WEBVTT 00:00:17.280 --> 00:00:21.039 As we begin today, I have an assignment for you. 00:00:21.359 --> 00:00:30.239 I need for you to be thinking of the most frequent villain in your life. 00:00:30.879 --> 00:00:35.119 That villain in your life and in your head and in your heart. 00:00:35.280 --> 00:00:38.159 It may be someone that is actually in your life. 00:00:38.399 --> 00:00:42.799 It might be someone that is someone from your past. 00:00:44.640 --> 00:00:46.960 It may be someone with power. 00:00:47.600 --> 00:00:49.439 Maybe power over you. 00:00:51.039 --> 00:00:59.280 It may be someone in power, in control of things that include you, but are much more broad than that. 00:00:59.520 --> 00:01:03.840 But I want you to grab that person in your brain right now and be thinking about it. 00:01:03.920 --> 00:01:06.319 You know, hold on to that person. 00:01:06.959 --> 00:01:09.359 For me, it's Ryan Seacrest. 00:01:12.079 --> 00:01:14.400 Rockin' New Year's Eve. 00:01:15.120 --> 00:01:16.079 Indeed. 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:19.760 Just kidding. 00:01:19.840 --> 00:01:22.000 I don't know him. 00:01:24.079 --> 00:01:26.239 We've reached the end of Jonah. 00:01:26.959 --> 00:01:27.359 All right. 00:01:27.519 --> 00:01:28.799 Has it been a decent journey? 00:01:28.959 --> 00:01:29.760 Have you enjoyed it? 00:01:29.840 --> 00:01:34.159 I hopefully it flushed the book out to a certain extent for you. 00:01:34.319 --> 00:01:37.519 You know things about that story that you didn't know before. 00:01:38.079 --> 00:01:40.640 We're grateful to Mark last week. 00:01:40.719 --> 00:01:46.079 You know, he really laid out chapter four really well for us, and now I'm responding. 00:01:48.480 --> 00:01:50.719 Now we're going to break that down a little bit. 00:01:50.799 --> 00:01:53.599 And so it starts with the story we all know, right? 00:01:53.840 --> 00:01:59.920 Jonah gets asked to do some godly work and decides to do the opposite. 00:02:00.239 --> 00:02:05.680 Not only not do the work, but run away, the complete opposite direction in which he was called. 00:02:05.920 --> 00:02:12.639 And uh you will remember the lesson we learned about Jonah when we were in Sunday school, right? 00:02:12.800 --> 00:02:14.560 Oh, how foolish we are. 00:02:14.879 --> 00:02:15.840 God is everywhere. 00:02:16.000 --> 00:02:17.280 You can't run from God. 00:02:17.439 --> 00:02:19.520 You better do what God wants you to do. 00:02:19.680 --> 00:02:22.319 Did anybody get that lesson in Sunday school? 00:02:22.719 --> 00:02:25.039 I got that lesson in Sunday school. 00:02:25.360 --> 00:02:27.039 All right, I see some nodding. 00:02:27.120 --> 00:02:29.680 Yeah, that's that's the story of Jonah. 00:02:29.840 --> 00:02:33.599 We tend to remember when we think about Jonah, right? 00:02:33.680 --> 00:02:38.800 And uh we just got to be mindful that God controls everything, including the seas and the fish. 00:02:39.039 --> 00:02:42.319 So trying, you can't just run, is what we're learning, right? 00:02:42.800 --> 00:02:49.840 Then chapter two, we actually move into a whole new uh feeling, a whole new vibe, right? 00:02:50.000 --> 00:03:03.360 There's this really sincere and some fairly moving poem or prayer about the nature of regret, the nature of God's forgiveness and and how that feels. 00:03:03.599 --> 00:03:08.319 Uh, and so there's some some real uh nourishing that can come from that. 00:03:08.560 --> 00:03:13.680 Then in chapter three, we go back to the kind of original story, right? 00:03:13.840 --> 00:03:27.439 We were reintroduced or brought back to that Jonah we learned about in chapter one, this rascal, and now he is, I assume, grudgingly delivering his message to the Ninevehites. 00:03:27.680 --> 00:03:32.240 It is a message that is one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight words. 00:03:32.479 --> 00:03:36.240 Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown. 00:03:37.280 --> 00:03:38.479 There's the message. 00:03:38.560 --> 00:03:41.199 That's all we get from Scripture. 00:03:41.759 --> 00:03:46.319 I don't see, I don't hear Jonah really laying it thick. 00:03:46.479 --> 00:03:50.080 I don't see him really worried about all of these people. 00:03:50.240 --> 00:03:56.719 But here's the big surprise that community, the Ninevites, well, they repent. 00:03:57.919 --> 00:04:00.879 I don't know if anybody would have anticipated that. 00:04:01.120 --> 00:04:12.639 If we were to run to a place called Nineveh and let them know that they ought to repent and that God was going to come for them in 40 days, I don't know that they would listen to us. 00:04:12.960 --> 00:04:22.639 Would you do you think uh, you know, even if I wore a nice shirt like this, I think they would go, yeah, it's a nice shirt, but I don't believe you. 00:04:23.120 --> 00:04:23.519 Right? 00:04:23.759 --> 00:04:26.480 A weird kind of circumstance. 00:04:26.560 --> 00:04:31.439 Uh and so for them to repent, it's a little bit surprising. 00:04:31.519 --> 00:04:34.399 They do exactly what God wants without pause. 00:04:34.639 --> 00:04:38.639 News reaches the king, and even he repents. 00:04:39.519 --> 00:04:51.759 He takes on sackcloth, he sits in ashes, he is in grief, also that God may relent and turn from his fierce anger. 00:04:53.360 --> 00:04:56.000 They fully repent. 00:04:57.600 --> 00:05:02.399 At this point, hopefully, we're realizing the story isn't really about Nineveh. 00:05:03.360 --> 00:05:12.240 It's not about Nineveh or the Ninevehes any more than it was about those sailors in chapter one who ends up throwing Jonah in the water. 00:05:13.199 --> 00:05:20.480 They exist in this story, in this tale, to show us who Jonah the prophet is. 00:05:22.240 --> 00:05:23.600 So who is he? 00:05:25.199 --> 00:05:30.959 Well, he's a guy who is not down with this redemption thing at all. 00:05:32.560 --> 00:05:37.279 Jonah is not into God's uh forgiving grace. 00:05:38.079 --> 00:05:48.480 Not only does he not want to be the guy who delivers the message of redemption, he doesn't even want the people redeemed at all. 00:05:50.480 --> 00:05:54.240 He is not a fan of forgiveness or grace for the Ninevehites. 00:05:54.399 --> 00:06:00.800 We don't 100% know why he's not a fan, but maybe that's the point. 00:06:01.759 --> 00:06:04.240 It doesn't matter why. 00:06:05.439 --> 00:06:08.959 Only that Jonah does just not want it offered. 00:06:09.279 --> 00:06:18.000 God wanted to inform these people about the possibility for redemption, and Jonah wanted no part of it. 00:06:18.639 --> 00:06:20.240 Just look how it rolls out. 00:06:20.399 --> 00:06:29.120 First, he says, you were going to forgive them, and this is why I didn't want to do this in the first place. 00:06:29.759 --> 00:06:31.360 I'm not about forgiveness. 00:06:31.519 --> 00:06:33.360 Did you hear it rattled off? 00:06:33.519 --> 00:06:40.800 All the things we hope to understand about God and to learn when we finally get that experience, that full experience. 00:06:41.040 --> 00:06:43.920 Everything we want to know about God is what's laid out here. 00:06:44.160 --> 00:06:47.759 Jonah hears it and says, Ah, none of that. 00:06:48.399 --> 00:06:51.920 You're a forgiving God, I am out. 00:06:52.560 --> 00:07:01.680 He even goes to the next step and asks to be put out of his misery of knowing that these people were forgiven. 00:07:02.800 --> 00:07:06.560 Are you hearing some of the satire in this thing? 00:07:07.839 --> 00:07:19.680 He responds, or God responds to him in the midst of this fit, this tantrum that Jonah is having, he responds, Is it right for you to be angry? 00:07:20.800 --> 00:07:24.079 Although I don't know how you think God sounds. 00:07:24.399 --> 00:07:28.399 Sometimes I think God sounds like a really wise Jewish man. 00:07:29.360 --> 00:07:30.000 Right? 00:07:30.560 --> 00:07:32.800 Is it right for you to be angry? 00:07:34.959 --> 00:07:35.439 Right? 00:07:35.600 --> 00:07:36.480 You know that. 00:07:37.759 --> 00:07:40.240 So that question first goes unanswered. 00:07:40.560 --> 00:07:48.000 Jonah finds his way out of the city, he finds a place to sit, he goes and he starts to wait to see what happens with the city. 00:07:48.319 --> 00:07:51.839 Safe to say he's not really hoping for good things. 00:07:52.240 --> 00:07:56.079 Then the story takes kind of a supernatural turn for a bit here. 00:07:56.160 --> 00:08:00.160 God creates a bush to shade Jonah, which makes him happy. 00:08:00.480 --> 00:08:03.759 Then God sends a worm to eat that bush. 00:08:04.319 --> 00:08:09.120 And now Jose Jonah, he's just withering now in the sun. 00:08:09.199 --> 00:08:11.920 He's wishing he had this bush. 00:08:12.240 --> 00:08:18.160 And again, God asks, Is it right for you to be angry? 00:08:19.360 --> 00:08:23.600 And Jonah, he's going down with the ship. 00:08:25.120 --> 00:08:29.439 Yes, I am angry enough to die. 00:08:31.839 --> 00:08:42.720 Story ends with God pointing out to Jonah that he would mourn this bush that's offering him shielding from the sun, but not Nineveh. 00:08:43.519 --> 00:08:49.039 This town with thousands of souls and many animals. 00:08:49.440 --> 00:08:51.200 Don't forget the animals. 00:08:53.519 --> 00:09:02.080 It all comes down to a lesson about God and God's heart for forgiveness. 00:09:04.000 --> 00:09:09.840 You could argue this is the most Christian story in the whole Old Testament. 00:09:10.000 --> 00:09:16.799 This emphasis on grace and forgiveness, to me, it's worthy of New Testament writing. 00:09:16.879 --> 00:09:24.399 That was, in some ways, the transition from Judaism to uh Christianity, that was one of the transitions. 00:09:24.559 --> 00:09:33.120 The more emphasis on grace and forgiveness, this is all about grace and forgiveness, God's grace and forgiveness. 00:09:33.200 --> 00:09:40.799 And we learned that Jonah, the prophet, is not about forgiveness at all. 00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:50.000 So, on one hand, we probably ought to hear the sack uh the satire of this. 00:09:50.960 --> 00:09:54.799 He is not your typical prophet by any means. 00:09:55.440 --> 00:09:57.440 Have you heard of Schadenfreude? 00:09:59.200 --> 00:10:03.840 If Schadenfreude was a virus, Jonah's got it. 00:10:04.960 --> 00:10:06.480 He is sick with this. 00:10:06.639 --> 00:10:08.879 Schadenfreude is this German word. 00:10:08.960 --> 00:10:15.120 Uh it is the word that they use to describe people's happiness with others' misfortune. 00:10:15.679 --> 00:10:18.480 Of course, the Germans have a word for that. 00:10:19.679 --> 00:10:20.960 I got a lot of German. 00:10:21.039 --> 00:10:21.919 I'm allowed. 00:10:24.080 --> 00:10:27.759 That's Schadenfreude, and that's Jonah, is it not? 00:10:28.639 --> 00:10:38.480 Almost joy that he thought, oh, the Nineveh might receive their uh uh uh their justice and then to find out there's gonna be forgiveness. 00:10:38.799 --> 00:10:39.600 He's lost it. 00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:42.240 His Schadenfreude doesn't get to get answered. 00:10:42.480 --> 00:10:54.240 So we can sit in that that satire, but on the other hand, we want to be careful to remember that this story is still speaking to us. 00:10:56.000 --> 00:11:03.279 We really shouldn't be saying to ourselves, silly Jonah, he doesn't get it. 00:11:03.679 --> 00:11:08.720 He doesn't understand God in the way that we do, right? 00:11:09.840 --> 00:11:13.360 We know Christianity better. 00:11:15.759 --> 00:11:19.200 I'm gonna invite you to remember your villain now. 00:11:20.960 --> 00:11:22.320 Oh that person. 00:11:23.519 --> 00:11:38.799 That person that is in your life or over you in some way has power in this world that you resent, or maybe it's smaller, somebody who said something uh that really damaged your life. 00:11:40.240 --> 00:11:51.120 Think about that villain and remind yourself of why you think so poorly of them. 00:11:52.080 --> 00:11:57.759 What is it that happened that created that image of them in your mind? 00:11:59.919 --> 00:12:12.080 And with that, now I will invite you to imagine yourself being asked by God to go and offer up a message of God's redemption to that person. 00:12:14.320 --> 00:12:17.120 You'd probably feel happy early on, right? 00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:19.679 Oh, thanks, God. 00:12:21.039 --> 00:12:24.720 I've been dying to tell that guy God's going after him. 00:12:25.360 --> 00:12:28.159 You you I I you don't even have to give me the words. 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:28.720 I got 'em. 00:12:28.799 --> 00:12:29.840 They're right here. 00:12:30.559 --> 00:12:31.840 I'll be right there. 00:12:32.080 --> 00:12:36.799 I will tell them that they are in big trouble. 00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:43.120 Then what do you do when that person re repents? 00:12:45.039 --> 00:12:46.000 Says sorry. 00:12:47.840 --> 00:13:01.039 Presumably forgiven in divine ways for all that they did to you, around you, to your heart, to your spirit, to your well-being. 00:13:01.279 --> 00:13:02.320 Forgiven. 00:13:03.200 --> 00:13:09.039 All that they've done kind of wiped off the slate. 00:13:11.360 --> 00:13:16.879 Are we telling ourselves there's no part of us that feels like Jonah? 00:13:18.639 --> 00:13:27.759 Part of us want to be part of the redemption of somebody else that has hurt us, that has harmed us. 00:13:29.679 --> 00:13:36.559 We like to see ourselves as people of grace, but it it's not without its stipulations. 00:13:36.960 --> 00:13:37.919 Am I right? 00:13:39.440 --> 00:13:47.200 There's a part of us that's that really likes the idea that God is up there keeping score. 00:13:48.799 --> 00:13:49.200 Right? 00:13:49.440 --> 00:13:58.879 Marking down the things that have been done wrong, making sure that justice is served out. 00:14:01.840 --> 00:14:09.519 We're also a little bit happy that, hmm, you know, maybe I can get my blessings as well. 00:14:09.679 --> 00:14:21.600 If that's what's gonna be fair and everybody gets theirs, well, surely I'm gonna get the blessings that I should get for being the one who made sure I didn't hurt other people. 00:14:25.120 --> 00:14:31.120 Are you hearing maybe a little bit of why this is problematic thinking? 00:14:33.759 --> 00:14:41.759 I'm convinced that Jonah would fit very well in our polarized society of today. 00:14:43.679 --> 00:14:55.279 Aren't we pretty firmly entrenched that the idea of forgiveness for everyone is a bit of a stretch? 00:14:58.720 --> 00:15:04.960 We've been walking a journey with Richard Rohr this year. 00:15:05.039 --> 00:15:11.840 Uh, we've got the weekly devotional, daily devotional, but we're also reading the book, The Tears of Things. 00:15:12.639 --> 00:15:38.159 This emphasis, and this has been a lot my choice, it's because I I feel him working on a softening understanding, a way to soften our understanding about living in that space like Jonah, of wanting there to be some sort of justice accounting, much more than this realm of forgiveness and grace. 00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:46.879 Richard Rory talks about our problem stemming from a reliance on dualistic thinking. 00:15:48.080 --> 00:15:58.799 Our brains want to simplify the world around us by creating really just two categories for ourselves and for the world around us. 00:15:59.039 --> 00:16:00.639 What are the two categories? 00:16:00.799 --> 00:16:04.000 Well, it's either good or it's bad. 00:16:04.639 --> 00:16:06.799 It's dark or it's light. 00:16:07.759 --> 00:16:11.039 It's right or it's wrong. 00:16:11.679 --> 00:16:21.600 Our minds, we as a species, we tend towards that space of wanting to just get everything sort of solved like that. 00:16:21.759 --> 00:16:31.519 It's a little bit of the same thinking that uh we use when we're inviting a world of God's judgment over forgiveness. 00:16:31.840 --> 00:16:45.519 The driver is that the same part of us that wants to know that God is keeping score, that judgment is real, that that's in the midst of all that. 00:16:45.679 --> 00:16:48.000 That's the part of us that wants that. 00:16:48.240 --> 00:16:56.639 But it's interesting too, it's the same part of us that also wants to know that we're going to get the blessings that we deserve. 00:16:57.919 --> 00:17:00.240 Hopefully you're hearing it again. 00:17:00.799 --> 00:17:14.640 The problems with this way of thinking, the slippery slope towards God is surely thinking the same way I am, because it's the way that makes sense. 00:17:15.359 --> 00:17:23.599 A faith grounded in our own idea of what God wants as opposed to the one God is calling us to. 00:17:25.119 --> 00:17:36.960 To a certain extent, we need to soften this tendency in order to find the centeredness, in order to find the light of wisdom that God is trying to offer us. 00:17:37.119 --> 00:17:40.880 And this is where Richard Rohr speaks into that importance. 00:17:41.119 --> 00:17:51.359 Uh, this is actually uh um, it'll be in your email today, uh, but it was part of, I believe, Sunday's devotion this last week. 00:17:51.519 --> 00:17:53.599 Uh, and I do we have it on the thing? 00:17:53.839 --> 00:18:02.559 The contemplative, non-dual mind is not saying everything is beautiful even when it's not. 00:18:03.599 --> 00:18:18.720 However, we may come to everything is still beautiful by contemplatively facing the conflict between how reality is and how we wish it could be. 00:18:20.079 --> 00:18:27.039 We must face dualistic problems, name good and evil, differentiate between right and wrong. 00:18:27.279 --> 00:18:30.480 We can't be naive about evil. 00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:45.119 And here's the key phrase But if we stay focused on this duality, we'll become unlovable, judgmental, dismissive people. 00:18:47.359 --> 00:18:51.039 I've witnessed this pattern in myself, is what Richard Rohr says. 00:18:51.200 --> 00:18:58.720 We must eventually find a bigger field, a wider frame, which is non-dual thinking. 00:19:00.960 --> 00:19:04.480 In other words, we get locked into these dualisms, right? 00:19:04.559 --> 00:19:06.480 We become Jonah. 00:19:07.200 --> 00:19:12.000 And our lack of appreciation for God's grace becomes a problem. 00:19:12.559 --> 00:19:31.279 Not just for those who might have come to know a better way through our ability to offer that loving grace, to be a representative of that loving grace in this world, so we lose ground there, but we also have a problem for ourselves. 00:19:33.200 --> 00:19:36.559 This thing does not end well for Jonah. 00:19:37.920 --> 00:19:54.319 He ends up on that hill, lost in his own disappointments, unable to see what God has done right in front of him, even using him to do it. 00:19:55.680 --> 00:19:57.680 This is the concern that we carry. 00:19:57.920 --> 00:20:09.680 Will we be stuck on that same hillside, lost in our frustrations as we deal with the dangerous polarities of our current culture? 00:20:11.200 --> 00:20:16.000 I know many of us carry the burden of that polarization pretty heavily. 00:20:16.319 --> 00:20:28.000 We're concerned for a society that has chosen to work against itself rather than to work together in some common sense solutions and compromise. 00:20:28.160 --> 00:20:36.880 We grieve for a time when we would look for the good in each other even when we disagreed. 00:20:38.640 --> 00:20:51.279 In our quote, Rohr called it being able to say everything is still beautiful, even when it's not shining God's light. 00:21:01.759 --> 00:21:23.920 To me, the invitation of the story of Jonah is clear as we navigate these polarized times in our day-to-day life, in our places of engagement with the community, even when we're sitting in a voting booth, we need to ask ourselves can we trust in God's loving grace? 00:21:25.920 --> 00:21:32.480 Or will we land on that hill paralyzed with our anger? 00:21:35.759 --> 00:21:40.880 Will we find our way back to that hard work of redemption? 00:21:42.160 --> 00:21:45.039 That is our question for today. 00:21:45.599 --> 00:21:46.160 Amen.