(For what it is worth, this is the sermon that I preached this morning. In light of some of the press that the Church of Christ has received this week, I thought it was timely. I usually post this solely on my sermon blog. However, I am considering moving it over here and collapsing the two blogs together. Let me know what you think.)

Prophets make us uncomfortable.
But Jonah is a cute story.
We all know the story of Jonah. Jonah is tapped by God to go to the great city of Nineveh. He is to preach to them, yet he refuses by running the other way.
Instead of going where God sent Him we see in 1:3 Jonah rose to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish. So he paid the fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
A great storm comes up, and determining the source of the storm being none other than Jonah, they captain and crew throw him overboard.

Of course, by heading the opposite way he is swallowed up by a great fish.

1:17 And the Lord appointed a great fish to swallow up Jonah. And Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

The story of Jonah is more than just a cute kid’s story, however. It is a damning indictment on those of us who fail to minister as God has called us to minister.In Matthew 12 the Pharisees are swirling around Jesus. His insistence of plucking grain and healing on the Sabbath and driving out the demon-possessed man has them apoplectic.
Because of his audacity and his teaching they demand to see further signs.

Matthew 12:38
Then some of the scribes and Pharisees answered him, saying, “Teacher, we wish to see a sign from you.” 39 But he answered them, “An evil and adulterous generation seeks for a sign, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah. 40 For just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the great fish, so will the Son of Man be three days and three nights in the heart of the earth. 41 The men of Nineveh will rise up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and behold, something greater than Jonah is here.
Jesus makes the connection between himself and Jonah in this passage, the only time Jesus compares Himself to another prophet.
He says that He is greater than Jonah. But how? By following a different path. Jonah’s path led him away from God. Jesus’ path led Him to the lost.

Jesus makes the connection between himself and Jonah in this passage, the only time Jesus compares Himself to another prophet.He says that He is greater than Jonah. But how? By following a different path. Jonah’s path led him away from God. Jesus’ path led Him to the lost.There is no more polarizing issue in America today than that of homosexuality.
It is one of the major issues that will face the church in the coming years.
The issue is not whether or not the homosexual lifestyle is permissible or not but how we treat those who struggle with this behavior.

Often times in our debates and our passions over this issue we forget the precious souls caught in the crossfire between our religious convictions and our call to minister to the unlovable and the outcast.
For, understand this, despite our convictions on homosexuality we are called to love homosexuals.
I want to tell you a story about this struggle:
Now traveling throughout the country, the Soulforce Equality Ride is taking 33 young adults on a seven-week bus tour to confront colleges that ban the enrollment of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender students.
They have modeled themselves after the civil rights freedom rides of the early 1960’s. They have schooled themselves in non-violent resistance.

They began in Lynchburg Virginia on March 10th and will finish on April 26th at the U.S. Military Academy.
To date here is what has happened:

Liberty University—Arrested amid jeers and slurs.
Regent University—Arrested
Lee University—Their bus defaced with slurs
Union University—Barred from campus by police tape threatening arrest if they trespassed the lines.
Oral Roberts—Arrested
Abilene Christian University—Placed in hotels, given the opportunity to talk to students

—Arrested amid jeers and slurs.—Arrested—Their bus defaced with slurs—Barred from campus by police tape threatening arrest if they trespassed the lines.—Arrested—Placed in hotels, given the opportunity to talk to students“After careful consideration and discussions about who we are as a university, we decided the best way to affirm our core Christian values would be to treat Soulforce as Christ would – to have peaceful, patient dialogue about these issues while respectfully and clearly articulating why we believe as we do,” said Dr. Royce Money, ACU president.

said Dr. Royce Money, ACU president.“During the visit, the Equality Riders and ACU students and employees discussed topics related to discrimination and violence toward GLBT individuals, as well as theological implications of homosexual behavior. In each session, ACU faculty and administrators helped facilitate the dialogue and guide the discussion.
ACU planners of the event said they were proud of the university’s students.”

From a Soulforce Rider:
“This is the first school to offer us an official welcome and provide us with forums and the space to give presentations and attend classes and have structured dialogues with students, faculty, and staff. It struck me when we first arrived in the room to eat dinner that the smallest of courtesies — providing us with nametags — indicated that they cared about who we were and wanted to get to know us as individuals.
“No other school has given us such a welcome, and for this we applaud the administration of ACU.”

Question for us: which college represented the spirit of Jesus rather than the spirit of Jonah?
Never once condoning sin but always loving people.

Never once condoning sin but always loving people.Jesus compared himself to Jonah. And there are important parallels:
1. Both were swallowed up—Jonah by the whale, Jesus by a tomb.
2. Both were spit out—Jonah onto dry land, Jesus back among the living.
3. Both had 40 days—Jonah to warn of Nineveh’s destruction, Jesus to walk the earth before ascension.

But there is an important contrast:

· Jonah was swallowed up because he refused to love. Jonah was not swallowed by a big fish because He ran from God but because He failed to realize where God was. See, we think that God appears to Jonah in Israel and Jonah turns around and runs the opposite direction. But, God was already in Nineveh. By running from the presence of God there is acknowledgment that God was among the people that Jonah hated most.
And, understand this, Jonah hated the Ninevites. He did not want to tell them the good news of God’s salvation. They were a threat to the chosen people of God. They represented everything they were supposed to stand against. Everything that was wrong with society. They were evil idolaters. Detestable and low. And he was going to get as far from those scum as he could—a trip to Tarshish would be about 3 years round trip.
The message of God’s covenant relationship, to Jonah, was available only to the Jews, to the righteous.

· Jesus was swallowed up because he loved. Jesus went precisely where God called Him to go:

o Not to the religious but to the lost—Pharisees did not care to know Jesus. They wanted a sign but what good would it have done. They didn’t recognize the Savior, they weren’t going to recognize a sign. But the lost recognized the Savior.
o Not to the righteous but to the sinners
o Not to the elite but to the common—Where did Jesus eat His meals, find His friends?
o Not to the important but to the forgotten
o Not to the whole but to the broken

The criticism against Jonah was that he did not go to the people that God called him to go to.
The criticism against Jesus is that He did go to those people.
In the life of Jesus, He turned the understanding of social interaction on its head.
Decorum suggested that you don’t lessen yourself.
That you hang out with people in your stratum. But Jesus didn’t do that—He befriended sinners, harlots, tax collectors, lepers.

Jonah didn’t want to do that. He was angry when God forgave the people of Nineveh. Legalism hates mercy.
He never repents—of running, of hating the Ninevites, of valuing legalism over grace.

But Jesus rejoices when anyone comes to Him.

Are we like the modern-day Pharisees (of who Jonah would have been a good candidate) talking a good game about going into the world yet pulling up short against walking into the fray and (shudder) engaging sinners?

Do we want to place police tape around our lives and run from the presence of God—who makes it abundantly clear in Scripture that He is where the people are?

Do we want to threaten arrest or marginalization for those who struggle with their very identity—when it was to those people that Jesus gravitated?

Can we sleep while the world around us swirls in turmoil, content with our decision to reject God’s call to love the least of these while Jesus takes up the basin and towel and ministers to the downtrodden?

Are we that peaceful with disobeying God? He slept. He was at peace with his decision to run from those God wanted to touch. Too often we do the same.

Who are we? Are we as Christ or are we Jonah?
Where are we going? To where the people are no matter how unseemly it may seem to us? Or are we running from those we don’t like and in essence running from God?

What can we do to honor the scarlet thread in Jonah?

1. Pray that you will love people more—(Tell about my prayer)

2. Confront your prejudices—(Dish Network Tech Support)

3. Seek to minister to those you wouldn’t ordinarily—(My story of people coming to me; Rebecca Younger)

4. Understand you will pay—Unfortunately, some of us don’t want to see others go into the world. For fear of who or what we might bring back. For fear of communicating the wrong message. For hatred of those who struggle with sin.

I love what Donald Miller says in his book Searching for God Knows What:

“It must have been unnerving when, to an elitist audience, Jesus later would tell a parable about a man who had been robbed and beaten and then ignored by all but a “good Samaritan”. Jesus was not afraid of controversy, of revealing the worth of those considered worthless. The modern-day equivalent might be to tell a story to a group of conservative Evangelicals about a pluralist, liberal homosexual who heroically stops to help a stranded traveler after a preacher, a Republican, and a Christian writer have passed him by.”

The story of Jonah should unnerve us. It should shake us to our core. It should cause us to reevaluate our prejudices and our refusals to be salt and light. It should propel us from our pews and into the alleys. It should turn us back toward the people—for that is where God is.

Jesus was something greater than Jonah. Both were swallowed up—one by love, the other by hate.
What will swallow you?