You should have seen the one that got away. It was T - H - I - S
big. Even if we don't fish ourselves . . . even if we did better at
catching our own hands than at catching fish . . . we know something
about fish tales. We know the elements when we hear them. We know how to
tell them.
If you asked most folks to tell you about the story of
Jonah, they would likely say that it is the tale of a guy and a whale .
. . or a big fish. Our passage for this morning, however reminds us that
the book of Jonah is not really about the prophet that got away. The
words we have read and heard reveal that the book of Jonah is not a fish
tale or a mammal tale but a love story - a story of the passionate,
seeking, wildly inclusive, unfailing love of God.
God calls Jonah to go to Ninevah. Now Jonah is a good
Hebrew and this call troubles him. It's not that he disbelieves God
called him. It's not that he wants to avoid a mission from God. It's not
that he is afraid of preaching. It's just that he doesn't want to take
God's message to - "those people." After all, they are
different. They did not believe or behave like Jonah and the other
people of Israel. Jonah did not want to have anything to do with taking
God's message to "them."
So Jonah behaves like every hero should when faced
with something he does not want to do. He skips town on the fastest boat
he can find. Employing some special effects that would make Spike Lee
and George Lucas proud, God works things out so that Jonah has a second
chance. God tells him again to go to Ninevah. And Jonah does. Jonah
preaches that unless the people turn away from their sin, God will
destroy them. The people of Ninevah (who were not the people of Israel -
who were foreigners - who understood God differently - who worshipped
God differently) hear Jonah's preaching and repent. And God spares them.
In the book of Jonah, God's love is revealed for all
people. God has a special relationship with the people of Israel . . .
God has called them, God has chosen them for a special task. God is the
God of Israel but God is also the God of Ninevah and of Assyria and of
Cairo and of Babylon and of all the earth. There are no limits on God's
love.
God's grace toward the people of Israel reminds Jonah
and the people of Israel and all of us of God's love for all. God's love
brings down the walls by which the human race divides ourselves.
Through the ages, the human race has divided ourselves
over and again. Whenever and however and wherever we differ from each
other we divide ourselves. We put up a wall. Different skin color.
Racism builds a wall. Different ages. Build a wall to keep out the
"wrong-aged" folks. Gays, lesbians, bisexuals, transgendered
people. Step back. Change the Book of Order. Build a wall.
Different countries. Build a wall. Different visions of the world.
Different understanding of God. Different faith. A wall is in order. We
live in a world of walls. Sometimes visible. Sometimes well hidden. The
walls are many and they are strong.
Last Tuesday, it happened again in Greater Cleveland.
The Lakewood City Council voted on a ordinance which would provide
domestic partners benefits for city employees. Domestic partners were
defined as two persons living together as spouses who financially are
interdependent and not related by blood closer than would bar marriage
in Ohio.(1) The primary but not only
people benefiting by the proposed ordinance would be gays and lesbians
who had made and were living out commitments to each other. After a time
of debate, the proposal was defeated.(2)
A wall went up.
I have pondered this vote and its meaning all week.
Finally on Friday, I came upon Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs' column in the Plain-Dealer.
I suppose I should confess my opinion that Afi is my favorite writer in
the PD. She puts things in words that I wish I could. Reflecting upon
the Lakewood vote, she did so again.
". . . the council's vote only postponed the
inevitable. The fight will occur again, in a different form, at another
time . . . The 'traditional family is no longer the only type of family,
but . . . one of many. . . .. adults in the 'nontraditional'
relationships are part of the community, too. They pay taxes. They send
their children to local schools. They paint their houses and cut their
grass. They sit on the porch with their friends and watch the summer
twilight blend gradually into summer. In other words, they live normal
lives. But some people aren't ready to acknowledge that fact. The vote
wasn't only about expanding health benefits, or bereavement leave, or
employee relations. It was about striding into a changing world - or
fighting the inevitable every step of the way."(3)
". . . the council's vote only postponed the
inevitable. The vote wasn't only about expanding health benefits, or
bereavement leave, or employee relations. It was about striding into a
changing world - or fighting the inevitable every step of the way."
In the truth which Afi penned, I heard echoes of one
of the great wall wreckers of the twentieth century and perhaps of all
time. The monstrous evil of apartheid fell for a number of reasons.
Among them was the unflagging work of Desmond Tutu. From his ministry as
a priest through his days as an Archbishop to his guidance of the Truth
and Reconciliation Process, Tutu worked ceaselessly and tirelessly for a
South Africa where the rainbow people of God could share life together.
As he envisioned and embraced and lived for the end of
apartheid, Archbishop Tutu's speeches took on three dimensions. To those
who were oppressed, he offered the comfort that the walls would come
down. To those involved in oppressing, he issued an invitation to join
in taking down the walls since they were going to come down. And when
the government did its worst and the hate flared the strongest and the
oppression and brutality reached its zenith, he proclaimed that
apartheid was already over - that the walls would come down because it
was God's will that the walls come down. And that indeed in Jesus Christ
the walls had already come down. All that remained was for the rest of
South Africa to catch up.
I believe that his three-pronged approach has
relevance to all situations of oppression - all circumstances of
exclusion - all the places and the ways where we label and judge and
wall out those who are different from us. For his message is the ancient
Good News found in the book of Jonah and lived by Jesus Christ - God
does not make us for walls. God does not make us for separation. God
does not make us for division. God makes us for each other. God makes us
for love. God makes us for community.
And so with Archbishop Tutu's help, I invite my
brothers and sisters who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgendered
who endure homophobia and heterosexism; my brothers and sisters of color
who endure racism; my sisters who endure sexism; those who endure the
stigma of mental illness; those excluded because their abilities differ;
all who are oppressed in any way: I invite you to say to yourself: God
loves me. God loves me just as I am. God created me for freedom. My
freedom is God-given. The walls will fall. They will fall because God is
just. They have fallen because God is good. The day is coming when each
person and every person counts because they are made in the image of
God. Endure. People cannot be held down forever, we are made for
something more glorious. Resist. No matter how long oppression succeeds,
ultimately, ultimately it will crumble. Struggle. Freedom is coming.
I invite those who find ourselves in positions of
oppressing . . . of benefiting from the privilege; Say to ourselves: God
loves me for no other reason than God made me. And nothing can give me
any more value than knowing that God loves me. God created me for
freedom. My freedom is God-given. The walls will fall. They will fall
because God is just. They have fallen because God is good. In the mean
time, when others know oppression, my freedom is curtailed. Join our
sisters and our brothers. Join the struggle. Join knowing that the
victory is already won. God's will, will be done. Seize this moment to
join the struggle to build a world without walls, a world where all
human beings have their dignity and worth affirmed, where freedom rings
and reigns for all, where every human being is treated as persons and
not as a thing, and where all people are valued as precious children of
God.(4)
And to us all, when we are oppressed, when we are
oppressors, when we find ourselves somewhere in between, I say:
God loves us. God makes us for freedom. And we shall
be free. The walls will tumble. The walls will fall. They will fall
because God is just. They have fallen because God is good. It is God's
intention. God makes us and loves us - Jonah and the people of Ninevah
and you and me and every one - with all our diversity, God loves us and
God intends us for love and community. God gives Jesus to fulfill God's
intention, to reveal our true humanity, and to show us how to live. God
enlists us to help transfigure all the ugliness and hate of this world
into the beauty and wonder of God's kingdom. We shall be free, all of
us, because the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ assures us that
life has overcome death, light has overcome darkness, love has overcome
hate, justice has overcome oppression, goodness has overcome evil.(5)
By the grace of God, in the power of the Holy Spirit, we shall know
sharing and peace, reconciliation and forgiveness, laughter and joy,
compassion and caring. Let it be, gracious God, let it be. And let the
people say:
Amen.
1. This definition comes from an
article on the web page of the Lakewood Sun-Post. The address
is http://www.cleveland.com/sun/editions/lp.html.
I accessed the page on Saturday, January 22. Unfortunately I did not
take any additional information.
2. Kevin Harter, "Lakewood
Rejects Same-Sex Benefits" (The Plain Dealer, Wednesday,
January 19, 2000) http://www.clevelandlive.com/news/pdnews/metro/cc19part.ssf
3. Afi-Odelia E. Scruggs,
"Gay-rights Furor Will Appear Again" (The Plain Dealer,
Friday, January 21, 2000, Section B, page 1.
4. Martin Luther King, Jr.,
"The Ethical Demands for Integration," in A Testament of
Hope, James M. Washington, ed. (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 1986),
pp. 117-125.
5. Desmond Tutu, "Agents of
Transfiguration,: The Rainbow People of God (New York, NY:
Bantam Doubleday Dell Publishing Group), p. 127.
