Sermon from Jonah 3:1-10 for September 23

So…

What do you do when God calls?

Oh heavens, it’s God again on the cell! What do I do?

Ah…Yo, what’s up, Lord?

No, no, no, I got your text. No, no, I’m not ghosting you, and how do you know about ghosting? Oh, it happens a lot? I wouldn’t know...

Yeah, I’ve been thinking about that “making a difference thing,” and well, I’m really busy right now. The wife is back to school and the grand baby is growing, and work is really busy, and….

What’s that…. You think my growth as a follower of Jesus would go up a notch if I actually did what you asked and made a difference. Following Jesus means taking up a cross. And filling an orange bucket or five, or going to Texas, or walking in the CROP Walk, or offer to help lead the “Trunk or Treat”, or whatever would help me become a better disciple.

Yeah, I think it would too. So why am I running the other way?

Oh look, there’s another incoming call, can I get back to you? You’ll be there waiting? Yeah, okay. Talk to you later. Bye.>

So, you ever ghosted God?

Jonah had heard the call of God to go to Nineveh, but instead headed to Spain. He didn’t want to go. He had other things to do.

He was afraid of the cost. He didn’t know any of Nineveh’s people personally, though for nationalistic reasons, he hated them.

For Jonah, it was easiest to ignore God’s call and just get on with his life.

Do you know anyone like that? Someone perhaps who faced with an invitation from God to do what Jesus would do, instead chooses a more likeable, or an easy path. Or just ghosts God?

But as you well know, for the people of God, that is not an option…

“And yesterday, with muddy river water still washing over entire communities on Friday, eight days after Hurricane Florence slammed into land with nearly 3 feet of rain, new evacuation orders forced residents to flee to higher ground amid a sprawling disaster that's beginning to feel like it will never end.”

“At least 43 people have died, included an elderly man whose body was found in a submerged pickup truck in South Carolina, and hundreds were forced from their homes as rivers kept swelling higher.”

“Leaders in the Carolina's warned residents not to get complacent, warning additional horrors lie ahead before things get much better.”

"Although the winds are gone and the rain is not falling, the water is still there and the worst is still to come," said South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster.

One of the problems with God’s call is that it is based on God’s knowledge of a situation and a people, a knowledge and experience unfettered from the typical human limited knowledge.

We concern ourselves with a people’s reputations, judging whether they adequately prepared. We consider their sinfulness and disobedience and most often choose punishment as a reasonable outcome.

We forget that God’s knows all about our sins and iniquities and yet still extends to us his love. God is the original lifeguard with the lifeguard’s mantra: reach, throw, row, go.

If someone is drowning in a pool of water (no matter the nature of the pool) the lifeguard looks and finds a safe way to reach the one struggling, one that empowers the drowning person to get to safety.

Reaching allows them to grab the stick, throwing to hold fast to the float, rowing to grab on to the boat, and going, to hold fast to you.

There is no questioning how a person got in trouble, there is no weighing of the merits of saving them. What is at stake is another person’s life, and in that case, we act, just as God does in the case of Nineveh.

Yes, they are great sinners, but our God is in the business of saving great sinners!

And the people of Nineveh wanted to be saved, much to Jonah’s surprise. Jonah barely began to preach and they were ready to repent. They did everything they could to cling to the opportunity for salvation from the king on down, including the livestock!

It is an event of huge proportions. But here’s the twist! It happens because Jonah goes and speaks God’s word to Nineveh.

The waters have risen in Texas, and then in Puerto Rico, and now in the Carolina’s, and in the Carolina’s they are still rising. There are houses that are filled with mud. There are families that are displaced. It’s bad.

But there are opportunities to make a difference, but only if we are willing.

Jonah went!

He could not have imagined what God had prepared for him to see and hear.

Far from rejecting the word of the Lord, the people of Nineveh embraced God’s salvation and repented.

Again, Jonah, God’s reluctant prophet, had brought about a harvest of new followers of the Lord that would have made any modern-day evangelist sing and shout.

But only because Jonah had finally listened and heeded God’s call.

How about you? What is God calling you to do?

Where is God calling you to go?

How much time and energy do you think you could spare to honor the Lord’s work in your life, in order to be the lifeguard God desires you to be?

Opportunities abound. May God bless you as you follow God’s call. Amen.

Sermon from Jonah 2:1-10 for September 16

So…

Many years ago, a good friend dressed up as the prophet Jonah for Halloween.

He went as the partly digested prophet!

He wore whiteface make-up, wore clothes that had been soaked in bleach. His hair, which was naturally blonde, he had put a product known as “sun-in” on, he wrapped himself in fake seaweed, and wore the distinct perfume “eau de tuna”.

And as he approached a house he would fall on his knees and hoarsely call out “repent”, and they would offer up all their candy! We all thought it was pretty funny! 

But oddly it also made a rather obvious point. Three days in the belly of anything is going to be a horrible experience. Unless it appears, you are Jonah!

You see chapter two is all about Jonah’s prayer, and Jonah’s prayer is a prayer of thanksgiving, for having been swallowed by a whale of a fish!

How often do we think of our circumstances as being bad, when in fact God is using them to save us from something worse!

As I noted last week, I have no idea how this story can be true. I am, or at least I like to think I am, a fairly rational man of science as well as faith. I believe Jonah was in a very fishy situation. But how biologically this can be I have no idea.

Animal stomachs are made to digest things. Animal stomachs don’t generally have air in them. Jonah should have been well-digested and nothing but bones after three days.

Instead, like Lazarus he is resurrected, kind of.

It is possible, I suppose, that Jonah was in fact an indigestible prophet, and the fish may have had a whopping belly ache that resulted in Jonah being unceremoniously burped out with all that uncomfortable air and bile. Gross! Imagine that coming up out of the waters off shore of Nineveh, that great city.

But that isn’t even the most amazing part of the story! It should be, eaten alive by a great fish, partly digested, and then spit out.

The amazing part is that Jonah, the weirdest of the prophets, saw his free ride to Nineveh in God’s fishy mode of transportation, as God’s divine decision to save his sorry life!

The fish ride is not his punishment for running away from God’s call to ministry. The punishment was being called out by all the new disciples on the ship he was being tossed from as being unfaithful to the Lord.

His punishment was the community of faith cutting him loose, and starting him off right by dumping him in the sea for God to deal with, where his journey into the depths of the sea to a very untimely death was to begin.

That is…

Until God saved him…

By having him eaten!

How many of you have ever been in life circumstances that you think really, well, suck/stink?

Life can be really, really hard. Your car is broken and you have no way to get to work or school. The rent is due and you have no money at all. Your job is a joke; you have mad skills, but no one needs or wants them. Your relationships would make a great episode of The Jerry Springer Show!

Is it possible, just asking, that you are in the belly of the fish?

Think about it: it stinks, you are slowly being digested, you are wrapped up in all kinds of problems that are weighing you down, but…

Maybe, just maybe, God is in the process of moving you from the wrong place to the right place.

Maybe, God is actually saving you from circumstances that would have finished you off.

Maybe your wardrobe would actually look better bleached and in tatters, just saying! And Jonah, seems to agree!

His prayer in chapter two is a prayer of thanksgiving because it has become clear to him that the fish ride is better than dying in the depths of the ocean, wrapped in the burial shroud of seaweed, far from shore, far from God, far from everything he knows and loves.

And in the belly of the fish he becomes convinced that God is going to save him.

“When I was in trouble, Lord, I prayed to you, and you listened to me. From deep in the world of the dead, I begged for your help, and you answered my prayer.”

Remember, he is in the fish when he prays these words, believing and hoping that even though his circumstances seem dire, he is now safe in God’s hands.

We too know some folks who are in dire circumstances. Some of them live in the Carolinas. Ever heard of flood buckets?

We know some other folks who are in dire circumstances. Their children are struggling with drug addiction. We are offering NARCAN training.

There are folks who are in dire circumstances. Their houses were scoured by mud and ravaged by rain in Texas. We are working to send a team to fix a few.

We know some folks who are in dire circumstances. Which is why, we who have been spit up on shore, are doing everything we can to help them as they begin once again to live the life God has given them.

How about you?

Doing the backstroke in the depths of the sea? In the belly of one grand old fishy? Or are you one who having taken a ride of a lifetime are now ready to be God’s  person to bring hope and help to others?

May it be so. Amen.

Sermon from Jonah 1:1-17 for September 9

So…

On a scale of one to ten, where would you rate yourself as a disciple, 10 being amazing, 1 being barely recognizable?

For many of us, we want to be amazing disciples, but…

Being an amazing disciple with the lowest possible cost!

An amazing disciple as long as being an amazing disciple doesn’t challenge us very much; doesn’t require too much time, energy, intelligence, imagination, love, or resources. A life that doesn’t force me to re-evaluate my purpose in life.

We are okay with a Sunday trip to worship and perhaps an occasional mission type active, or a choir rehearsal, or a bible study.

But if God is asking for much more, then maybe we need to find another low commitment activity.

And God is and we know it. God is asking not for just an occasional donation, but our lives. Jesus says, “Come and follow me.” And, “Take up my cross and follow me.” Following isn’t easy, and try that while carrying a cross!

Again and again Jesus demonstrates what discipleship looks like. Healing the sick, caring for widows and orphans, challenging falsehood and deceit, always inviting the folks at the edges of society to the table.

What Jesus is inviting us to is a life of hard decisions, where we have to put ourselves second, our fame, our fortunes, our comfort and ease, even our narrow understandings of who is acceptable and who isn’t to God and to us, in order to interact with the world in the way that Jesus does.

It ain’t easy, a lesson that Jonah also discovered could be a whale of an adventure!

Just so you understand the story, because all of us have the Sunday School version stuck in our heads, Jonah, a follower of God, was asked by God to go to a foreign city and preach God’s judgment against them.

On the surface it seems like a pretty substantial challenge and it is. Imagine waking up tomorrow being absolutely convinced you are to go to, I don’t know, what is the worst, most sinful city you can think of and preach God’s judgment to them. Maybe Bangkok, Thailand?

Going would be a huge deal. It would cost you plenty. Jonah could of and should have been concerned about that. I would be. “Really God? Thailand? How about Los Angeles, or Las Vegas, or that really sinful city, Boston?”

“I gonna have to use vacation time, gotta pay for a plane ticket, hotel room, food, rental car, and then where am I going to preach? In the streets? I’ll need a rain coat, sun block, several fashionable hats.”

And what if people don’t like my preaching and hassel me, or try to chase me away or get me arrested? I gotta have bail money? No way, this discipleship thing is too hard.”

But here’s the real kicker! Jonah wasn’t upset about being called to go! He wasn’t upset at the cost! He was willing to follow where God led, as long as it wasn’t to Ninevah!

You see Jonah knew God. He understood God’s mercy and love. He would be perfectly happy from way over here to preach against those sinful Ninevites, but he wasn’t willing to talk to them face to face…

Because he was afraid…

That in that face to face encounter…

That they would repent…

And that God would forgive them.

We live in a world where many of us are unwilling to talk to the other side, because we are unwilling, just like Jonah, to take a chance that God is at work in the other side.

So, Jonah decided to go on a three-hour tour, and the ship was named the SS Minnow. No, wait, that was Gilligan’s Island.

But Jonah did get on a ship headed anywhere but Nineveh. And then came the storm and a ship headed to the bottom of the sea, and the realization that Jonah was a problem, in fact the problem, and over the side he went.

Now think about this. The sailors felt terrible about throwing Jonah overboard. They knew it was wrong. They tried everything to avoid it. They even prayed and sacrificed to the Lord. Jonah turned out to be an evangelist to the sailors. Their faith grew because of this crazy disciple.

And Jonah, he became fish food.

Now don’t ask me how this works, I have no idea. The text suggests a large fish swallowed Jonah, so I choose to believe that is what happened. But the technicalities are beyond me. Suffice it to say, Jonah got swallowed up and soon would have an opportunity to rethink his priorities!

God loved Nineveh. Jonah did not. God wanted Nineveh warned. Jonah did not. God hoped Nineveh would repent. Jonah did not.

So, Jonah was going on a journey to discover the meaning of God’s love, mercy, and justice.

Who is it that perhaps you might need to think about from God’s point of view and not your own. And do you have your swim suit? Just saying.

Amen.

Sermon from 1 John 4:13-21 for September 2

So…

Who are you? In the bulletins today are 3x5 cards. I’d like you to take a minute and write down on the card who you are! Oops! I forgot to tell Alice I wanted those! Sigh!

So, if you did write down who you are what would you put?

Perhaps, something like: “I am Jeff Farley, son of Dorothy and Jack, husband to Sue, brother to Sue and Nancy, father of Brian and Katie, grandfather to Noah.”

Or maybe, “I am the Reverend Jeff Farley, an ordained Presbyterian minister, who as of today, has served the Otisville – Mt. Hope Presbyterian Church for 35 years.”

Or maybe I'd put, “I am an old and cranky man, who hurts whenever I try to move.”

Or maybe, “I am a sinner in the hands of an angry God.”

Well, maybe not that, although some of us, especially from certain religious traditions may remember being taught to think that’s who we were. Sinners first, saved by grace second. 

Hmm. I am not sure that is what the people of God are to be thinking.

Because all of that is challenged by John’s writing’s here, where John affirms to the many scattered followers of Jesus that they are first and foremost the beloved children of God, filled with God’s spirit!

Wow!

Is that how you think of yourself? And if not, why not?

In our contemporary world there is a lot of conversation about how people identify themselves. Most of that has to with gender identity, because there are those born with an outward physical identity that doesn’t seem to square with how they feel inside.

I remember one celebrity talking about male friends of hers who felt less of themselves because they liked books more than football, quiet conversations and friendships than boisterous crowds, and fizzy cider.

And I thought to myself, “I like fizzy cider (hard cider). Am I less somehow because I prefer hard cider instead of an IPA or a stout? Don't start with me!

But consider that a conversation like that has even wider implications!

For many of us, our identity was locked early in life into a few small categories. For example, being the oldest son, being a redhead, being the son of a factory worker.

That last one was pretty typical for boys in my part of Buffalo, NY. Graduating from High School and going to work in the factory was very typical. And that meant you had to be strong, brave, physical, and ready to spend your entire life working for General Mills, or Ford or Chevy or Bethlehem Steel or Anaconda brass!

But, in my case and in fact in the case of lots of others, there was a problem. Luckily for me, it was one my parents lovingly and wisely seemed to understand. 

I loved music. I liked to cook. I tried out for football and failed. I read every book I could get my hands on. I had no desire to work in a factory.

I did well in High School, was a National Merit Letter of Commendation winner. I graduated from college, from graduate school (seminary), and still play the trumpet in an amazing brass quintet, and most importantly, identify as me.

Yeah, there are some other things, but most importantly, I identify as me, as I sincerely hope you do too!

Not as one thing or another, but as a wonderfully complex set of things that when swirled in the bowl, poured in the pan, and baked at the right temperature by a very wise and loving God, resulted in a very unique individual: you!

I identify as me, Jeff Farley, as a child of the most-high God, a mixed up, crazy conundrum of color, and shapes and sizes, that if anything looks a lot like the crazy tie dyed T-shirts we all ordered in the spring, each of us picking the color and swirl that said to us, “that’s me!”

We are each uniquely made in the image of God, and are loved by that same God, and even more than that, who are filled us with His presence: God living in us.

So, most importantly of all, do you identify as a child of God?

One of the things John wanted to impress upon his listeners was who they were. Knowing that in every moment of every day that you belong to God and are filled with God’s presence, changes everything.

You’re not powerless, but powerful. You are not lost, but found. You are not without resources, but filled with amazing resources personally, and connected to even more resources through the body of Christ.

You are not alone, but part of a praying, serving, and loving community. 

Yeah, it  often fails, we are not at all perfect; just forgiven and still following Christ together, being Jesus’ hands and heart in this world!

You… You are carefully and wonderfully made to be the vessel of Christ to the world, and we are carefully and wonderfully made to be the vessels of Christ to you.

So, next time, when someone asks who are you, consider saying this, at least to yourself, “I am the beloved child of God!” and see how your day goes from there on.

Beloved, let us love one another! 1 John 4:7-8

Amen.