CHANGING DIRECTIONS

(This is an abridged version of the sermon preached at Epworth Chapel, Baltimore on 3/25/12)

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Being the parents of two young adult persons, my wife Lisa and I, as I’m sure is the case with each of you who are parents, are well acquainted with change. One of the changes we have now had to embrace is being “empty nest parents” as both of our young adults are now in college and living away from home. While this is an exciting time, it is also a time of some anxiety as Lisa and I wonder how they are doing. This is a time of profound transition for us as a family.

As, this week, we have move toward the end of the Lenten season for this year, the Jonah text has stayed with me. For some reason it has resonated with my conscience – pricked the nerve center of my very being. I – like many Christians – seek to experience the 40 days of Lent as days of self-reflection, forgiveness, and repentance. Repentance denotes renewed connection and commitment in our lives - our efforts to change directions – to go on a different pathway from that which we have traveled in the past.

Given the changes that are occurring around us, I believe these are days when God is calling each of us to examine our lives and see where we might change – where we might seek redirection on our own journeys.

It was St. Augustine who may have best captured this need for in each of us to change directions when he prayed God, “Lord you have created us for yourself, and our souls are restless until they find their rest in thee.”

Indeed, it is my sense that in this season God is calling us as individuals, and communities and even the church to consider where we are, and where God is leading us.

These are days of tremendous change and challenge in our society. These are topsy-turvy times. From the collapse of the economy that has affected all of us – to the wars that continue to be fought in the Middle East – to the proliferation of violence that affects many of our urban communities - to the healthcare crisis that continues to result in millions of Americans now living without healthcare today, these are days of unprecedented change and challenge.

And these are days where our nation has been led into a season of self-reflection, and I pray, repentance. News of the death of Trayvon Martin, a 17 year-old boy in Sanford, Florida in late February, and the lack of arrest at this point, has deeply divided our nation along racial lines.

One of the interesting things about the Jonah story is that imbedded in it are two call stories. God calls Jonah twice. Chapter 1 of the Book of Jonah begins with the first call for Jonah to go to Nineveh and proclaim God’s judgment and to call the city to repentance. But when that first word came, Jonah did not answer as God had intended. Instead of going to Nineveh, Jonah decided to go in another direction - toward Tarshish.

To understand Jonah’s decision not to go to Nineveh and to head toward Tarshish, perhaps it helps to know something about Nineveh. In the seventh century BCE, Nineveh was the largest city, the capital of Assyria, the most powerful nation in the world. God told Jonah – this unknown prophet - to go to Nineveh, the big city, to preach judgment to the people.

And given this tremendous task that God had placed before Jonah, he decided instead to go to Tarshish. And so Jonah ran to the sea, boarded a ship and headed toward Tarshish. During a violent storm, the sailors on the ship realized that God was angry with Jonah and was causing the storm. So Jonah was thrown into the sea, where he ended up in the belly of a giant fish.

Eventually, the big fish spat Jonah out onto dry land. God saved his life, and obviously had something more for him to do.

In chapter 3 we find that God called Jonah a second time. This time, when God called, Jonah answered. He changed directions and went to Nineveh as God had commanded. He went, proclaiming God’s judgment and calling the Ninevites to repent of their sins and return to God.

Indeed in each of our lives, God has a way of getting our attention and letting us know of God’s desire that we change direction. How is God trying to get your attention? How is the Lord trying to get you to change directions?

One of the prevalent changes in our society today is the emergence of the GPS – the global positioning system. Many of us today have GPS systems in our car as a replacement to maps and atlases (and Mapquests) which used to suffice in helping us get from one place to another. One feature of the GPS comes into play when the driver has taken a wrong turn and is about to get lost. A voice emerges in the vehicle and indicates that “you have made a wrong turn, and that the system will need to re-calculate your route.”

Could it be that God is beckoning us during this Lenten season to re-calculate our route, and enter into a renewed relationship with the divine? Could it be that it is God’s ultimate desire that we, like Jonah, point our lives in the direction in which God seeks for us to go – to re-calculate and go where God is leading us?

Could it be that we might declare like Charles Wesley:
Long our imprisoned spirits lay,
Fast bound in sin and nature’s night;
Thine eye diffused a quickening ray;
We woke, the dungeon flamed with light;
Our chains fell off, our hearts were free,
We rose, went forth, and followed thee.
Our chains fell off, our hearts were free,
We rose, went forth, and followed thee.

Changing Directions.
I have decided to follow Jesus,
No turning back, no turning back.
The world behind me, and Christ before me,
No turning back, no turning back….