So there I was inauguration day. I’d just finished watching President Barack Obama speak to millions of people. I was so moved that he spoke so clearly and called so many to responsibility, that I did something I rarely do – I wrote what I was feeling on Facebook – “Paul just finished watching Barack speak… finally leadership that asks something of us!”

Guess what happened next? Anybody? I got a private e-mail from a friend in Seattle who wanted to have a wall-to-wall conversation with me. “It’s an extremely sad day,” he began, “when we look to a man to encourage us to lead and love, when the Bible stated it for 2000 years. Our desire to lead and love should come from within, in hopes of bringing glory to God almighty. Never to appease one man, president or not.”

Do I have you hooked into our conversation? “As a Christian,” he continued, “I will pray for those in government, but surely as long as I live, I will not lead, love and live because one man worshipped by millions has ‘challenged’ me. No, I will lead, live, and love because Christ and Christ alone has asked me too.”

By now I’m wondering what it was that I said that stirred him up so! “My prayer for you,” he wrote, “is for you to echo President Obama’s challenge, but in the name of Christ and Christ alone.”

This is what I wrote back:
It is a great encouragement to me to see God’s spirit moving and working in the world raising up leadership in all realms of living calling us to responsibility, and to live in ways that reflect God’s goodness to us in and through Jesus Christ. Followers of Jesus here and around the world have been crying out that God would raise up leaders for a time such as this, a time that requires not only responsibility, but also a cry for God’s forgiveness (as Rick Warren prayed). In the 80’s and 90’s the evangelical church amassed great power aligning itself with a certain political ideology, while calling people in the name of Christ alone. The fruit of that failed alignment of serving religious and political power together is quite evident, not only in our country but around the world.

“Amen!” my friend shot right back, “to most of it.” The call of the Christian to love the Lord with all your heart, mind and soul, and to love your neighbor as yourself is paramount! To share provisions, to bless, to have compassion on one another, to share the Gospel with one another.
My fear is that man in this world will give the glory to man for the work done. Not Christ. The idea of reaching out to your neighbor in an act of compassion is not Mr. Obama’s, its Christ’s. Yet how quickly we (society) look to give him all the credit.

For instance, (which is what prompted my bitterness this morning) I was giving platelets yesterday. A quite lengthy process, as I’m sure your aware. I’ve been doing it for 8 years. But the phlebotomist made a comment yesterday that floored me. She said, “Thanks for taking President Elect Obama’s challenge, to reach out and help someone in need.” I about freaked. The challenge came from Christ. And it made me think… I don’t really care what Mr. Obama says, my calling is higher, and it’s from the Lord. To HIS glory, and none other.

I finished our conversation with this story: ”When I was at Gonzaga getting my pastoral ministry degree, I was challenged hard by one of my classmates in a theology class over something I said. “When I look at another human being I try to see Jesus, and it helps me respond to them more appropriately.” To which one of my wise sisters in Christ, who happened to be Catholic, responded, “Why do you have to see Jesus? Why can’t you just see a human being?” This floored me! I was upset at first (I felt misunderstood). But the more I thought about it the more God’s spirit used those simple questions and challenges to correct me and drive me deeper into I believe into the life of God, and into how Jesus lived, how he saw the best in all of humanity –regardless of where they were in the politically correct religious world – in which he lived.

I thought a lot about this conversation this week, as I read our scripture story about a leader of great secular city, that is in grave danger, because of its evil deeds. Yet God is at work in this city, creatively bringing mercy in the midst of a warning of judgment.

How people and leaders, both secular and religious, respond to God is quite revealing. By the end one has a sense of awe at how God cares about the lives of those who live in his world.

Old Testament Reading: Jonah 3:1-6a, 7a, 8-10
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2“Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”
5And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 6When the news reached the king of Nineveh …7he had a proclamation made in Nineveh… 8Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” 10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
Jonah 4But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. 2He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 3And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” 5Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.
6The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush.
7But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.” 9But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” 10Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

SERMON: “The God who doesn’t want to punish”Well this is one of the world’s worst sermons isn’t it? Hopefully not the one I’m about preach, but the one that Jonah delivers, reluctantly to Nineveh. “Forty days more, and your city will be destroyed,” is Jonah’s message. “Forty days more, and your city will be destroyed.” I wonder how many times he cried out his desire for judgment on this wicked people.

The Israelites listening to this story would remember Nineveh – the great city that which had deported their ancestors in the Northern Kingdom. The history of the wickedness of the city is personal, and it is unresolved, not forgiven. They would also remember their prophet Nahum who called the city “vile” “bloody” “full of lies and booty” “like a den of lions” “like a prostitute.”

The point is Jonah, who represents God, doesn’t care for this city. He doesn’t want to be there. But the word of the Lord has come to him a second time. After running away from God’s call to go to Nineveh, Jonah ends up at sea in the midst of a wild storm, and then descends into utter darkness in the belly of a great fish. Then the word of the Lord comes to Jonah a second time.
This time he reluctantly obeys, but notice in the world’s worst sermon there is no call for the city or the people to do anything, other than to prepare to die.

What happens next is utterly astonishing. The people believe God. What great news! When a community is ready to hear the voice of God, it almost doesn’t matter who the messenger is, or how the message is presented. Even though Jonah cries-out judgment on them, with no call for repentance, the people proclaim a fast and put on sackcloth, as if they instinctively grasp their need for repentance.

The people’s king responds to their action. He issues a proclamation, “Human beings and even animals shall be covered with sackcloth… they shall cry to God… turn from the evil – that does what? – puts violence in their hands.” And then these great words, “Who knows God may change his mind.” At first I read this almost like, “Well let’s hedge our bets.” Kind of like, “we’re in trouble now, so let’s see if God will rescue us if we repent.” I was going to call it the worst repentance ever (smile).

But I think that would be wrong. I don’t think it would give this king his due justice. James Limburg, professor emeritus at Luther seminary says “the who knows” comment indicates the king did not presume to control God. Isn’t that a remarkable and perhaps revealing statement about the king’s character? Instead of trying to control God, and the outcome, this secular king demonstrated his concern for the people, even for their animals, asking them to turn from their evil, violent ways, to possibly avoid the punishment that God’s prophet Jonah was preaching.

When God saw this God changed God’s mind. This makes Jonah furious. His response is fascinating in light of the secular king presuming not to control God. “Lord I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, ready to relent from punishing. It’s why I ran away from you in the beginning.”

Jonah knew that he couldn’t control God – for one of the hardest things to control is grace and mercy – that comes in the midst judgment. What great news!

Jonah, the religious insider was learning what the secular king, the religious outsider already knew. You can’t control God. Nor can you control how people respond when they hear God. Nor can you control how God responds to people “who don’t know their right hand from their left” when responsibility and forgiveness come together.

In Jonah’s worst sermon God’s creative mercy is at work and on display. Jonah wants the city to be destroyed, but he has much to learn from these wicked people and their secular king.

The story leaves us with a great question that God asks Jonah, “Should I not care about a great city where there are 120 thousand people, and also many animals?

God cares even when God’s people – like Jonah –don’t. God cares for “those who don’t know their right hand from the left.” God even cares for their animals.

In my imagination I can’t help but wonder if this king agonizing over the possibility that his people, his city, even its animals might perish, doesn’t somehow influence God to change his mind.

Or was God just being God?
The One reluctant to punish,
The merciful One,
The One slow to anger,
The One who steadily loves?

May we hear again the mystery and power of the world’s worst sermon – when people are ready they will respond to God’s word that has creative mercy and power, when judgment and repentance, forgiveness and responsibility meet.