Jonah 3, Rev. 3

Sermon Preached by Martha Juillerat

MLP/TAMFS/SOSP Joint Conference, May 22, 2004

Jonah 3:1-10

The word of the Holy One came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Holy One. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Humans and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and have a change of mind, and may turn from fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed her mind about the calamity that she had said she would bring upon them, and she did not do it.

Revelation 3:14-18, 22

“And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: The words of the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the origin of God’s creation:

“I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were either cold or hot. So, because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth. For you say, ‘I am rich, I have prospered, and I need nothing.’ You do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind and naked. Therefore I counsel you to buy from me gold refined by fire so that you may be rich; and white robes to clothe you and to keep the shame of your nakedness from being seen; and salve to anoint your eyes so that you may see.

“Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.”

You know the story. God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh and give them what-for. Jonah wants no part of it and tries to flee to Tarshish by sea, where God stirs up a nasty storm. The sailors, not needing this kind of trouble, dump Jonah overboard where he is promptly swallowed up by a large fish. After three days of prayers and indigestion, the fish decides that it, too, doesn’t need this kind of trouble and belches Jonah out onto dry land.

God calls Jonah again. Jonah is no more interested this time than he was the first, but given the alternative he reluctantly drags himself off to Nineveh and does what he’s told. Much to God’s delight and Jonah’s dismay, the Ninevites embrace the message and fall all over themselves to heed God’s word. Disgusted, Jonah sits under a shade tree pouting and watching Nineveh to see if they’ll screw up. God pokes at him for another few verses, but Jonah remains so angry he could just pop. End of story.

The book of Jonah has no clear historical context, nor does it have one single theology or purpose. It defies any attempt to wrap it in a single neat moral package. Compared to the sublime nature of Isaiah, the hammer of justice in Amos and Micah, or the pathos of Job, Jonah stands out like fishnet stockings, stiletto heels and a big-hair wig in an otherwise Brooks Brothers world.

In her marvelous commentary on Jonah in the New Interpreter’s Bible, feminist theologian Phyllis Trible challenges the usual one-dimensional interpretations of Jonah, which I find refreshing. I’ve heard a few too many sermons on Jonah that aren’t really true to the story at all, and come off sounding a bit patronizing. They go something like this: Jonah, like most of us we’re told, is from the religious mainstream; a faithful and well-intentioned man with a blind spot. Nineveh is defined as “the other,” those who at best warrant our initial suspicion and at worst are seen as evil, unworthy of God’s mercy. Jonah is understandably reluctant to go to that place; those heathens make him nervous! We can feel a little sympathy for the guy; we’re wary of people like that, too. But like Jonah, we come to learn that God’s love extends even to “those people.”

To some preachers the analogy seems obvious, unless you happen to be one of those Ninevites: a person of color, an LGBT person, poor, Muslim, “The Other.” But what we Ninevites know about the story is that we got God’s message and embraced it whole-heartedly from the get-go. And the end of day Jonah, even after taking the Olivia cruise from hell, still doesn’t get it.

This is not just a simple redemption story. It’s a story about a whole community of people – God twice calls them “that great city” – whose unfettered hearts allow them to give themselves over completely to faith and to the transforming possibilities of the Spirit. It’s also a story about a man from the religious establishment whose enormous ego and privilege keep him from even considering those same possibilities. It’s the one place he just can’t go.

Trible encourages us to see the book of Jonah for what it really is: a brilliantly crafted story, woven from a whole spectrum of colors and textures – loving, twisting, winking and damning all in one breath. She invites us to wrap ourselves up in that wild tapestry and see how it informs our own stories.

So play with me a little bit here. What does Nineveh look like to you? Where is the place you just don’t want to go? I dare say some folks may think Nineveh looks suspiciously like Kansas City. At General Assembly last year I heard someone from the west coast make a somewhat disparaging comment about the possibility of having a conference in a place like Kansas City. I caught a glimpse of his Starbucks cup and thought, “Honey, if it weren’t for our cows, you wouldn’t have whipped cream for that mocha latte.” Occasionally I get the feeling that our movement has set out from the coast for Nineveh, but is having trouble getting past the Flying J truck stop in Philadelphia or Las Vegas.

Deb Mullin, a professor at McCormick Theological Seminary and More Light board member, has helped me to name a cultural divide in the Welcoming Church movement that is rarely discussed, one that exists not just in our own Presbyterian organizations but across denominational lines: coastal vs. Midwest, urban vs. rural. The power and money in our movement has traditionally been concentrated on the east and west coasts. When we have created an organizational presence in the Midwest it has tended to be in urban hubs like Chicago, Minneapolis or Detroit. More often than not we view the central states as a political problem that needs to be solved, as the place where many of the red-state-blue-state battle lines will be drawn this fall or where almost all of our swing vote presbyteries are.

Janie Spahr, Michael Adee and I have done some great work in the central states over the past couple of years, through a series of van trips. We’ve driven about 10,000 miles together to smaller cities and towns, sharing our vision for an inclusive church, doing some organizing, staying with people in their homes and listening to their stories.

I’ll share that I have had to run a couple of tutorials for Janie on what water towers are for, the difference between a silo and a corn crib, and the fact that bean fields refers to soybeans, not green beans. But from my vantage point some of the best collaborative work between our three organizations has been done on those trips, and I hope Janie and Michael would agree that we’ve gotten far more out of these experiences than we ever could have imagined.

What I’m hoping we can do is to bring more of our organizing energy, and more of our listening and learning, together here. Because we Ninevites who live in these plains states and all over the Midwest are not a problem to be solved or even a presbytery to be educated or organized. We’re a people and a land, a rich culture, a work ethic that would make Calvin proud. We are strength and character and steadfast faith. We are as diverse as Chicago, IL and Peculiar, MO, feminist and fundamentalist, tofu and white bread. We’re the heart and soul of the Presbyterian Church. In many respects we define this church and its congregational life. We are the church.

And because we’re the church, we need to have some more great parties like this one out here in the plains. Some of us have been talking this weekend about having regional conferences again – camp meetings – so we can get everybody out of these hotels for awhile and go somewhere where we can play a decent game of softball and howl at the moon. What do you think? This has been a great conference, and we held it in the perfect place – am I right? So let’s work together to make it a progressive party, and start it up again soon in someone else’s back yard. I’ll bring the lawn chairs, a couple of good stories, and a few new friends. What will you bring to the next party?

What does Nineveh look like to you, my friends? Where is the place that you just don’t want to go?

Our church has been called to a place both obvious and terrifying it seems; called to a place once and twice and time and again that it can’t seem to face. For our church, and even for many in our own movement, Nineveh may be a place called “justice” and the only way to get there is on a road called “outrage.”

The admonition in the third chapter of Revelation was delivered to the church in Laodicea, a town known for the medicines it sold, particularly eye ointments. The members of the church described themselves as rich, prosperous, and needing nothing. But while they may have been materially wealthy, they were spiritually bankrupt.

The author of Revelation was struck by the irony that these Christians, who had made their fortune helping other people to see, had been blinded by their own privilege with an indifference to the troubles of the world. Their spiritual lives were like lukewarm water: neither hot enough with which to cleanse or cook, nor cold enough to refresh and satisfy one’s thirst. Useless, tepid water.

For some reason that utterly defies me, justice has become a dirty word in the Presbyterian Church. We flee from it like a hound dog running from a porcupine. Like Jonah hightailing it to the sea, we run away from justice and head for a road called lukewarm. You’ve been there at some point, I’m sure. Lukewarm is a straight, smooth, hardtop road where friendly people wave to you and holler, “We’ll be praying for you!” Unfortunately, the lukewarm road ends in a pleasant little cul-de-sac that goes absolutely nowhere.

Janet Wolf, a United Methodist pastor who preached for the Reconciling Methodist Network Celebration Service at the General Conference earlier this month, tells the story of Joe, one of the many homeless and mentally challenged folks who frequent her urban congregation.

Joe stood up during the time for prayers and concerns one week and said, “I want a job. I want a job so I can buy a new shirt. I want to get rid of this nasty old shirt and get me a brand new one. I want a job so I can have hot water to wash that new shirt.”

Now, Joe is known for being long-winded at prayer time, so Janet got ready to dive in when she could get a chance. “I want a job,” he continued. “I don’t want no day labor job where you have to be there at five in the morning and stand in line and work all day and still not have enough money for anything. I want a real job. I want a job, so I can buy TWO shirts…”

That was when he finally took a breath, so Janet jumped in and Joe sat down, and Janet said, “Thank you, Joe, and we will pray for you today that you get a job.” Immediately Joe was back up on his feet and said in a loud voice, “I don’t want your damned prayers, I want a job!”

I hear Janie’s voice ringing in my ears saying, ‘We know you love us, but will you vote for us?”

We flee from that place called justice because the only road that gets you there is called outrage and it’s just too hard to get there. It’s a rocky dirt road, straight up these hills one after another, with potholes and ruts, it’s hot and humid there and sometimes it just rains buckets and then you get stuck in the mud and everyone has to get out and push you out of the muck and move some trees out of the way and you get dirty and hungry but there’s no truck stops out there so everyone gets tired and cranky.

The difference with this road, though, is that instead of hitting a dead end, you get to the top of a hill and the sky clears for a minute and you catch a glimpse of that place called justice. And you pull over for a minute there so everyone can take a look, and you drink in that view, and someone says, “Man, what a thing to see,” and it takes your breath away...

And then someone smacks the driver upside the head and says, “Don’t you dare stop this car again until we get there, you hear me?”

Some folks flee from justice for another reason, one that keeps us from even starting the car in the first place. The problem with Nineveh is that it’s full of Ninevites, and it’s their town, and going there might really mess things up for us. So, you see, if we seek justice for the poor then we might have to part with some of our own wealth. If we seek justice for women we might have to part with our patriarchy. If we seek racial justice we may have look our white privilege square in the face and start owning it. And if we seek justice for queer people, we may have to start taking the church’s heterosexual privilege and rampant homophobia seriously – I mean seriously – and start treating it as the moral outrage that it is.

Webster’s dictionary defines outrage as that which goes “beyond all standards of what is right or decent.” Some may think that outrage is too strong word for any discussion of sexuality in the church. But this church has long since gone beyond all standards of what is right and decent in its treatment of LGBT persons.

When we take homophobia seriously, to see it for what it really is, we can’t help but be outraged. The Presbyterian Church has rewritten its constitution to relegate an entire class of people to second-class citizenship. That isn’t just a troublesome or sad fact; it’s a moral outrage, and nothing less than an affront to God.

It is outrageous that the Presbyterian Church demonizes queer people the way it does, and it is equally outrageous that the church cannot see its culpability in the violence perpetrated against us. Three of the stoles in this collection honor gay men who were murdered, including one who was a Presbyterian minister. Two of the three are in this room; Tom’s stole is to my left, and Ralph is to my right.

We try to soften this outrage by reducing it to questions of polity and biblical interpretation. While issues relating to LGBT persons and the church may play themselves out as disagreements over biblical interpretation or polity, I am here to tell you that these disagreements have nothing to do with the Bible or the Book of Order, and everything to do with homophobia – home-grown bigotry, pure and simple.

Let’s face it; I disagree with conservatives in this church on things like evolution and the virgin birth, but no one’s ever threatened to kill me over it. It wasn’t until my partner, Tammy, and I came out that one of our colleagues in this presbytery told us he would rather take us out in a field and shoot us than to talk to us.

This is about homophobia. At its worst it’s about using the Bible to defend bigotry. All the Bible study in the world isn’t going to change that anytime soon. If we had waited for this church to do a thorough job of education on matters of sexism before we ordained women, clearly women wouldn’t be ordained today and there probably wouldn’t be a woman in this pulpit for another hundred years. Education has to be an ongoing part of this struggle, but at some point we need to draw a line in the sand. Dialogue, education, studies and – dare I say it – task forces, are all necessary, but they are not substitutes for justice. Until our church stands squarely in the face of bigotry and hate and takes a decisive stand for justice, then we remain complicit in these acts through our indifference and our silence.

It is outrageous that the Presbyterian Church should force us to hide our relationships, pretend to be something that we aren’t, to settle for “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” or compromise ourselves in a hundred other ways just to serve this church.

At the UMC General Conference I was told of a conversation between a lesbian candidate for ministry and her District Superintendent, who was trying to convince her that she would be better off keeping quiet about the fact that she is in a committed relationship. “I don’t say anything and the committee will continue my candidacy,” she said. “I don’t say anything and I have no trouble getting ordained. I don’t say anything and the bishop appoints me to a congregation. So where does it end? What do I say when the moving van shows up at the parsonage and I start unloading stuff onto the front porch: ‘This is my couch, and this is my lamp, and this is my wife…”

There’s another road that runs right alongside Lukewarm; it’s called compromise. Hear this distinction: compromise is not the same thing as political astuteness. Compromise is something we settle for. More to the point, it’s something that’s forced upon the powerless by those in power, by those who have the privilege of voice and vote. If there is one thing I’ve observed in the past year or so, though, it’s that there are much worse things than losing a vote. It’s a far worse thing to lose your integrity, and to lose sight of justice; to become a people of the legal loophole rather than a people of the divine blessing.

Compromise is killing us. Every compromise, no matter how reasonable or well-intentioned, robs us of some piece of our self worth. And every compromise serves as a reminder that justice has not yet been served. We who work for a more inclusive church must never, ever lose sight of that fact. We who work for an inclusive church must never allow political compromise to be seen an acceptable substitute for justice. To do so would be an outrage.

Queer folks know what we have to do to work in this church. We learn what we can say and not say. We learn the ins and outs of the judicial system and use it to our best advantage. We know how to rewrite a job description to avoid problems. We know which presbyteries are friendly and which ones aren’t, and we move to another presbytery when we have to. We know that careful balancing act of having one foot out of the closet and one foot still in. We know exactly what we have to do to get ordained. We do the work at General Assembly. We do the work in our presbyteries. Some of us have survived legal challenges and kept our ordinations and our jobs intact. We celebrate these small victories and pass our knowledge onto others. We know all the dance steps and we work hard to learn new ones. We do it every day. We’ve been doing it for thirty years. We can do it in our sleep. And we have done it long enough. God is stirring up a storm over that lukewarm road and is calling this church to justice.

In an interview with Newsweek magazine, San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom explained why he decided to “put a human face” on the issue of same-sex marriage by marrying couples first and then fighting the legal battle. “Rosa Parks didn’t wait for the courts to tell her it was all right to ride in the front of the bus,” says Newsom. “It’s never, ever the ‘right’ time for change.”

We have waited long enough. It is outrageous that anyone in this church should ask us to be patient. If anything, it is the church that needs to be more patient with our outrage.

If we truly are appalled by this church’s behavior, if we see it clearly as a moral outrage, then it will be impossible for us to sit under a shade tree and avoid the heat. We will be compelled to work for justice. We can do no less. But an outrageous response isn’t necessarily one that is angry or out of control. It can also be steadfast resistance. For some it may be an outrageous thing to claim power. For others it may be outrageous to acknowledge our power and privilege and to relinquish that power to others. No matter what, it requires decisive movement, and that movement must be informed by the voices of the oppressed.

On Thursday, March 18 a brief news item read as follows: “Commissioners in Rhea County, TN, site of the 1925 Scopes ‘monkey trial’ over the teaching of evolution, voted 8-0 to ask state lawmakers to amend laws so the county can charge gays with crimes against nature. Commissioner J.C. Fugate, who introduced the measure, also asked the county attorney to find a way to enact an ordinance banning gays from living in the county.”

As one would hope, outrage followed swiftly. Exactly 24 hours later it was reported that those same commissioners “took about three minutes to retreat” from their actions. “County attorney Gary Fritts said the initial vote triggered a ‘wildfire’ of reaction. ‘I’ve never seen nothing like this,’ he said.”

If our General Assembly, or a majority of our presbyteries, were to behave badly again this year, do you suppose it would trigger a “wildfire of reaction.” Or will outrage once again be too hard a road to travel, and justice too troublesome a place to go? My friends, it is time for a wildfire!

What outrageous acts might you engage in with the church this year? Once again it seems to me that we Ninevites out here on the prairie have a unique opportunity before us. You see, nothing shakes people up like having some radical, edgy, constitution-challenging overture come from a place like Des Moines, bless your hearts. The church expects things like that from the usual suspects in Baltimore and New York and Redwoods. But it makes ‘em nervous coming from those hog farming Ninevites in Des Moines. It scares ‘em makes them itch. Just think how Jonah would react if that same overture should pop up again next year in, say, Giddings Lovejoy, or Northern Kansas….

And here’s the most important thing I learned from these Ninevites here in the heartland, these fine feminists and fierce allies who have taught me so much: In the end, the most outrageous thing any of us can do is to stand firm in our faith.

This is the faith in which I stand: I believe in a wildly inclusive God who is far bigger than this church and its politics. I believe in the transforming power of the Spirit to move this church in her own time and not ours. And I believe that we are called to be a witness for justice in this world, nothing less. The most outrageous thing I can do is stand in that faith, and I will do no less.

Let me leave you with a story of steadfast faith. At every General Conference, the Methodist Federation for Social Action serves a free breakfast and lunch to all comers. This year their facilities were a little cramped, but in a church basement designed to seat 80 people, with a 6x6’ efficiency kitchen, they managed to serve meals to as many as 600 people each day for two weeks. I signed on to help with the “war effort,” and there I met David, who lived in the mountains of WV not far from where I was born.

David is sixty-something. Balding, with a round belly filling out his t-shirts and big ears that stick straight out, he doesn’t exactly fit the stereotypes associated with your typical Gay Pride parade-goer. But David loves life and embodies faithfulness. He’s quick to tell you all about his partner of many years. And he loves to sing out loud and proud.

David was the trash guy for all the MFSA meals. Arriving at dawn each morning, he set up trash cans, stacked trash, sorted trash and hauled trash for ten hours every day for two straight weeks. “Trashin’ for Jesus,” he’s say when someone thanked him.

David did take a couple of breaks each day. At those times he would run the four blocks to the convention center where up to 200 LGBT folks and parents were keeping a prayer vigil. He would go sit near the entrance where the delegates entered and he would pray for them. When he could he left notes inside the conference hall for members of the WV delegation, reminding them that he was baptized, too, and that the church needed to keep its promises. And along with all us lining that sidewalk, David prayed that this would be the time for them to do us justice.

I’m not sure exactly when David ate and slept, but his spirit never flagged. Only once did we get a glimpse of the weight he was carrying with him those two weeks. One day he welled up with tears and told us that his brother was dying of cancer but refused to allow David and his partner to see him and didn’t want them to be there when he died. It tore at his soul. David had come to the General Conference to surround himself with friends and fill the hours with hard work for a church he loved. In this place, though, his Methodist Church family was treating him just as badly as his family of origin. Nevertheless, he trashed and prayed, and trashed and prayed, and trashed and prayed for justice.

Someone was walking past David on the sidewalk one day when the Spirit happened to blow through. The day after the legislative battles were lost there and things went so badly, I saw David at the prayer vigil holding a brand new, beautifully embossed hymnal. A staff person with the UMC who knew David purchased it hoping some delegates would write a note in it for David. Starting with the WV row, a few delegates did sign it, and then gave it to others, passing David’s story along with it until first pages were full. David opened it for me to see, and in the very center, written in bold black letters, were these words: “Forgive us. Stay with us. Keep singing.”

We are a resurrection people, standing in the faith that we have been raised from hopelessness and death to new life and new hope, poised for the Pentecost that is almost upon us. If we stop half way to Nineveh we will miss the transforming moment of the spirit’s power unleashed. Are we willing to turn up the heat and let our outrage and our passion for justice burn in us, or will we settle for lukewarm one more time, one more year, one more generation?

I invite us today to stand firmly in our faith, to open ourselves to the power of the Spirit, to believe in the very best that is possible for this church, and to work for justice – work for justice – work for justice – for we can do no less.

Blessings and peace.