The Sign of Jonah

Sermon Jonah 3:1-4:4; Matthew 12:38-41 February 17, 2016

Ecumenical Lenten Noonday Services

The Sign of Jonah

What sign are you looking for? Is it a sign that Jesus lives? Is it a sign that there is purpose to your life? Is it a sign to give you direction of where you should go next? Is it a sign to let you know where you are? Is it a sign to know who or whose you are? What sign are you looking for?

In this season of Lent we spend time with signs and symbols remembering who Jesus is and the life he lived. We spend time looking to the cross and to Jerusalem remembering the sacrifice that Jesus gave so that we might have life in him through the grace of God poured out upon us. We spend time eagerly awaiting the miracle of Easter morn when we can say, “The Lord is Risen, Indeed!”

The signs are all around us this season;

the miracles,

the Word,

the palms,

the cross,

the bread,

the cup,

the tomb.

They are all here inviting us into an imagination of understanding God’s love for us.

The leaders in the time of Jesus had high expectations in their imagination of God’s love.

They hoped for another Moses, or Elijah.

They wanted great signs and miracles.

And Jesus let them know the sign they would receive would be the sign of Jonah-“the Son of man will be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.

The people of Ninevah will rise up in judgment of this generation because they repented, and see something greater than Jonah is here!” Something greater right here-in front of you!

Yet, even with the very words of Jesus,

 the sign of God’s love and mercy for the people of that generation wasn’t even noticed and even worse,

it was rejected!

Fast forward to today’s generation and we are no different!

We are still looking to the God of our imagination to say the words

we want to hear and

to look the way we want,

and to regard and respect only those people we regard and respect.

We need to hear about the sign of Jonah and the people of Ninevah and the unfailing love of Jesus.

Especially today!

God poured out love, mercy and salvation on a people that everyone loved to hate.

It would have been Jonah’s greatest joy to watch God destroy this wicked and evil people.

And yet, God went against Jonah’s ideal of God’s love and brought salvation to a repentant people.

Jonah was angry!

How angry do we get when God loves those we don’t?

How dare God love the people we love to hate! Who are the ones we want to see destroyed?

Who are our Ninevites?

Who is your Ninevite?

God doesn’t follow our ways.

God follows provisions of grace in every way and in every corner of the world.

And then Jesus, shows up with God’s love born in him.

Jesus carried forth that same love of God to Gentiles, Samaritans, Greeks and Jews, poor, and rich, tall and short.

Perhaps our Lenten discipline this year is to seek to know God.

But, not only know God

but to know the God,

not of our imagination,

but the God,

the One,

who loves those we do not.

Let us allow this God to grow in us and change us. Let us allow this God to grow in us and change us into a community where all can find a place of love and belonging.

Jesus sought to provide communities of love, respect, honor and belonging. And that is our invitation during this season too,

to seek to be like Jesus,

to offer community space where there is respect and regard for one another,

where there is joy and wonder

 of God’s most amazing imaginative love for us.

Out there, there is a lot of angry speech going on.

Out there, there is a lot of naming, and blaming.

Out there, there is a lot of dislike for the ‘other’.

Out there, there seems to be no room for love and belonging.

So,

in here,

in these pews;

Let us make a commitment this season,

to cease the ‘out there’ language

and to embrace the power of Jesus

to love beyond our imagination!

Let us allow Jesus

to challenge us to

go

beyond the signs

we expect

but to take us into places of respect and honor

that we have never gone before.

We need the opportunity to know who and whose we are and it can only happen in the safe, sacred, spaces we provide for one another wrapped in the loving arms of Jesus.

Friends, God’s promise of love to us is from everlasting to everlasting,

and no human imagination can change that.

Love freely given, freely offered for all to receive.

May the mercy, grace, and love of God through Jesus Christ fall upon us, now and forevermore. Amen.