Unexpected Transformations
Introduction
Allow me to share with you a poem that, when doing research for this sermon, spoke to me immensely. It is a poem by Walt Whitman, “Darest Thou Now O Soul.”
Darest thou now O soul,
Walk out with me toward the unknown region,
Where neither ground is for the feet nor any path to follow?
No map there, nor guide,
Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand,
Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land.
I know it not O soul,
Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us,
All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land.
Till when the ties loosen,
All but the ties eternal, Time and Space,
Nor darkness, gravitation, sense, nor any bounds bounding us.
Then we burst forth, we float,
In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them,
Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.
Toward the unknown region
“Walk out with me toward the unknown region…” I really don’t know what Whitman really wanted to say in this poem. English Language Literature is not my area of expertise. However, the poem struck me as the journey of the soul. We go off toward the unknown. Nobody is certain of what lies ahead or how our lives will be transformed.
Such are the stories we heard today, both from Jonah and Mark. These are two stories of people about to embark on their journeys. However, I’d like to focus on the story of Jonah.
It is a familiar story. It is a story that we hear from a very young age in Sunday school, and perhaps even those who do not go to church can recognize some of the general motifs of the story. Jonah is called by God to deliver a prophecy to the people of Nineveh. He said no, and tries to escape. After much struggle, he ends up in the belly of a bog fish and while there, three days and three nights, he realizes that he better pay attention to the call. He then is expelled by the fish and ends up taking the journey all the way to Nineveh to deliver the message. And then… suddenly, the unimaginable happened. The people listened. Not only did they listen, but they changed their ways!
Often times our journeys take us to places where we do not want to be. Or perhaps we are in places where we know we ought to be but rather not be. Our curiosity, or our moral standards, or plain ol’ nosiness brings us to places and situations that are what Whitman calls the “unknown regions.” And what we do?
Jonah knew what he was supposed to do: to deliver a message of judgment from God. There is another journey here; one that is often overlooked both by the reader and the interpreter of these verses we find in Scripture. I want to focus our attention in God’s journey.
Unexpected Transformations
It seems to me that it would be good to explore God’s journey as the background for the story of Jonah. Forget for a moment about theology and God-talk and explanations about the nature of God, and let us focus instead on the “what ifs” of the story. In the Christian tradition we proclaim a God who is so close to us that this God became flesh and lived among us. Certainly, this is not particular to Christianity, but I am a Christian minister and can do no other than read the world through this particular lens. So, let us think about the proclamation of a God who is so close to humanity that had become flesh and traveled with us.
Now, place this God-made-flesh in the middle of the city of Nineveh. There is God, walking around the city and noticing all the things that happened to God’s own people. Nineveh is described as a “great city” by the author of Jonah. Perhaps the city is as big as it is described – a three day journey took Jonah to cover the entire city with his message – or perhaps the author is making reference to the fact that the city understood itself as mighty, important, powerful… We would call the city of Nineveh, a city too big to fail.
It is this pride, the feeling that they are above everything and everybody else, the one that brings God to make a decision about the future of the city. God then makes up God’s mind: the city needs to be destroyed.
When we let pride take over ourselves, when we think that our way is the one and that everybody else needs to conform to it, when we think that the way we do things should be the way that everyone should do things, when we set our own selves – whether individually or corporately – as the example and the rule by which everything else must be measured, this is the pride that will bring us down. God saw this in the city of Nineveh. The decision is made.
God calls Jonah to deliver the message of judgment. This is a message that is not easy to deliver. There are so many dangers in being the voice of God. There are so many challenges and unexpected consequences in bringing this voice! I, for one, would have supported Jonah in his decision not to follow God’s commands. Again, Whitman is useful here: No map there, nor guide, / Nor voice sounding, nor touch of human hand, /Nor face with blooming flesh, nor lips, nor eyes, are in that land. // I know it not O soul, / Nor dost thou, all is a blank before us, /All waits undream’d of in that region, that inaccessible land.
There is no guide for how to do this sort of things that God asks us to do; we must figure it out together. But, watch out, because God is also on this journey and things might get complicated.
It turned out that the unexpected happened: the people of Nineveh listened. Not only that, the people actually changed their minds and hearts! Writes the author of the book that “…the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.” They had a transformation that would knock God’s socks off! (And yes, I mean that figuratively, as we all know that God uses sandals.)
“What would I do now?” says God. It turned out that God had a change of hearts. God changed God’s own mind… and the city was not destroyed. God’s journey had taken God to a place of transformation. God had walked among the people; God had seen their evil ways; God was tired of their pride and their way of measuring everything else by their standards; God was certain that the only thing to do was to start all over again… but then the journey took an unanticipated turn and the people changed their ways. God’s heart, in turn, was also transformed. Why? Because this is the God of the second chances.
Conclusion
Now it was Jonah who had a transformation. He wanted to city to burn and to be destroyed. After all, he had been in the belly of the big fish for three whole nights! He was the one who almost died! Why would God grant this city a second chance. They will do it all over again. “So,” I imagine God responding. “So what if they do it once more. At least for a generation, this will be in people’s minds, and they will not let their evil ways come back to them that quickly.”
Jonah was infuriated. I bet that we would be too. We all plan for the message not to be received, and when the message is finally received we have no idea what to do. Imagine for a moment what would happen if all the governments, the political leaders, the big corporations and others would start to act according to the demands of the people. What would you do if they finally listen to our voices? Wouldn’t you feel a bit angry? “What would I protest now?”
Friends, the truth is that we cannot plan for what would happen if the people of Nineveh actually listen to our voice. In fact, we cannot even plan for how our own reaction would be. I believe that the best way of doing this is by looking at the journey that God took: listen to your heart and let it lead your way. It might just be possible that your heart, like God’s, would experience a transformation too. “Then we burst forth, we float, /In Time and Space O soul, prepared for them, /Equal, equipt at last, (O joy! O fruit of all!) them to fulfil O soul.”
