FIND THE EBB AND THE FLOW OF GOD’S MISSION

1.   When In Doubt, Translate The “And”

To adequately Say Thank You With Your Life  there is a biblical word that we need to translate.   The word, And, in the Bible happens to be a fairly popular conjunction, as it happens to be in conversational English.   But what’s peculiar about the Bible’s over 41,000 instances of the word, And, is that we never quite know what’s on the other side.

 

For example, if you send me to the grocery store for a head of lettuce, I may return with a head of lettuce And a block of sharp cheddar cheese.   It’s been known to happen.   Moreover, if you’ve ever received a hand-written note from Selina Slater, you will be encouraged, not only by her prayers, but that at the bottom it has been signed by Selina And Bill.   You see, And has a way of lumping things together like that.   But what if we were minding our own business reading the book of Jonah, and in the very first paragraph, in the very first sentence, in the very first Hebrew word, we noticed that on the other side of the word, And, we had “the word of the Lord.”  

 

Most English translations of the book render the word, vayhi, as “Now it came to pass.”   But I’m going to recommend that we simply go with “And the word of the Lord came to Jonah…”  because my sneaking suspicion is that when the word of the Lord comes today and to people like us that it always comes in between all the other busy things and projects and programs and procedures.

2.   Creation Swallows Our Avoidance Whole

By now, most of us think we know how the story of Jonah plays out.   It’s sort of like the Rated G version of Jaws, without the gore of the severed body parts and without Steven Spielberg directing.   We know someone is going to be swallowed and we know that most human beings would prefer not to be swallowed.   But if you really want a thrill, pay attention to the way that God orchestrates the creation.   Pay attention to the storm that comes when Jonah tries to escape God’s presence.   And pay attention to the sailors who will not allow him to travel anonymously.   You see, it’s not just the monstrous predator in the water that’s scary.  It’s the avoidance. 

 

M. Scott Peck tells about hitting bottom in his marriage.   In his book, A World Waiting To Be Born, he’s just spent the day, leading men and women on retreat at a small convent.   He’s exhausted and in the evening has a few drinks before sitting at the feet of Sister Lucia.   Her face seems to beam down on him, when he blurted out what he had tried to avoid all day.   He said, “I have failed at my marriage.”  

 

There was a moment of silence until Sister Lucia responded, “Oh, I’m so glad for you.”   Scott Peck looked up, confused and suddenly annoyed.   He shouted, “No, no, you haven’t heard what I’ve been saying…”  

“I’ve heard and understood you perfectly, young man, replied the nun, “You’ve been telling me that you have failed at your marriage, and I’m glad for you.  Do you know how terrible it would be never to fail.  Oh, that would be dreadful!”

 

3.   Our Prayers From The Deep Have A Homing Signal

Believe it or not, I’ve had a weird feeling about Latah Valley this week, and I’d like to share it with you.   It’s a feeling like we’re riding a strong current, like the body of Christ is body-surfing.   But the weird aspect of this sensation is that it started when this guy from Southside Christian Church asked me if this were my home.   That is, he asked if I had been raised around Spokane.   I told him No, but that I had lived here twenty years ago, and that the First Presbyterian Church had been the first place that I remember failing.   I failed as a junior high youth minister.   And, as far as I was concerned, I couldn’t get out of town fast enough.   As far as I was concerned, back in 1991, I shook the dust off my feet as testimony against the entire Inland Northwest.   And then…

“Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish…”

“Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; how shall I look again upon your holy temple…’”

 

Thomas Merton has this memory to which he returns in prayer.  He offers it in The Seven Story Mountain as a kind of confession.  He says that once he and his friends had gone into the woods to build a tree house.   They wanted it to be a place for the older boys, and when Merton’s younger son, Paul, tagged along, they pushed him away.   They actually picked up rocks and threw them in his direction.   They yelled epithets and told him to get out.   And yet, no matter how much they hurled objects and insults, Paul remained in his place, just out of range.  He watched and waited as if he were watching the ocean.  

4.   We’ve All Been Re-Called to Nineveh

You see, I’d like to point out the ebb and the flow of God’s Mission.   God’s Mission is going to Nineveh.   All of us, by the power of the Crucified and Resurrected Christ, are being called and called again to the very place or to the very circumstances to which we would have never gone by ourselves.  

When despair grows in me

And I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water,

and the great heron  feeds.  I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief.  I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light.  For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

 

This poem by Wendell Berry touches, I think, on the most ironic thing about finding the ebb and the flow of God’s Mission for our lives.   We are never more free.   And we are never more still.   We are never more free than when we surrender our fears and our failures to God.   And we are never more still than when we move with the current of God’s grace into the world. 

 

5.   Why Latah Valley Will Never Be Tarshish And Why That’s Good News

 

Freedom and Stillness.  Jonah, at his best, experiences that freedom and that stillness.   But finally, I’d like us to notice something that he never experiences, and that’s his intended destination of Tarshish.

Tarshish, as we noted, is that exotic and idyllic locale where no one has a care in the world.   Tarshish is that Hukuna Matata paradise in The Lion King, where Simba doesn’t have to go back home if he doesn’t want.   He doesn’t have to restore the kingdom if he doesn’t want.   Or does he?   Doesn’t he want?  

 

I believe that Latah Valley will never be Tarshish because I believe that God is always going to be using this fellowship to call us back, back to Nineveh, and back to the world where all relationships are restored in the ebb and the flow of God’s Mission.  

 

Amen.