God is Calling!

Ash Wednesday
St. John's Lutheran Church, Alexandria, VA
Jonah 1:1-3

“The Sign of Jonah: God is Calling!”[i]

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai, saying, ² “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it, for their evil has come up before me.” ³ But Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

Do you have a mobile phone?  More and more, such things seem to be an integral part of day-to-day living.  If your spouse is heading to the supermarket to pick up supplies for dinner, you can call them when you discover that there’s no more milk in the fridge.  If you’re on your way to a meeting and get stuck in traffic, you can all ahead to the people who’d be waiting on you.  A mobile phone can be pretty useful – but I’d guess that you already know it could be a burden, too.  Mobile phones make us accessible, just as they give us access to others.  If somebody has your number, they can call you whenever or wherever, often when you’re not expecting it.  You might be at the movies, in class, or on vacation at the beach.  So what might you do when you don’t want to be disturbed?  You could set your phone to “mute.”  You could check the number when it pops up on the screen to see if you want to take an incoming call.  You could even leave your phone at home.  It’s great to be able to make a call; taking a call, though, might throw your plans for a loop.  Imagine if God called you.  In the opening verses of the book of Jonah, that’s just what happens.

God calls Jonah, but who is this prophet?  In 2 Kings 14, we hear that Jonah was active in Israel, proclaiming God’s word to the sinful nation and its unfaithful rulers.  His father’s name, Amittai, comes from the Hebrew word meaning “truth” or “faithfulness.”  Jonah was “the son of faithfulness;” however, we will soon see that he doesn’t live up to that parentage.  Jonah’s name, on the other hand, means “dove.”  These days, especially with the Winter Olympics going, a dove might remind you of peace or, here in the church, of the Holy Spirit.  But back in the ancient near east, people thought of the dove as a silly and brainless creature, one that would fly around aimlessly – something that was unreliable.  The dove would avoid confrontation, then moan when it was in trouble.  Jonah, “the dove,” seemed a bit like the people of Israel where he served.  And this is the prophet that God chooses to send to Nineveh.

Jonah’s mission from God – to call the people of Nineveh to repentance – is a pretty bitter assignment for the prophet.  Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, a country that was the mortal enemy of Israel.  If you’ve taken the Crossways class here at St. John’s, you know that the Assyrians were “bad dudes”!  When they conquered a town, they would impale people on stakes out in front of the town, pulling captives along by fishhooks.  Other nations feared Assyria for their brutality.  Nineveh was known as a morally bankrupt place, wicked and full of deceit.  And this is the place to which God has called Jonah!  God tells Jonah to God and proclaim His judgment against this great city.  And Jonah knows what would happen.  He knows that the Word of God has power, and that if he were to go and do what God told him to do, Nineveh would repent.  God would forgive their great sins.  Jonah doesn’t want that.  In terms of today’s world, it’d be like asking an American Christian to go into the deep lands of Afghanistan to proclaim God’s judgment to the Taliban or al-Qaeda and Osama bin-Laden, announcing that God would forgive everything they have done if they repent.  My professor at the seminary put it another way: Jonah’s call would be like sending a Jew from World War II-era New York to Hitler, to tell him that God loved him and would forgive him if he turned away from his sins.

So what was Jonah’s response to God’s call to “get up and go?”  He got up and went, all right – in the opposite direction!  Jonah flees, attempting to run from God’s presence, beginning a downward progression that we’ll see in his journey in the weeks ahead.  He goes down to the coastal town of Joppa, looking to hire a ship and crew to take him to the far-off land of Tarshish.  In Jonah’s day, Tarshish (probably the same place St. Paul was from) was known as an almost mythical land of prosperity –a paradise – full of precious metals and gems.  Ships from Tarshish were well-known for bringing luxury goods down to the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea; however, they were also known for encountering great storms and, often, shipwreck on their perilous journey.  Even so, Jonah, would rather risk the dangerous trek to Tarshish than follow God’s call.

Like Jonah, we often run away when God calls, attempting to hide from His presence.  Sometimes, that’s because we’re afraid of the mission that God calls us to undertake: it would take us out of our routines into unknown territory.  Indeed, God does call us to live according to a different standard than the rest of the world, and that can be dangerous.  At other times, we run from God’s call because it would be an inconvenience, throwing our plans for a loop.  In those times (watching movies, considering purchases online or at the mall, deliberating over the all-you-can-eat buffet, or putting plans on the calendar, for instance) we would prefer to pretend that we had missed His call – let it go to voicemail!  Like Jonah, we set ourselves up for a fall when we ignore God’s call.

So why all this hubbub?  Why are we looking to Jonah and his journey for this Lenten season?  In Luke 11 (29-32), we hear Jesus talking about what happened to this prophet: When the crowds were increasing, he began to say, “This generation is an evil generation. It seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so will the Son of Man be to this generation. The queen of the South will rise up at the judgment with the men of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon, and behold, something greater than Solomon is here. The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.

Something greater than Jonah is indeed here.  Jesus, the Son of God, has come to be with us.  He is Word that we proclaim, this and every Lent, the one who was crucified for us because we have run away from God’s call.  Though you come from dust – and will return to dust some day – God loves you.  He offers you the forgiveness that comes through the Word that called Jonah, the Word that went to the people of Nineveh, the Word that calls you and me: Jesus, the Word of God made flesh, the One who lifts us up out of ashes and dust, calling us to life.

God is calling us this Lent.  He is calling us to turn away from our sin.  He is calling us to follow Him.

[ring… ring… ring…]

Amen.

[i] Thanks to Dr. Reed Lessing (Concordia Seminary–St. Louis), whose work served as guide for this message