At the back of the church sits a young couple. A toddler plays at their feet, a new baby cries periodically from the arms of the young mother. They sit uncomfortably, shushing the little ones whenever a head swivels to look their way. They sit and listen to the lessons, and wonder “can we find hope here too?”
Two days later there’s a knock at the church’s door. It’s that same young couple, looking pale and haggard and burnt out; the children, oblivious to their parents, squirm and chatter. An older couple is standing with them. The Pastor invites them into her office. “How are you today?” And the young couple bursts into tears.
“We just can’t take it anymore!” they cry. After a while, their story comes out. Haven’t go to church since they were small. Living together for a couple of years, got married, two kids one after the other. Then it all started to fall apart. He lost his job as an oilfield worker when he failed a random drug and alcohol test one too many times.
She, out on the town with friends, spent $500 on drinks and entertainment. They think they’ve got nothing left. No love, no patience. No hope. They’ve come seeking advice on how not to hurt their children when they divorce. As the young couple steps out to change diapers, the older couple – the man’s parents -- speak knowledgably to the Pastor:
“This is all her fault. We need you to tell her what she did was wrong, especially as a mother and wife. We’d like you to tell her that the kids should stay with our son.” She stays silent.
When the young couple returns the Pastor stands up and turns around to look out her office window. Backs to the couple, she watches the body language reflected in the window. Haughty and righteous for the older couple, defeated and scared in the younger.
She takes a deep breath and turns back to them. Meets their eyes. Expectant. Afraid. She breathes again, and speaks: “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be no more!”
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Forty days and Nineveh will be no more. Nineveh: to quote Obiwan Kenobi in the first Star Wars movie (you know, the good one?); there has never been a more wretched hive of scum and villainy. Nineveh, the ‘Sin city’ of the Ancient Near East. Quite cosmopolitan, actually; flourishing arts and entertainment district, all the best shows and spectacles, shops and boutiques for everything under the sun. Las Vegas, with a few more antiques. Probably fewer churches.
Into this quagmire was sent Jonah, reluctantly. Realistically, it’d be about comparable to standing in the middle of the Mirage in Las Vegas and telling people God was about the destroy the city. It’s been done before. So often, in fact, that you’d become just another lunatic out on the street. People might even throw quarters in your cup. But for some reason, people listened to Jonah. At least, the king and the nobles listened; and what they said, went.
In fact, that’s probably much more significant – that the king and nobles listened. Isaiah never ceased trying to get the monarchs of Israel to listen, as did Nathan, and Elijah, and Jeremiah, and a list of a thousand other prophets sent to the people who considered themselves righteous and chosen by God. But the kings and nobles of Nineveh listened; a city so vulgar that Jonah was probably happily expecting to see it wiped off the map.
But the people of Nineveh cried, “all shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” We know we deserve the worst we may get. But we know we can do better. Even if there’s only a little time left, we will be the people we know God wants us to be.
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“What do you mean, ‘Nineveh will be no more?’!” screeched the mother-in-law. “We didn’t come here for a sermon, these people need help and advice!”
But the Pastor didn’t flinch. She looked at them all, gathered in her office, and repeated herself: “Forty days, and Nineveh will be no more.” And into the silence that followed, she explained.
“Nineveh was a city of violence and corruption. It spread hate, violence, and hunger through all who lived in it. Jonah, sent by God, told the people that Nineveh would be destroyed if they did not repent, and change. And the people repented. They worked to be the people God wanted them to be.
And she continued. “You’ve condemned yourselves, with selfishness, power-seeking, and greed. You rejected love, and self-sacrifice, and care in your own quest for self-fulfillment. And you found that all those other things lead you to this – being here, left with nothing, sitting in the ashes of your despair.
“But you have two choices. You can continue on the road you’re on. And it will destroy all of you, in less than two months. Or, you can repent. Not just apologize, not just say ‘sorry’ and leave. But repent. Turn away from where you are and what you’re doing and become the fullness of the people God made you to be.”
The young couple, for the first time, looked at each other and shared a smile of hope. But the in-laws weren’t so kind. “What do you mean, repent? It’s too late for that. We didn’t come here to listen to this kind of stuff.”
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Jonah sat on a hill outside of Nineveh and shook his fist at God. “What do you mean, you’re not going to punish them?!! Why then did I drag my butt all the way here, so you could be nice to them??!!! Where the brimstone? Where’s the pumice? Where’s the wrath of God? These people have done wrong!” And he made a comfortable spot for himself.
As Jonah sat and watched the people of Nineveh as they went about their business, God made a bush, to provide shade for him. Jonah liked the bush, as we all like kind things from God given to ourselves. But then God sent a worm, and it at the bush. And Jonah was angry again as the sun beat hot on his head. God asked simply, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?”
And Jonah said, “yes.”
And God said again, “you are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labour, and which you did not grow, and it came into being 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?”
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The Pastor looked at them all.
She continued speaking. “There’s a little bit – sometimes a lot – of ‘Nineveh’ inside us all. Some deep, rotting, corrupting influence that drives us to seek out only our selfish interests. That eventually destroys us.”
“Repentance – the word metanoia , in Greek – means, ‘to turn away’. The people who lived in Nineveh turned away from violence and destruction in their lives and turned TO the God who showed such abundant grace to them. If God would spare a hundred thousand people the supposedly ‘inevitable’ result of their actions, do you not think that same God will show that grace to you? Don’t you realize that you are never beyond hope?
“In love, with repentance and humility all things are possible. No punishment is inevitable.”
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The same story, over and over. One story, just with point of view and setting changed. But they both carry the same three points:
1) we do horrible things to each other and ourselves, often without even thinking.
2) It is NEVER to late to turn from those things and become the people we deserve to be.
3) God’s grace is often extended to people who we don’t think deserve it.
Our relationship with God, much like the people of Nineveh, depends less on what we say that how we are. The people of Nineveh could have said “we’re sorry,’ and kept right on doing what was wrong - the kings of Israel did this repeatedly – but they stopped and became the people that they deserved to be. They knew they deserved the punishment because they had done evil, but at some point they realized that if one receives grace, then one should act like one is thankful for it.
…..I am not the man my wife married. I wish I was that good, believe me – because I occasionally hear her talk to other people about me and I think, “who’d she marry?” People occasionally ask her, why’d you marry that jerk? But she tells them, “you don’t know him like I do.” Well, I’ve got news for you, too – I don’t know me like she does.
I know my faults and my own failings far too well, believe me. But I hope also that you understand that because I receive that love and grace, I do my best to be that man. I would walk through hell – I would walk through hell – to be that man. I know I fail. But it doesn’t mean I stop trying to be the husband that Diäna deserves.
In the same manner I know that I am not worthy of the grace that I have received from God, but that I will live my life and stumble through to be that person God knows I am.
We confess that we are in bondage to sin – in bondage to Nineveh – and cannot free ourselves. But in grace God blesses us with the gifts of love and life and joy, and we find healing, and wholeness. May God help us all.
Amen.
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