Third Sunday after Epiphany
January 21, 2018
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

We heard some of the story of Jonah today. A while ago at Good Shepherd, we had lots of fun with Jonah’s story when the kids in Vacation Bible School acted it out for the congregation. There was a big fish, a canoe that became a sailboat, sailors wearing shower caps and fake mustaches. It was marvelous.

But even without our very entertaining kids and their props, there’s lots of comedy and fun in Jonah’s story. It isn’t told to recount a historical event but to help us to know more of who our God is. Sometimes we act as if the God of the Old Testament is totally different from the God of Jesus, but there is one God. The story of Jonah helps us to know our God.

The story is fun, but it can also be pretty disturbing. Our reading today ends with the words: “God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and God did not do it.”

God was planning a calamity? God does that? And then God changed his mind? God does that?

Sometimes we talk as if God is gentle, sweet and loving, but also fairly weak and irrelevant. This God wants us to be nice, to avoid conflict and not get too upset about anything – God as the ultimate Mid- westerner. This God would never plan a calamity.

Other times we act as if God is some great big, angry judge who keeps score of right and wrong, good and bad. The good believers are rewarded, the rest are punished. This God is fierce, relentless and unchanging.

In the story of Jonah, we see that God is very different from either of those caricatures. This is good news, as well as a challenge, for us.

God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh – the capital of Assyria, superpower of the ancient world. Assyria was notorious for using its power to oppress, exploit, torture, and dominate. God is angered by this wicked- ness and wants justice. God tells Jonah to cry out that Nineveh will be overthrown. Except Jonah doesn’t want to enter enemy territory to announce God’s justice. He hops on a ship that’s going completely the opposite direction from Nineveh.

But God doesn’t let Jonah go. God hurls a mighty wind into the sea, a storm arises, and the ship threatens to break apart. The sailors on the ship hurl Jonah into the sea and he’s swallowed up by a big fish that God sends. God is not sweet, irrelevant, and harmless. Rather, God is bent on justice and is actively involved in the ongoing work of creating, ordering and restoring our world.

So, Jonah ends up in the belly of a fish for three days. He prays and God tells the fish to hurl Jonah out.

(All the hurling that happens is part of the comedy.)

Then God tells Jonah, a second time, to go to Nineveh. This time Jonah listens and follows, but just barely.

He sulks through the city and says, “forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” His comically short sermon makes a huge difference. Everyone in Nineveh, from the king on down to all the animals, puts on sack cloths, sits in ashes and repents.

The other biblical prophets give powerful poetic speeches and God’s people just ignore them. Jonah does the bare minimum and all of Nineveh repents. He’s the most successful prophet in all of scripture. His mortal enemies listen and turn to God. Good news, right?

No! Jonah gets angry, “angry enough to die”, as he puts it. He tells God, “that is why I fled, for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” So, the truth comes out. Jonah has tried to avoid God’s call, not because he’s afraid of the Ninevites – he’s afraid God will be both just and merciful.

Jonah wants God to be the angry judge who will condemn the Ninevites to wrath and destruction. He wants retributive justice, a “show no mercy” approach. But Jonah knows that’s not the kind of justice that God is ultimately about. So even when Jonah is sent to speak about God’s wrath, he’s pretty sure God will be gracious and merciful, too. God may even change the plan in order to be true to who God is – that God might forgive evil, oppressive Nineveh. And Jonah is right. Jonah’s story shows us that God is not only bent on justice and not only merciful. God isn’t an angry judge or an irrelevant sweetie. Instead, God holds both justice and mercy together out of love for the whole creation. God is angered by evil and actively seeks to change it. And, God seeks always to restore goodness and compassion.

God also asks a lot from us. God wants us to embody both justice and kindness. We’re called to be firm and gracious, strong and kind.

Living according to God’s justice is hard and demanding, especially when we’re asked to do it in compassionate, restorative ways. Choosing mercy is hard, especially when we’ve been hurt. So often we’d rather run the other way. But when we resist God’s ways we find we’re trapped, like Jonah in the belly of the fish, stuck in brokenness, anger, fear.

And yet, even in belly-of-the-fish kinds of times, we are not alone. God is active and involved in our world and God will not let us go. When we feel stuck in our opposition to God’s ways we can trust that even then, God is with us and God is working. God in Jesus spent three days in the belly of the tomb. God will not abandon us but instead comes to be with us, set us free and to raise us to new life.

The God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love sets us free and raises us up for lives of justice and kindness for the sake of this whole world.

Let’s take a moment for prayer.

Second Sunday after Epiphany
January 14, 2018
Kurt Hellmann, Guest Preacher
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Z. Larson

Scriptures for the day: 1 Samuel 3:1-10 [11-20]; Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18; 1 Corinthians 6:12-20; John 1:43-51

Kurt Hellmann’s Sermon

Maybe it was my initial lack of understanding of the language, or maybe it was a cultural norm I was just starting to get used to, but invitations were usually voiced with a one simple word — MOK — which translated from the Khmer simply means Come.

Or better yet, if I was within view, an invitation would simply be given by a beckoning with the hand. However, there is one significant distinction to note with how that is done in Southeast Asia. Here in the US, it’s common to wave someone over with your palm facing up. In Cambodia, it’s actually palm down. According to our own culture that would appear as a shooing-away motion, in fact the opposite of invitation to come over. Needless to say, it was discombobulating and took some time to acclimate to these types of invitations of beckoning or invitations of just a single word without additional explanation.

There was one particular weekend where I received an invitation that I’ll never forget. I was with one of my closest friends and co-workers and his family at the time; his name is Prasith. Shortly after meeting his relatives I received the succinct and classic invitation–MOK. So I promptly followed them into their car and we drove off together.

After several kilometers on winding and dusty roads, we stopped at a large water reservoir and got out to stand at its shores. After a few moments, Prasith’s aunt began to tell me of how she built this reservoir we were overlooking. She was one of the thousands of Cambodians that were forced into a labor camp to build this 40 years ago—a time in Cambodia commonly referred to as the Khmer Rouge. In 1975, a regime rose to power and sought to bring Cambodia back to its ancient glory, an agrarian utopia of sorts. A period of genocide ensued while the regime targeted any Cambodian that was educated, religious, or held public status in fear that these Cambodians would pose a threat to the regime’s ultimate and horrific goals. As a result, nearly a fourth of the nation’s population died–equating to 2 million lives lost–including two of Prasith’s aunt’s brothers who died in the harsh working condition of the reservoir we were now overlooking.

While I still don’t know the right words to describe the overwhelming heartbreak I felt that day, I do however know that I was, and am today, glad I was able to hear her story. It’s an immense privilege to hear such a personal, painful, yet eye-opening experience. And while I felt powerless to help, simply listening to her offered a way where I could help hold onto the story and its hardship. A way of helping that went beyond my hands or my feet.

So here we are in the season of epiphany in the liturgical year. In the gospel today we read about the cynic Nathanael experiencing his own epiphany, his own personal realization, and coming to a new perspective that Jesus Christ was indeed the Son of God. Needing only a semblance of connection with Jesus, his suspicion, doubt, and negativity about this man “from Nazareth” suddenly vanished. And it’s important to note in this story that there is a catalyst for this change—a simple invitation from Philip, an invitation of three words: COME AND SEE. And it was these three words which ultimately allowed Nathanael to undergo a miraculous change of heart— obliterating his initial damaging preconceived notions.

I think today we all have our presumptions and fears about encountering the unknown or the unfamiliar—of person or place. And it’s in such instances where the invitation of “come and see” is not necessarily welcomed; or if it is, it’s met with stigma or cynicism. This hesitation or reluctance is seen in the narratives and single-sided stories that are present all around us—across our politics, economics, and cultural landscape. Our presumptions seek to categorize people or places into a single pigeonhole, or even a single word.

Our president made remarks making headlines last week, bashing entire places through an ignorant blanket statement about nations and their lack of worth. It’s sadly uncanny how similar the words of Donald Trump are to those of Nathanael that we read today. Nathanael asks Philip with a mocking tone, “What good can come from Nazareth?” The parallels to President Trump’s words about immigration are stark. His words, I think, can best be paraphrased through this question of Nathanael nearly word for word: “What good can come out of THOSE [   ] countries?” Feel free to insert the expletive yourself.

And let’s be clear, the president’s words are cruel, racist, and hurtful at best; at their worst they steal away the aptitude, beauty, dignity, and humanness from places and people in Haiti and nations in Africa. it not only saddens me, but disturbs me at just how narrow and ignorant the perspective present in our current leadership is. I think there’s an immediate need for an invitation to be offered to COME and to SEE. And, as the YAGM program currently sends dozens of young adults to serve in 4 countries across the continent of Africa every year, I’m sure our young adults past and present would be happy to oblige in extending the invitation. Speaking of my own experience in Cambodia, of which I’m sure our president would have no kind words to share, I bore witness to people and their stories that exemplify incredible strength, perseverance, and a sense of fearless and pure hope that I have yet to witness anywhere else in my 23 years of life.

I think this invitation of to COME and to SEE goes beyond just the seeing, though. It extends into our other senses. This invitation is to Come and Taste, Come and Hear, Come and Smell, Come and Feel. There is more to this world; its people and places are so much more than a single category or narrative.

To explain further, I want to share about a favorite pastime in my host community. This activity is called GOY LAYNG—which translates to “sit play”. GOY LAYNG is the colloquial equivalent for “hanging out” or spending unstructured time together. But with one distinction, GOY LAYNG requires being stationary with others, to sit and relax, to simply talk, to enjoy the breeze or scenery, to taste sweet mango or freshly sliced papaya, or to share a coca cola in the shade—all in the presence of neighbors, friends, family, or even strangers. The pastime of GOY LAYNG is an intentional time to relish in the proximity and closeness of other people. In the grand scheme of things, the act of simply being with other people is the epitome of what is means to accept the invitation of to Come and See. I learned that simply being proximate with people leads to listening, understanding, and transformation by the places and stories I encountered.

Through this activity, I also learned that mission and service is not only done with our hands or our feet, but more so with our eyes, ears and our hearts. This way of service is best depicted by the ELCA’s theme of mission called accompaniment, which aims to walk – not in front or behind, but alongside, shoulder to shoulder – with our neighbors in efforts of solidarity, of mutuality, and of interdependence—both here and across the world.

And sure, the invitation to engage the unknown or unfamiliar may be much harder to accept or act upon. But let us remember that the invitation is present to be with those painted inaccurately with single-sided stories—more often than not marginalized or vulnerable groups of people. The invitation may come in ways much different from those with which we may be familiar, such as a downward facing palm, one simple and short word without much explanation. But that’s where we as followers of Christ are called to be – in those places, being present with others, extending ourselves past what is comfortable, past what is familiar, past what is known.

To end, I’ll share words from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that aptly encourage us with the invitation to simply, yet actively be with others across our community and world.

“We have before us the glorious opportunity to inject a new dimension of love into the veins of our civilization” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. 

Come and See. And taste. And feel. And smell. And hear. The invitation awaits. Amen.