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You’re
probably already asking why would the story of Jonah, the Amittai (which means
of the faithful) would make a connection to the Resurrection and to Christ as
our Good Shepherd? It may be difficult
for us to understand some 2,000 years later, but the very first converts to the
‘Way,’ (which was the term used to call the first Christians) were the Jews,
and they were still for the most part heavily, spiritually integrated and
influenced by the books of the Old Testament.
Today when we study the Old Testament and read lessons from it, we are
coming naturally, first, from the perspective of being a New Covenant
people—disciples of Jesus Christ and His Gospel, alone.
With
that in mind, they, being these early followers, saw more vivid connections of
Grace, Obedience, Compassion and the sovereignty of God from their heritage of
YHWH first. Perhaps you can think of it
as wearing one set of glasses and for us, it is yet, another. It is a shame that throughout these seven
Sundays of the Easter season we really don’t look at much from the Old
Testament lessons because the lectionary thinkers thought it was more important
to stress the beginnings of the church by taking an in depth look each week
into the various lessons available from the book of Acts. This is very important as well. As I said
last Sunday, Luke was one of the church planting companions of St. Paul and
Barnabas (the suspected author of Hebrews) and a host of other amazing
disciples who built from nothing but the Gospel—the foundation to the church we
know today. Take that thought in and chew upon for a while!
Those
early followers of the ‘Way,’ as it was nicknamed by the Ancient historian
Josepheus, and used by the persecutors of the early church, needed to make a
statement and often these statements were in code. For instance, another popular early Christian
symbol of a fish developed around the story of Jesus’ miracle of multiplying
the catch of fish for the disciples and then calling them to follow Him. Many of the early Christians in great fear of
being turned in by the persecutors, had to use a code to identify one
another. This symbol began by one of
them drawing half of the arc of the fish and the other drawing the remaining.
Bet you never thought about that before, when you see a car decked out with a
lot of Christian “bling?” …
On
that same note, we are more accustomed to incorporating the Cross of Christ as
not only our uniting symbol of why we are His disciples but in essence it is
the Shepherd’s staff to discipline and transform our entire lives by. The Cross
is something that typifies the work of Christ, the sovereignty of Christ in our
lives, period. Those early Jewish
followers of the ‘Way,’ saw and grew in identifying their disobedience to God
through the weak Prophet Jonah. Here was a man, who not only was unfaithful to
the coaxing of God to follow His will, but ran in fear and tried to hide from
God. Here was a man who loved God deeply
but didn’t like what He was telling him to do!
YHWH was telling him that he needed to bring peace and show compassion
to his mortal enemies, the Ninevites, who murdered his father… This is simply being very human nature of
him, but he was thinking to himself—no way! I will never show them mercy or
forgive them!
As
the story of Jonah continues, God uses Jonah’s fear as a lesson and actually
imparts an Old Testament understanding of Grace—the fish. The whale, as we know, saw Jonah struggling
in the waters—he was deathly afraid of the sea… And the creature came up and
swallowed him whole! The Old Testament
miracle here, was that the fish became a fleshy 3-day hotel room for Jonah to
work out what he was spiritually struggling with. He didn’t necessarily want to follow God’s
prompting to him. He didn’t want to
change his perspective on the Ninevites—why should he? They were bad people who
killed his father…
As
soon as he is spewed out of the giant fish and makes his way to Ninevah, his
preaching is what begins that spark in the Ninevites’ souls to repent and
become obedient, follow YHWH. He only got to this point because he realized
God’s mercy upon him to change. Does
this sound familiar? The Apostles of the
early church, Peter, Paul, Luke and the whole host of disciples went to spread
the Gospel of the New Covenant of Christ through preaching but it only happened
by their experience of a change within them.
In the here and now of their lives, they sowed God’s Living Word to all
the nations and planted not only house church communities but most importantly
planted in the converts’ hearts the concept of turning your heart, spirit to
God in service through love, peace, compassion, mercy, forgiveness and all of
those wonderfully good things! All of the Apostles, disciples of the early
church suffered in their cause to follow in Christ’s footsteps in order that we
are here today and now going forth in a short while to live and shape our lives
by the Gospel!
These
connecting themes are not just to be a history lesson about the early Church,
but are to reveal the timeless, universal reign, shepherding reign of God in
and throughout our lives. King David and his son Solomon were considered
shepherding the Israelites through the wisdom teachings of the Psalms. The Psalm for this Sunday has been dubiously
connected with funerals, Psalm 23. This Psalm may discuss the finitude of
humanity, but not without proclaiming the joy of a New life with and from God. The New Covenant would proclaim this New life
to be the saving Grace of Christ’s victory at the Cross. His sacrifice and suffering not only freed us
but was to impart the unpopular aspect of being a Christian—we must be willing
to strive, suffer and sacrifice if we are to naturally bear forth the fruit of
the Kingdom of God…
Jonah’s
story for these early Christians exemplified the mirror to their own struggles
with carrying on for a greater purpose, greater goal… Bet you haven’t thought
about this before, but then, this is what the power of preaching is to do when
it is fully incorporated in the heart and shared in teaching, growing from the
scriptures! This past Tuesday, my
husband & I along with Chris and Carla went to go see the wonderful play of
Jonah and the Whale. This Christian couple in Lancaster Pennsylvania, started
the sights and sounds theater. This
theater was to make the stories of the Bible come to life through elaborate
sets, acting, music and lights. The
Regal Theater, here on Fort Apache road, was showing this, for one night I
believe, as a special showing. It was a
film of a theater performance, essentially the performing arts.
The
performance was a wonderful collage of singing, satire and drama which would
conclude not only in sync with the last chapters of Jonah but add a creative meeting
between Christ Himself and Jonah. Christ
would appear to remind and comfort Jonah that he, is indeed loved by God. Since
Jonah did eventually come around to have his heart turned to God in feeling
compassion finally for the Ninevites, whom he formerly hated, Christ needed to
Shepherd him. When Jesus is preaching
this complex parable of the sheep and the Gate, to the disciples, in today’s
Gospel, He is revealing the same kind of command and love He does for Jonah in
the play. Jesus wants the disciples to
spiritually discipline themselves to strive against their Old ways (Old Nature)
and be obedient to persevere the challenges of living the Gospel (New Life) in
the world, they were called to transform.
Sadly,
the disciples still really didn’t understand what Jesus meant by His call to
obedience of the sheep and that He is the gatekeeper… Has much changed today? How much do we strive to follow into Christ
footsteps spiritually? The steeple and
the people have been around for some time now…
Are we really understanding the notion of being church? Can we even see the world of the disciples as
it was in the beginning with the painted word in the book of Acts? Don’t let these questions discourage you, let
them however provoke you. Let them
swallow you up as that giant fish of God did upon Jonah’s first church—his
heart. Let it consume all those
negative, divisive, self-concerned thoughts and refocus you upon the Gospel of
Jesus—our only savior…
Let
us pray,
Gracious
and loving Lord,
We
know You are the Good Shepherd
But
often our hearts do nothing but want and will for everything but, Your Gospel
And
its call for spiritual resurrection within us all
We
would rather find ways to slip past Your guiding ways
Influence
upon our lives…
We
would rather be swallowed up, inwardly with our own struggles not willing to
allow You to break us free…
Teach
our hearts to be disciplined to Your gift of Grace
May
we be finally opened to become who You need us to be
In
Your most precious Words, we have New life—
AMEN
May 7th, 2017; Fourth Sunday of
Easter; Year A; SOLA Lectionary
Sermon by: Reverend Nicole A.M.
Collins, OSST
Psalm 23; Acts 2:42-47; 1 Peter 2:19-25; John 10:1-10
The link below is to this sermon's delivery at First Congregational Church:
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