22 January 2012

Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Psalm 62:5-12
1 Corinthians 7:29-31
Mark 1:14-20

Jonah knew what was going to happen. He just knew that if he went to Nineveh and there proclaimed God’s Word – well, he knew that God’s Word always changes everything. Always. Everything. And Jonah wasn’t into change – not one little bit. And even as Jonah spoke the words given to him by God, they were hitting their mark. “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” It didn’t take forty days – Nineveh was overthrown all right and by grace – and almost immediately the people of Nineveh found their way of thinking being changed – and in verses that weren’t in our reading, the King of Nineveh proclaims that all shall turn away from “the violence that is in their hands.”

Most of us are probably used to thinking that the story of Nineveh is a far distant tale – distant in time and in place. The story is set in the ancient near East, long before Christ – about some other people, not about us. But what if . . . . . . what if for Nineveh we substitute the Church? Nineveh’s sin was violence, and it doesn’t take a scholar to realize that the Church has been an institution that has rained down violence of all sorts on all sorts of people. Do I need to make a list for us to consider? We could start with the early conflicts over whether it was lawful to eat meat sacrificed to idols and whether circumcision was necessary to become part of the church. Much of what St. Paul writes to the early congregations of the Church arises out of conflicts, sometimes violent, about who is welcome in the Church and who is not. And so it has continued, century in and century out. And sometimes, like the people of Nineveh, the people of the Church have repented. Only it’s not been as instantaneous as it was in the story of Jonah. In the God-story, of which the Book of Jonah is a part, everything seems to happen in the twinkling of an eye, whether it’s the repentance of Nineveh, or as in this morning’s Gospel, where we hear that at the call of Jesus, Simon and his brother Andrew “immediately left their nets and followed him.” But do remember, that because these are all parts of the God-story, they happen in God-time, in God-time wherein a thousand of our years are but a thousandth part of a second – immediately – in God-time.

We at St. Paul celebrate this particular day, in part as Reconciling in Christ Sunday. Congregations, like St. Paul, that are designated as Reconciling in Christ have set themselves to the task of singling out as being particularly welcome those persons who have historically been singled out by the church as particularly unwelcome. While this Reconciling movement began with singling out for particular welcome God’s lesbian, gay, bi-sexual, and transgender children, it has expanded to especially welcome others as well for whom the Church has impeded access to Word and Sacrament. In becoming Reconciling in Christ, participating congregations have acknowledged the Church’s violence toward certain segments of society, have become like Nineveh, turning away from violence to welcome-in those who have been the objects of the Church’s exclusionary violence. Each Reconciling congregation crafts a covenant statement that explicitly welcomes those who have been explicitly or implicitly turned away; and so, our own welcoming statement reads in part: “We . . . regret actions and attitudes throughout the Church that may have inhibited or prevented access to Word and Sacrament because of age, race, socio-economic or marital status, physical or mental capacities, gender identity, or sexual orientation.” Like the King of Nineveh, we at St. Paul along with all Reconciling congregations are regretful, sorry, repentant for the evil that has been in our hands.

We regret, we repent. These are present tense verbs. The act of turning from violence is ongoing in every present moment. The bullying and exclusion of people on account of age, race, socio-economic or marital status, physical or mental capacities, gender identity or sexual orientation still loom large in our culture and are often enshrined in civil law. Because the eyes of many remain blind, both intentionally and unintentionally, to the violence visited upon those who differ from the status quo, repentance must be an ongoing action. But make no mistake, and hear it well least we become tempted to triumphalism: our continuing repentance and regret are not ever something we naturally or easily do. Repentance and regret over our violence are always the work of the God who speaks to us. It is Word of God in the Proclamation and the Holy Sacraments that changes us, that creates us new and clean hearts reborn in the image of Christ’s own hear. To repent of, to turn from violence, bullying, and intimidation is also not something we have to do – again this is the result of the Word that says to us, “You have been united with Christ in a death like his, and you have been raised with Christ in a resurrection like his and already, in that time that is outside of time, for with God a thousand ages is but a moment.”

Much has changed for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America since August of 2009. The ELCA has, as a body, officially repented of the violence the Church has waged against those of a same-gender sexual orientation. And in 2011, this same Church body dedicated itself to ongoing repentance with regard to bullying, abuse, and intimidation in every regard. In this morning’s Gospel reading from St. Mark, Jesus proclaims to Simon, Andrew, James, and John that they are now going to be fishers after people. They are going to haul in from the deep and chaotic waters those who are drowning, and there is in that proclamation of Jesus no set of exclusionary clauses no any sanctioning whatsoever of intimidation, abuse, or bullying. Jesus has proclaimed that the Church, its several traditions, its many congregations, and its millions of people are going to be rescuing the drowning. And so on this Reconciling in Christ Sunday we do rededicate our selves with all Reconciling congregations, with the whole ELCA, and with others of various traditions to ongoing repentance, to ongoing advocacy in the civil arena, to ongoing action in our daily lives so that, in the words of Jesus in St. John’s Gospel, all “may have life, and have it abundantly.” This we do not by our own understanding or strength, but ever and only by the ongoing and powerful work of the Holy Spirit who is in us. This we do not because we have to – for in Christ we do not have to do anything; we do these and all good things because we get to – because, quite simply, by the Promise of God this is who we are, who we yet shall be. And in God’s good time, God always makes come to pass that which God has promised, whether we like it or not. Just ask Jonah. Or Simon, Andrew, James, John, Mary Magdalene, Paul, Lazarus, Mary and Martha, or Ignatius or Clare or Francis or Lucia or Martin or Dorcas or Lydia or Hildegard or Scholastica or Benedict or Dominic or Cecilia or Bergitta or . . . . . . .