A HEDTEATION OW RETURAL SS TO YORK
JOWAH 3:1-17
FUGUST G, 1972

Before World War 11 began, 4 British scientist had a premonition that there would soon
appear an international conflict which would place his orm country in great jeopardy. And so
tris British scientist quit his job, liquidated al] his assets, and moved his family to a
remote and pleasant little island in the Pacific. The only problem vas, the name of the
island was Bataan. (The Protestant Hour, 6/11/72 Dr. YW. A. HoTmes)

Life has a way of doing that to allof us. That is the point of the Jonah story: that is
“the sign of Jonah." No matter where we go: no matter how creatively we plan to escape
from the reality of life: sooner or later we get caught again. But before we think about
Jonah I'd like te punctuate his experience with a recent one of my own.

We spent three weeks in July at Cape “ay Point, ilew Jersey: a very small community
at the very end of the Jersey penninsula that has absolutely nothing going for it but the
ocean. fo the dorth lie 100 miles of gaudy, noisy play-ground and wildwood. Avalon, Ocean
City, Atlantic City: miles of expensive motels, boardwalks, amusement parks, night clubs,
crowded beaches, shops,movies. Cape ilay Point has a light house, one smat] grocery store,
about 200 homes ~ most of them inhabited by permanent families, and a summer retreat center
for a Catholic order of nuns: which means that if you're looking for novelty and excitement
you are limited to watching the nuns take their evening walk along the beach.

Cape fiay Point met all of our criteria for a family vacation: but one evening as I was
enjoying the darkness and a silence broken only by the roar of the surf, I heard a shout
from the beach behind our house which sounded like: "Stop! Police!" Immediately I heard
someone running very fast beside the house and by the time I got outside I saw a policeman
in pursuit of aman. fis they disappeared into the night the policeman shouted again and a
shot rang out. As it turned out the man was arrested, and had been spending his evening
peeping through the windows of the cottages along the beach.

Besides the excitement it was a rather eleoquent intrusion of reality into the dream
world we were experiencing. Even there - in Cape flay Point there were problems: people
with problems: policemen with guns that need, on occasion, to be fired. And I think it
was at that point ~ in the middle of our second week that I began to experience the tension

between tne thorough enjoyment of a relaxed life style with no demands and the gnawing

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awareness that pleasant as it was, real life was still happening out there ~ and that if my
life makes any sense at all, it is out there all wrapped up with the lives of other people
and deeply involved in the issues that matter to them and all of us. On occasion I've
Jamented the fact - as I am certain you have too - that I was not born a very wealthy fan,
because I could live beside the sea ~ alone for quite some time. ‘nd yet I know, when I'm
honest with myself, that it wouldn't work: that vacations are for re-creating and not
permanent living: that insulated life is really very sterile, and besides, there 7s pro~
bably no where in the world one could go without a “peepine tom" getting shot in the front
yard ~ or getting swallowed by a fish - as was the case with anotner vacationer long ago.
Thus a meditation on returning to work: and my choice of a text - for as I sat down to
the reality of preparing a sermon after a four week respite I felt a real affinity witn
Jonah - the perenial vacationer: the reluctant servant of the Lord.
Let's look again at Jonah. We've neard the story since we were children, Unfortunate-
Ty all we heard - or all we remembered - was the first cnapter, and when we gained a little
intellectual maturity we didn't know what to do with that. In the words of an Old Testament
Professor, "The one thing more incredible than the story of a fish swallowing a man, is a
man swallowing the story of a fish swallowing a man." We know, yet still hesitate to tell
our children, that the story was not intended to be taken as a literal fact of history. It
is a story - a parable, written by an anonymous author in the past - exile period of Isrelite
history. That is, in the period when Israel was a bout the job of reordering her national
life after a generation of existing in Babylonian ‘cantivity. The story of Jonan had a
great deal to say to those people at that time about their relationship with God, with
their Gentile neighbors, and their God - given mission to tne world, As Jonah plays out
his part with God and the people of iHinevah, - the ancient Jewish readers viould have said
“Hey, he's talking about us!" And today, that reaction is still appropriate. To read the
whole story honestly is, in fact, to realize that he's stili talking about us ~ and our
relationship with God, and the people of Hinevah whoever they are for us - and our mission
in the world.
The story bears repeating. God tola donah to go to ilenivah - to live there pernaps:

to be there: and to warn the neole of [Hnevah that unless they changed their ways there

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would be trouble ahead. But Jonah didn’t want to go. «lot, I think, because he minded being
the prophet of doom: for, later in the story it does that part of the job with a vengeance.
Jonan just didn’t tant to go to ilinevah: to the city - the center of life. And so he
boarded a ship to Tarshish - in the words of the author, to get "away from the presence of
the Lord."

Poor Jonah. That made no more sense than my assumption that real life doesn't happen
in Cape vay Point. Thoreau, you will recall, vent to jail because he couldn't escape the
reality of taxes on his precious little vacation spot called Halden.

In any casc, donah confronted the storm and the anxiety of the crew and even volun-
teered to be thrown over - which means that he preferred drowning to going to Jinevah.

But no such luck, the reality of life interceeded again in the form of the fish. vow what
does ane do in the belly of a fish? Jonah prayed - but not the desp.rate prayer we might
expect. In fact Jonah's prayer, uttered in that unusual environment is a rather Plous and
traditional rubric dealing with God's mercy and goodness. lever once did he try to strike
a bargain: “get me out and I'll go te ‘finevah’. And it occurs to me thet even the belly
of the fish was proferable to thc task God had assigned him. After all, it was warm and
quiet, perhaps something like Freud fad in mind when he suggested that vic would all really
tike to return to the womb.

Again, no such Juck, The fisn delivered Jonah to dry land: God called again, and this
time Jonah went, perhaps sensing the futility of his efforts to escape. He went: he did his
job se successfully that the entire city - from king on down, repented, dayming sack cloth
and ashes. Whereupon Jonan retired to a hill outside the city to watch the fireworks.
‘linevan was the causc of all nis problems: he tad told them - but good: and now he didn't
mind sitting back and watching while they aot theirs.

God, however, changed his mind ana spared the city. That made Jonah angry. As he
stewed over his disappointment a plant grow and made him shade. The next day the plant died
and left Jonah exposed to the hot sun and sultry wind, with the Hinevites prospering in the
valley below. And it was morethan he could take: his anger and frustration exploded and he
asked God to die,

Again, no such luck. And the story ends with God patiently reminding Jonah that if he

could care $9 much about @ plant and his orn comfort, certainly he could understand why God
shaid care so much about the people of ilinevah. He said - in a classic rejoinder after all
of Jonah's histrionice: “And should f not pity Hinevan, that great city, in which there are
more than a hundred and twenty thousand persens whe do not know their right hand from their
left, and also much cattle?"

That's the enu of Jonah. We don't kaa whether he came down fron the hill and began to
live his life in the reality of flinevah, or whether he boarded anotaer ship to get away
again from the unnleasantness of the life Sod nad called him te live. I don't know what
happened te Jonah, but I do know that the Story had a great deal of relevance to me last
week, and that it has an eduring message for all af us - whether we are ening on vacation,
coming reluctantly back from vacation, or simnly spending an inordinate amount of our
time wisiing we were somewhere other than thera we are.

ATI of us would Tike to escape from thc tough reality of living ia a very complex
world as disciples of Jesus Christ. Sove of us want te get away from: it al] so badly that
we take the next ship to Tarshish. Let me cite two ratner immediate examples - politics and
ethics.

Every elsction yoar is important, but tis one seens to be emerging as a radically
important year in terms of the future course of our nation. 4s we think about the issues
and make decisions 2bout condidates we da so as Christians, as people whose first allegiance
is to Jesus Christ. and his first priority is to live as he would faye us live. The issues
are important and complex: they have to ds with the econoily, foreigiy policy, welfare reform:
good and articulate and committed people arc on both sides. Jind it is very tempting to
do one of two things ~ both of which are shins to Tarshish: te shuck our Christian disciple~
ship and make our decisions on the basis of economic self interast, prejudice, or tradition.
That is not to say that honest Christians will al] vote tne same way. It is to say that an
honest Christian must learn to think politically out of the context of his religious faith.
The second ship te Tarshish is to net think, notlisten, not discuss and not vote ~ because
it's just to complex. Like Jonah we are called te live with tne present realities of life -
and In tris year of our Lord 1972 the most urgent of those realities is political.

The seccnd example of the complexity of reality - from which we would like to escape

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is ethical. dy, it would be comfortable ts be able to live hy the simple moral formulas
of the past. One of the books I worked on while I was away is "Christian Ethics in a
Permissive Soctcty" by William Barclay. $ fine book: but once again I wes impressed with
the immense complexity of living today as ar Senest Christian. Onea again Twas impressed
with the need for the Church to deal eith the ethical dilominas of contennorary life again
and again and again - not by handing out sirmle little answers, put first by taking th. ques-
tions very serisusly,and secead by provieiny a community of non-judgencntal love in which
indivicuals can work through their quasticns al concerns with intcority.

But tae shin tc Tarshish is in port - in fact tye shins. Gne sails to moral anarcoy
and promises freeduia under the guise of “anything goes.” The other apomisas security in the'
form of a list of “do's and dan't's" and a rigid ethical ende that presums ts know what is
rigat aad wrong inawery situation. Bet: arc aseanes fron the conploxity of the life Gad
calis us to live,

Finally, it has beon saia that the Bock of Jonah is the most Christian of all the Old
Testanent Jitcrature. God's Tove for ali men is part of the Jonah story. The mission of
the pooble of Gou is part of the story. But what really places it in the category of pre-
Christian literaturc is this relentless insistance that Sod calts us to live our liyes fully
Tn tae worla. trit's really at tha Heart af the story is God's love for the world - not
just the vacation spots, those quiet, piciurcsque places like Cape ciay Point: but the
Hinevan's ~ the citics Tike Wasiinaton ant Indianapolis and Lafayettc. God loves that
world so much that he came ints it. the incarnation happened - not on a Tonely hillside,
or by tae ocean - but ia a cow barn in the middlo of a census. God's coming among us
nappenea ultinately, not in an out-of-tic way place, but on a garbage heap right outside a
major metropolis - on a nil) called golgetha.

That's what the Jonah story is abcut. ‘ind it forces eac' of us to the uncomfortable
edge of decision. here will de our tiving? ill we pay our fare and board those confor-
table ships for Tarshish? Or will we give ourselves to the task of living as honest, joy-
ful Caristians in real world where God calis us to be? ATER

Fatoer, we're grateful for tre opnortunity to be aray from life. But re're even more

grateful for the privilege of living as your neople ~ here in this place, today. Be with
us ~ tn desus name. ARE!