[Propertalk] 3 Epiphany b 2018 - part 1

[Robert P Morrison]

It's going to be a busy week, so I'm glad I got a head-start on this
draft.
Bob

	THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH OF ST. ALBAN, ALBANY THE THIRD SUNDAY AFTER THE
EPIPHANY b

	JONAH 3:1-5, 10     20th JANUARY, 2018

	I CORINTHIANS 7:29-31     PSALM 62:6-14

	MARK 1:14-20

	 “Why did you do it?” may well be the first question I’d like
to ask when I get to whatever heaven is, and perhaps it doesn’t
really matter too much with whom I meet first.

	 You might pick just about anyone to engage in this conversation, but
it might result in a very engrossing chat if you started with John the
Baptist. Granted, he’s only been arrested when we heard Peggy read
the story, but we know what’s ahead. The point is, so did John the
Baptist. Preaching, group speaker meetings, baptizing, working out of
desert-like terrain, John must have learned early on how his life an
vocation from God was going to irritate the governmental and religious
authorities no end. After all, HE put listening to God, responding to
God, loving what God called him to do; John put all these ahead of
absolutely everything else, including his own safety and comfort.

	 It doesn’t really matter in what era one lived or lives,
governments don’t generally like being shown up or taken to task,
and when the spear gathers a crowd who seem to find that person brings
up some pretty good points, things can get pretty hot. So if John the
Baptist was aware of all of this, why DID he do it? Did he really WANT
to shorten his life?

	 You could say the same about Jonah. You know at least the main
details of the story. God wanted to find a way to help the of Nineveh
to come to their senses, so God contacted Jonah.

	 Jonah, however, was so caught up in his own way of thinking and his
own prejudices, so self-sure, so isolationist, that he ran a mile –
many miles, in fact – in the other direction. The LAST thing he
wanted for the Ninevites to get even the slightest chance to change
their attitudes and behavior. “Why on earth should I bother with
talking to them, far less pray for those whom I despise,” he must
have thought.

	 Well, Jonah not only ran in trouble himself, he endangered also all
those around him because of HIS attitude and behaviour, his blindness
to compassion and understanding about the way that God operated.
Fortunately, in the midst of all sorts of storms, he told everyone to
jettison him in order to save themselves, and that was the start of
Jonah’s own redemption.

	 Why did he do that? Who knows for sure, but, shortly afterwards,
Jonah discovered that God is a God of multiple chances. So Jonah would
up preaching to the entire citizenry of Nineveh, finding out that he
wasn’t the only one to whom God showed love and offered help.

	 Or go back to the Gospel story. Surely Jesus was aware that what was
happening to John the Baptist was certain to happen to Him. Sure Jesus
knew what happens when you speak out. Surely Jesus knew what happens
when you spend the bulk of your time being present for and encouraging
to exactly the people that the government and the religious
authorities wanted to suppress, if not remove entirely. Yet HIS action
was packed picked up from the example of John, no matter what the
risks, no matter what the cost to Jesus. Why did He do it?

	 And the disciples – last week we heard about Philip and Nathanael,
this week we hear about Simon and Andrew, and James and John. There
are some who suggest that at least a few of those to whom Jesus
extended an invitation to ministry had been associated first with John
the Baptist. They would have had to have been pretty dense NOT to have
known what happened to John and how similar the beginning of Jesus’
ministry looked. Yet each of these four, along with the other two from
last week; each of them, for whatever reason, threw caution to the
wind and dropped everything to follow Jesus – Jesus Himself, as I
said, walking down exactly the same road that His cousin Joh had
taken.

	 Why did Jonah; why did John the Baptist; why did Jesus; why did Sin
and Andrew, James and John – why did they all do what they did?

	 It just doesn’t seem to make any sense, especially when you
consider that their times were just as anxious as are ours today.

	 If I could get all of these people together for a short meeting,
I’d LOVE to hear how they’d explain what they were thinking and
why they acted as they did. I’d guess that there would be
differences in their stories, as well as similarities. All of them
came from different places. They all had to overcome fears and
prejudices. They all had to, at the least, run through in their minds
what might happen to them as a result of what they did. And, apart
from Joh=nah, they didn’t have the luxury or benefit of some sort of
experience of relief and a rest of their lives before each set out.
It’s just possible that some of those of whom we heard in the Gospel
reading, as well as others described elsewhere in the New Testament,
were aware of the story of Jonah. There are two references in
Matthew’s and one in Luke’s Gospels to this parable.

	 Why DID they all behave like that? Did they lack some instinct of
self-preservation? Were they simple folk who didn’t think through
the consequences of what they said and did, and with whom they went to
dinner? It’s not just risky. It seems downright foolhardy and, if
you consider that each of them were well-versed in the understanding
that life came from God, and the resources and talents with which one
was endowed were a Divine gift, then some might even have accused them
of blasphemy.

	 Yet they DID do what they did, to the intense anger of those who
liked to think that they held the reins of power, and could belittle,
or abuse, or even kill those who crossed them. Just think of Herod who
arrested John the Baptist, for instance. And think of those who’ve
engaged God’s children down through the ages, from before Moses’
time to our own. Earlier this week, we remembered with intense
gratitude the willingness of Martin Luther King, Jr. to speak out, to
walk, to march, to preach, to confront with the word of the Gospel,
all who’d try to belittle any group of Jesus’ sisters and
brothers. He pointed a finger directly at those who abused power, who
tried to control minds and make them conform to their own warped way
of thinking.


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