal back the veneer of respectability and cultural religiosity in our society, and under it we will always find that apart from the gospel of Jesus Christ lurks humanity's sinful desire to justify itself apart from God and to get ahead at the expense of the neighbor
    • And the cure for that is not the satisfaction of the church that we have something that others don't have, but rather the cure for that is the gospel of forgivness and life most clearly seen in Jesus Christ that has been entrusted to us to share with a locak neighborhood and a worldwide neighborhood that so despirately needs it.
  • And like Luther, let us always remember – the great miracle is not the fish. The great miracle is the faith-creating word that draws us and others to now see God's grace and mercy most clearly in Jesus Christ

Back to Top