Sermon for January 25, 2009

Homily for January 25, 2009 Buck Mountain and Graves Chapel

It isn’t easy being a prophet. In today’s Old Testament lesson, we see the prophet Jonah in one of his better moments, walking across the city of Ninevah to warn the people of the destruction God has planned for them. But this is Chapter 3 of Jonah, and at the end of Chapter 2 Jonah was vomited from the belly of the whale. You may not remember the reason Jonah ended up being swallowed by a whale in the first place. When God originally called Jonah to take his message to the people of Ninevah, Jonah was afraid, no doubt believing the people would not be very pleased with any person delivering such a warning. So, in order to get away from God and his obligations, Jonah boarded a ship and headed in the opposite direction. Displeased with Jonah, God sent a big storm, and when Jonah confessed to the sailors that he was the reason for the storm that tossed their ship, the sailors threw him overboard. Kindly, God, who clearly had plans for Jonah, sent a whale to rescue him.

If you are, like me, a big fan of the Aubrey-Maturin seafaring novels by Patrick O’Brian, you know that in the 18th century, when tall ships traversed the seas of the world, sailors were very superstitious about carrying a clergyman as a passenger. If a bad storm arose or other problems ensued when a man of the cloth was aboard, the sailors might choose to throw the Jonah, as they called him, into the sea. For all I know, sailors may still have an aversion to people like Jonah. So, whether you follow God’s call or try to avoid it, being a prophet (or a preacher) can be dangerous business.

What is the job description for a prophet? A prophet is someone who can see the big picture. A prophet can look into the future and see the end point of the path that people are currently pursuing. A prophet has the insight and wisdom to know the likely results and consequences of the chosen path. Since people are usually perfectly happy to continue in the direction they are headed, prophets are not popular. They can be scorned or reviled, thrown into jail like Paul, or killed like Jesus. It isn’t too surprising Jonah tried to avoid his duty as a prophet.

Events of the past week unavoidably focused our nation’s attention on the great American prophet and martyr of the 20th century, Martin Luther King, Jr. I am grateful to have been a child in the 1960s, to have grown up in Madison County, in a Southern state, and to have been a witness to the turmoil of the times. Seeing the world then, through a child’s eyes, was a test, to say the least, so you may ask why I am grateful to have grown up during such turbulent times. I believe we all learn our most enduring lessons from the challenges of life. My parents were churchgoing Christians and good people, and they took me to Sunday School and Vacation Bible School. What I learned there was that Christ calls us to love one another and to love our neighbors as ourselves. I will never forget some of the songs we learned, and one I remember well--I can even remember being in a Sunday School room and singing it--was “Jesus Loves the Little Children.” Maybe you remember that one, too. It goes like this: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight. Jesus loves the little children of the world.” I believed those words with my whole heart, because the Jesus I had come to know extended a welcome to everyone, even tax-collecting sinners like Zaccheus. (There was a song about him, too.) Jesus did not discriminate against anyone.

But the world I grew up in didn’t seem to match Jesus’s dream. I attended an all-white elementary school. The only African-American in the building was an elderly custodian, and we children were instructed to call him Uncle Jim. I am ashamed to say I still do not know the man’s full name. What I was taught at Sunday School was not being taught or lived at Waverly Yowell Elementary.

Historians now say the nightly news on television in the 1960s was an instrument of social change, and I understand what they mean. Seeing it before my very eyes, I could not understand how some white Southerners, who no doubt called themselves Christians, could use fire hoses or turn vicious dogs on peaceful protestors simply asking for their basic human rights. Dr. King showed me what it meant to use no force but the force of righteousness and to turn the other cheek to injustice. I was in 8th grade when Madison County Schools finally integrated, and I was in 9th grade when Martin Luther King, Jr., was assassinated. By the time he died, King had become my hero. He spoke the truth in Christian love, and he did what he did with more courage than I had ever witnessed, in the face of constant threats against his life.

On Tuesday, when Barack Obama was inaugurated, many Americans spoke of how Martin Luther King’s dream had finally come true. If they meant that we, as a nation, have reached a point of color-blindness, when we truly judge others “by the content of their character and not the color of their skin,” I do not believe we are there yet. I hope and pray a door has been opened into that new world where the teachings of Jesus Christ may finally be fulfilled in the dream of Martin King, but I think we still have some distance to go. We may believe “Jesus loved the little children, all the children of the world,” but until our actions match those beliefs, we are not truly answering Christ’s call to love one another. Those actions must include tolerant acceptance of everyone we encounter as we seek and serve Christ in all persons.

Former Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church Edmond Browning wrote: "Jesus came into the world to save the world, the whole of the world. There was nothing outside God's intention in the act, and there is nothing outside it now. Life is hard. Life will always be hard. But it is holy."
In his inaugural address our new President warned us of the hard times ahead and asked us to “pick ourselves up, dust ourselves off,” and help him to remake America. We are truly living in dangerous and difficult times, and even if we did not vote for Obama, we may agree with the urgency of his call to action. We may feel the need to heed his call and do something for our neighbor and our country. But what do we do?

A call is a very risky thing. In today’s lesson from the gospel of Mark, we see Jesus calling his first four disciples, who immediately drop what they are doing and join him. Reading that, we might say, “Well, I probably would answer a call if Jesus came to me and asked me directly. I could see myself doing what the disciples did.” If we are really being honest with ourselves, we might also say, “Those disciples must have been nuts. They didn’t even know who Jesus was at that point.”

We certainly know much more about Jesus today than Peter, Andrew, James and John could have known back then. Many Christians do feel called to serve the Lord in a variety of ways, and we can see the results of their response as they serve food to the homeless or volunteer for organizations like Habitat for Humanity. Good works are important in a world so full of hurt and need, and any way in which we reach out to our neighbor fulfills the golden rule. But I think a call from Jesus Christ asks more of us. When Jesus called his disciples, he turned their world upside down. What he asked for was a complete change of course. What he wants from us is a mindfulness of all we do so that all we do is an expression of love. When he spoke of his disciples, Jesus said, “You will know them by their love.” Can the same be said of us?

I know it’s hard. Believe me, I have tried to practice what I preach, and I find some people extremely hard to love. The driving-too-fast guy who cuts back into my lane and nearly runs me off the road—definitely not someone I feel much love towards. In truth, I sometimes find it hard to love close members of my own family—they can be very annoying at times. There are days when I find it hard to love myself. But the task is to see ourselves and everyone else as children of God. Loving each other as brothers and sisters in Christ, fallible as we all are, is the foundation of Christian community. May it also be the foundation of our nation as we move forward through the challenges we face.

Susan Hull