Man Overbaord!

Jonah 1:10-17 - Jonah: Man Overboard! Doug Partin - The Christian Church - Sept 20, 2020 Do the strangers you encounter each day know that you are a Christian? And by strangers, I mean the folks at the gas station who are filling up their tanks at the same time you are; or the folks in the same checkout line waiting to pay for their purchases; or the folks you pass on the hiking trail, or the ones in the same waiting room at a doctor's office? Unless you already know each other, they probably don't, why would they? And you probably don't know anything about them either. What you think about each other might depend on your past encounters with someone that they remind you of, and you remind them of. And yes, while we don't like to admit it, we tend to categorize people. Not in a racial way, although some do, but in a - if person with a British accent was well educated and able to teach you something you wanted to know, you'd tend to think about others with that same accent in that same positive way. And if a person who looked wealthy treated you with contempt, you'd tend to think of other wealthy people that same way. And those perceptions aren't limited to your personal experience, but are also influenced by what others have told you about a particular sort of person. And there are a lot of those voices in the world. Let me explain this social dynamic with a story from Lewis and Clark's famous expedition to the Pacific Northwest. In 1804 it almost came to an untimely and deadly end. Half-starved and almost frozen, the men staggered out of Idaho's snowy Bitterroot Mountains into the camp of the Nez Perce Indians. A chief named Twisted Hair had to decide what to do with the weak but wealthy strangers that suddenly appeared in their midst. According to the tribe's oral tradition, some of the Nez Perce proposed killing the pale skinned men and confiscating their boxes of manufactured goods and weapons. The expedition's rifles and ammunition alone would have instantly made the Nez Perce the region's richest and most powerful tribe. But one of woman came to the aid of the men of the expedition. As a young girl, she had been captured by an enemy tribe on the plains, who in turn sold her to another tribe. Eventually she was befriended and treated kindly by fair-skinned people in Canada before escaping and making her way back to her own people. They called her Watkuweis, which meant, "Returned from a Faraway Country," and for years she told them stories about the fair-skinned people who lived toward the rising sun. She was an older woman when the explorers arrived. And when she learned about plans to kill the men, she intervened, saying, "These are the people who helped me. Do not hurt them." I'm glad that this encounter, based on her assumptions, turned out well. Like the sailors surrounding Jonah, the strangers in your life might be prone to "getting religion" in the midst of a crisis. Why would I make that assumption? Because, according to the Pew Research center, Christianity (including both Catholic and Protestant) continues to decline at a rapid pace. Losing about 12 percentage points every two years according to their ongoing survey of about 35,000 people. The last data they released was for 2018 and 2019. That means, across the nation, Christianity declined over those two years from 77% of the population to 65%. But the good news is that only about 2% said that they were agnostic, 4% atheistic, which showed very little increase; however about 17% said that they were "nothing in particular." These "none'rs" as they are starting to be called is the only group increasing. But that still means that a majority of the strangers around you are probably religious, and likely Christian, at some level. But, from my experience, it usually takes a crisis for that faith to rise to the surface of those who are not actively involved in a church. And less than 50% of our population are involved, and only about 20% attend on a regular basis, which has dropped even more drastically during the restrictions related to COVID-19, but for other reasons. It doesn't matter what sort of crisis a person encounters. It might be an identity crisis, it might be a basic needs crisis, it might be a marriage crisis, it might be an addiction crisis, or a parenting crisis, or a social justice crisis. A crisis is a time of intense difficulty, trouble, and danger: physically, mentally, or spiritually. A crisis can also be when a person is facing an important, potentially life altering or threatening decision. As I said, it is usually when a person is facing a crisis that they turn to the Lord for help. And quite often, they only turn to Him after having tried everything they can to resolve the crisis by their own strength, and have failed. So it is highly likely that some of those strangers in your life are looking for help from above. The sailors didn't know who to blame for their crisis, only that they were not in a "natural" storm and so they felt that one of them must have upset a god. As we learned last week, seeking divine direction by casting lots, the sailors discovered that Jonah was to blame for their situation. I think that it is fair to say that the sailors knew nothing about Jonah's faith in the Lord until He made his confession. But they did assume that he was religious, just like they were, and that he would have a god on which he called for help. In Jonah's confession, he not only revealed his identity, but how it was deeply rooted in a relationship with God, who just happened to be the one who created the land and the sea. And how Jonah was trying to escape from His presence. The Hebrew term translated 'presence' literally means "before the face of" and can be understood in a variety of ways depending upon the context in which it is used. As I said last week, I don't believe that Jonah felt that He could actually escape from God's reach, but He did think that He could escape from doing what God asked Him to do by running in the opposite direction. Jonah's crisis was, "Which way do I go?" He knew what God wanted, but he didn't want to do what God had told him. So he was faced with an obedience crisis. When the sailors heard Jonah's whale of a tale, they asked him out of disbelief, "How could you do that?" Their question implied that they believed what Jonah had said about God was true. The raging storm was evidence enough for them that Jonah's God had control over the elements. And what they now believed about God, frightened them. And because of this fear, they were willing to do anything and everything to appease Jonah's God. There is something refreshing about the obedience of someone who recently went through a foxhole conversion. They are convinced that God intervened in their lives and saved them, not just eternally speaking, but in a real-world sort of way. Some of those who go through such an experience stick with their new-found faith, others fall way from it. Sort of like Jesus' parable about the seed that is planted in different kinds of soil. The sailor's seed was planted in the fertile soil of fear. It was King Solomon who said that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom. But it was the "strangers" whom the Assyrians used to colonize Israel, after they had conquered it and taken the people of Israel captive, who became afraid because they were facing a crisis. Lions "were among them which killed some of them." (2K17:25) They felt that this was happening because they didn't know the God of the land that they were trying to occupy. And they were afraid of what else this God might do to them if they didn't get to know Him. They asked that a priest be returned from captivity to teach them to properly fear the Lord, which was done. By fear, they meant how to show respectful obedience, which they did once this priest arrived and taught them. But instead of turning away from their old gods, they wanted to add 'obeying the God of Israel' to their list of religious things to do to keep all the gods happy. As a result, they did not end up truly "fearing" the Lord; that is, they did not obey or worship Him exclusively. They did not trust Him alone to take care of them. Jesus once spoke about how people are motivated by fear, and that we usually end up doing what people tell us to do who threatened to kill us if we don't do as they say. Jesus said that instead of fearing such people, we needed to fear the one who can not only kill the body, but cast the soul into hell. That is the one that we should fear. The sailors were in self-preservation mode. What were they to do with this runaway prophet that would result in pleasing His God, and thereby calm the sea? Jonah gave them the answer, but they didn't like it. The answer was to throw Jonah into the sea. But they did not want to kill Jonah, that went against what they thought was right. They didn't think that what he did deserved death. So, they took matters into their own hands, literally. They tried, again, to save themselves and Jonah by rowing the boat to shore. But their efforts only made things worse. The storm grew stronger. They finally gave up and pleaded for mercy, asking God to spare them, and not to hold Jonah's innocent blood against them. But, they were fearful enough by this point to do what they were told by Jonah would please the Lord. When they threw Jonah into the sea, the storm stopped. This calming of the storm, this deliverance, seemed to induce an even greater fear in these sailors than they had felt during the storm. A fear of awe and wonder and respect. They offered sacrifices to God and made vows. We don't know what sort of vows, but it implies that they were willing to make some pretty strong commitments to honoring and obeying Jonah's God. And they would probably tell their story about how this God had saved them, and they might even, like "returned from a faraway country" connect with, and treat well, those they encountered who followed the God of Jonah. We don't know the rest of their story, but we know the rest of Jonah's story. He became a sign. A sign that Jesus said would be the only one that the people of Nazareth would ever see. A sign that foreshadowed Jesus' death, burial and resurrection. The people of Nazareth grew up with Jesus and they thought of Him as "Mary's boy." They had heard that Jesus was doing miracles all over the region, and they wanted Jesus to do some for them, so they could accept His claims. But the gospels record that He could do none because of their lack of faith. It is interesting that in those other places, where Jesus performed miracles, those people came to Him because they were facing crisis, and they believed that Jesus could help them, and He did. Jesus told the people of Nazareth that the only sign that they would see is the sign of Jonah. Whether we realize it or not, we all face a life and death crisis in regard to our life beyond the grave, just as those in Nazareth did. Those who come to accept this truth can either face it on their own, or with whatever religious system that they think will address it. But there is only one God who is the creator of heaven and earth. Only one God who sent His Son to save, not only us, but the whole world. We can learn to fear Him, and accept His offer of help, to trust Him, or we can go our own way. To be quite honest, like Jonah, we are not so innocent. We have sinned, and the penalty for sin, as Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans is death. That means that like Jonah each of us need to be thrown overboard into the sea of baptism. The old, rebellious person needs to die in the watery grave, so a new person can rise with Christ and be filled with His Spirit. It is only then, when we have been transformed by His grace, that we can faithful follow God's call to go to the world sharing the good news of His loving offer of redemption. Prayer: Lord, help us to fear You and You alone. We accept your judgement that we deserve death, and rejoice that Your Son has taken our place through His grace. Amen.