Sermon: Conversion Big Time!

Jonah 3:1-5 Mark 1:14-20

Sermon preached by Dr. Mark Smutny

Sunday, January 22, 2012

Pasadena Presbyterian Church

Jonah 3:1-5 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2“Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

Mark 1:14-20 14 Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, 15 and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” 16 As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea--for they were fishermen. 17 And Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will make you fish for people.” 18 And immediately they left their nets and followed him. 19 As he went a little farther, he saw James son of Zebedee and his brother John, who were in their boat mending the nets. 20 Immediately he called them; and they left their father Zebedee in the boat with the hired men, and followed him.

The jury is out. Its deliberating on the future of our species. Its deciding whether or not we will undergo a conversion, a conversion in sufficient numbers and within the right time frame to save our species and, not only our species, but all other creatures great and small, bright and beautiful who depend on us for their well being, indeed, for their survival. The jury is out deliberating. The jury is comprised of God and future generations, our children and their children and their children’s children. They wait upon us too see what we will do. They weigh our actions. They weigh our decisions. Will they issue an unfavorable verdict, a verdict of guilt, a verdict leading to death because we have exploited neighbor and nature threatening death to the planet entrusted to our care? Or will they issue a verdict in our favor, a verdict leading to life because we have risen to the occasion, because we have repented, because we have come to our senses, because we have undergone a change of heart, a conversion, a conversion massive in scale, a big time conversion? The jury is out deliberating. It is watching what we will do. It is deliberating on the future of our species and those who depend on us for their very survival. The judge of the universe is deliberating, waiting to issue a verdict on our future.

The focus of this great trial is human generated climate change. While the body of evidence piles higher and higher that global warming is caused, in part, by humans, I acknowledge my expertise is not climatology. My expertise is in bible, theology and preaching, maybe politics. But this I do know. I know that each of us here is a given a mind to think. Combined with our faith, we are to use our minds to think and to use our minds and our collective action to be good stewards of this earth, the only earth we have. This green and blue globe is all we have. As care-takers of this globe, as care-takers of the blessings of God’s creation, we are to act and care for its bounty not only for ourselves, not only for our generation, but for generations to come.

That is why in the coming weeks you are invited, as Andrew Gutierrez has announced, to attend the adult education series on climate change that begins next Sunday. You are encouraged to participate in the upcoming Lenten small groups. Through the lens of a thinking and engaged Christian faith, you are invited to listen and to learn, to grow, debate and question, a word to be a Presbyterian, which means fundamentally to take your faith, your deepest values and equipped with the tools of modern science, historical analysis, economics, your curiosity and your conscience and in community with others explore one of the most important issues of our day: global climate change. Together we will think about, wrestle and act upon what it means to be a faithful Christian, not only for ourselves, not only for one generation, but for generations to come as we are called to be stewards of God’s earth.

Now as I said, my training is in theology and biblical studies. Therefore, let us return to the scriptural text from Jonah. Jonah is a delightful, imaginative story from the Hebrew Scriptures filled with God’s insight for us today.

The passage read from Jonah tells of the word of the Lord coming to Jonah for a second time. Prior to this reading, earlier in the text, God speaks to Jonah for the first time, telling him to go to Nineveh and convert the great city to God’s ways.

However, during Jonah’s first chat with God, things had not gone well. Indeed, we wonder why God had chosen Jonah in the first place. Jonah was no Braveheart; no Joan of Arc. He was more like Don Knotts. Jonah responded to God the way many of us would if we heard God’s voice calling us from the clouds, he ran the other direction. He boarded a ship, sailed for foreign seas, and hoped to die that God would never find him again.

Have you ever tried to hide from God? Have you ever tried to flee from God’s presence, from God’s call, saying to God, “Stay away from me!” Saying, “No. Not now. I’m too young. Too old. Too inarticulate. Too scared.” Saying, “I’m not qualified.” Maybe you thought, “We’re too few in number.” Maybe you thought, “We’re too weak before powerful, entrenched interests.” Maybe you’ve worried the issue to which you have been called to work on was too complex. Maybe you thought, “Who am I to put a stop to that?” Maybe the people you work with were so frustrating that all your efforts seemed like blowing in the wind. Maybe you thought, “God, surely you don’t mean me? Who am I?” Maybe you thought some other Jonah-like excuse.

It’s comforting to have company running away from God. Running away from God, hiding from God, fleeing from God to avoid God’s claim on you is quintessentially biblical. You have great company throughout the Bible and throughout human history.

While Jonah was running away from God, God was laughing at Jonah. God was laughing at the ludicrous idea that we humans can hide from God. While God was laughing and Jonah was trying to sail away to foreign lands in that ship, God came up with the idea of a storm. God sent a great storm, a tempest, like a Shakespearean tempest to capsize that fleeing ship. So a terrible tempest arose, a terrible churning tempest arose. Don’t you love these biblical stories? They externalize in nature what we internalize inside in our inner being. A terrible storm arose and the ship was destroyed and Jonah was plunged into the depths of the waters. Jonah went down into the deep. Down he went into the deep and a giant fish, a Leviathan, like a whale swallowed Jonah. Inside the great beast, Jonah stewed in whale juices with nothing to do but think and stew, stew and think.

There’s not a lot to do when you’re stuck inside of a whale for three days and three nights. You can count whale ribs. You can go bat crazy at the sound of a whale heart thumping, thumping, thumping. Or you can think. You can think.

I know from experience as a theologian but mostly as a disciple of our Lord that three days and three nights is a good time to think theologically about how hard it is to run away from God and God’s call to you and me. It’s a good time to think about how futile it is to run how God doesn’t let you get away with running away for more than a little while. Stewing inside our storms, churning inside our deep is good for us. It is where calls take shape. In the storm is where you wrestle with God; where you discover who you are and whose you are. In the guts of the great fish, in the guts of our very being, you come to realize that God has a hold on you and will never let you go. It’s like Jacob limping toward Jerusalem after having wrestled with the angel. It’s like Mary having been visited by an angel bearing the Messiah in her own body and her belly after his birth bears the stretch marks and she can’t forget. She’ll never forget her calling. It’s like Dr. King knowing he had to go to Memphis no matter the danger to fight for the sanitation workers. It’s like the disciples being called by Jesus to follow him no matter what was ahead. It’s like you and me hearing God’s call and going, just going, when we hear the call to be his disciples; to go, to go feed the poor, feed the hungry, to preach good news, to love our neighbors and yes, to save the earth, to save the earth, to care for this beautiful, yet fragile blue and green globe on which we have been placed by a loving creator because that’s what we are called to do.

When God’s hand pushes you, when you hear God’s voice urging you to make a difference in this world, when you see a vision, you may try to run the other way, but ultimately you can’t hide from God. God will seek you out and find you. God will swallow you up and spin you around and spit you out and send you where God needs you to go.

In Jonah’s case after three days, the great fish regurgitates Jonah back onto land, back toward Nineveh, back to his calling. Jonah dripping whale vomit is hurled toward Nineveh with explosive God-driven force. Jonah finds himself standing before the gates of a great city, his mission in front of him. Nineveh was no country villa, no seedy, backwater town. It was an immense city. It took a man three days to cross it by foot. Three entire days! That meant it was sixty miles wide and sixty miles long—bigger than any modern city we have today. Imagine Jonah’s task ahead of him. Bigger than New York! Bigger than Tokyo! Bigger than Mexico City! Bigger than Emerald City, itself! And standing before the gates was a poor Jewish boy from Jerusalem, whose ancient population never topped more than 10,000, reeking of fish guts, without a change of clothes, the lone prophet Jonah, commissioned by God to effect a conversion on the biggest city the world has ever seen. A big time conversion!

Now we can assume his ambivalence about preaching the Word of God had abated, having spent all that time inside the whale. Nevertheless, Jonah had his work cut out for him. Nineveh was a monster city. It would take a Billy Graham times ten, times a hundred. To the Hebrew listeners of this grand tale, they knew it was an impossible task. To add to the burden on Jonah’s shoulders, he had only forty days to accomplish his mission. Not only was the city too large, the time frame was too short time! And Jonah was only one insignificant man!

What do we do when a task before us seems impossible to accomplish? What do we do when that task is urgent and time is short? What do we do when the forces allied against our cause seem determined to oppose us at every turn with every tool, weapon and resource they have at their disposal?

Those of you alive long enough remember the beginning of the public health war against the use of tobacco that started in the early 1960s. In what many believe is the most successful public health campaign ever undertaken in this country, it is good to recall the time when smoking was seen as a public virtue. Look how far our nation has come! Yet fifty years ago, it seemed we would never get to the place where we are now with the dramatic decline in the use of tobacco.

When the United States Surgeon General first released his study in the early 1960s that tobacco smoke destroys lives, the majority of Americans smoked and many, if not most people believed that smoking was good for you. Through saturation advertising by tobacco companies, smoking was equated with health and good living. Even medical doctors promoted the health benefits of smoking.

As the anti-smoking campaign was launched, the counter-attack by tobacco interests from the smallest farmer to the largest corporation was systemic and calculated. The effort to attack the progressive movement toward lives free of smoking was fought tooth and nail. The pro-smoking effort was vicious. The opposition forces were in it for the long haul for people’s livelihoods were at stake. Sin is corporate as well as individual. The forces that sought health and wholeness had to persist in the face of withering criticism, systemic evil, billions of dollars of resources and a long parade of chained politicians. If the campaign toward a tobacco-free America was simple, it would have been fixed over night. But it wasn’t simple. It involved the complex transformation over a long period of time of a significant part of our economy both south and north based in tobacco and its distribution. It involved real people with real lives, real jobs, real mothers and fathers, real children and grandchildren. Only as they found alternatives for their livelihoods could real change occur.

The lesson of the anti-smoking campaign is relevant to the movement to reverse human generated global climate change. Persistence, dogged persistence and sustained education in schools, in churches, synagogues, temples and through every available public media is only a beginning. Now we have the benefit of the Internet to extend the reach of education and advocacy.

We need to recognize that the powerful forces and complex economics that contribute to human-caused climate change are entangled in nearly everything we do, nearly everything we enjoy, nearly everything we are that makes us tick in our modern economy. This should not erase our dogged commitment to care for the earth as stewards of God’s creation, but it should temper our arrogance. Our commitment to environmental justice should be unequivocal as an article of Christian discipleship. But we need not be card-carrying members the Pharisee party.

It’s easy to glibly condemn the science deniers and those who claim that human caused climate change is a hoax. We can laugh at the people who are on the right flank of the Republican Party, those Yahoo fundamentalists who don’t know any better and who we know are manipulated by oil and gas interests. We can call them idiots under our breath. We can say we are the enlightened ones but if we do so we are arrogant and of no help.

I know I am a part of the very same system contributing to climate change, myself. I drove a car to get church this morning from Northwest Altadena to Pasadena Presbyterian Church, burning fossil fuels all the way.

And all of you sitting here: you’re burning an excessive amount of fossil fuels just by attending this church. The heating and air conditioning in this church, that you own together, is a carbon emitting embarrassment. We only need $1.2 million more dollars to replace it with a state of-the-art, environmentally efficient system. Anybody want to write a check for the full amount and make our needed capital campaign a short-term, painless proposition? Write the check now.

I’m not here to throw cold water on the cause. I’m here to say that we all have a calling as stewards of God’s creation to answer God’s call, much as Jonah wanted to flee, much as we want to flee from the stark reality of global warming, we need to face the reality that our earth, this fragile blue and green globe of such exquisite beauty is crying for us. Maybe God is calling us to go to our Nineveh, only our Nineveh is even vaster than Jonah’s Nineveh and the timeframe is equally short. Maybe God has swallowed us up and we’re churching in the storm. Maybe God is spitting us out. Maybe we are being sent to our own world calling not the Ninevites to repent but all of us to turn around, to convert. Maybe God is asking us for a big time conversion to the ways of God where we care for our Mother Earth or else she will be weeping, groaning in agony for the way she has been defiled by our actions.

Maybe God is calling us from the deep to do our part. First we are called to be educated by understanding the fundamental science of climate change. Then we are to examine fearlessly the implications for our own lives, both personally and politically. I believe it is a matter of call, of wrestling with God, of knowing we are placed on this earth as God’s own stewards to honor, to protect and cherish the earth: for God’s sake, for our children, for our children’s children.

The jury is out on our species and all the species that depend on us for our survival. May you hear God’s call and not flee. May you respond to God’s call and act. May enough of us on this planet hear God’s call and respond that God and future generations will return a verdict for life. With God’s help let us act. Amen.