Sermon for the 17th Sunday after Pentecost
These are the ways of the kingdom of God
By The Rev. Christie Webb -
When was the last time you threw a good old fashioned temper tantrum? When was the last time you longed to throw the temper tantrum you felt boiling up inside you, the kind you used to throw as a child? Feet stomping. Arms flailing. Wails bellowing. Tears flowing.
Here is the truth: sometimes when one of my children is in the midst of a particularly emotive moment of frustration and displeasure, I envy them. To have the space and give myself permission to lay it all out there, to get it all out, well it seems cathartic, you know? But alas, I’m an adult, and I try to find other ways to express myself, I suppose.
All this is to say, when I read this part of Jonah’s story in our first reading, I couldn’t help but be impressed. This temper tantrum comes toward the end of the tale. Let’s recap what has happened up to this point.
God calls Jonah to go to Ninevah to preach to them and get them to repent. And Jonah… goes in the opposite direction. He ends up on a boat. The boat finds itself in the middle of an epic storm. The people on the boat are scared, fearing for their lives, while Jonah is simply asleep down below. When they wake him up, pleading for him to pray to his God to end this, Jonah admits to them: “you are in this predicament because of me. Throw me overboard into the water and all will be well.” The crew do just that. Jonah finds himself in the water for a bit, but then a big fish, or whale, swallows him up, holds onto him for three days, enough time for Jonah to repent of trying to run away from God. And then Jonah is spit out onto dry ground and makes his way to Ninevah to preach to the people. His preaching works with results most preachers would envy. The whole town repents, puts on sack cloth, changes their way. But Jonah is frustrated. All this fire and brimstone preaching and none of the fire and brimstone comes. And so the temper tantrum begins.
I imagine it went a little like this: [Stomping and flailing arms] “O Lord! Isn’t this just like I said? This is why I avoided all this from the beginning. I knew you are a gracious God, merciful and slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love. I knew you were ready to relent from punishing. And now you have. So please Lord, take my life from me. It is better to die than to live!”
And then the tree grows up and shades him, and then it withers and dies and he is back in the hot sun, with another round of the tantrum.
“God. Kill me. Just let me die. It is better for me to die than live.”
God asks “is it right for you to be angry about the bush?”
“Yes! Angry enough to die.”
But of course the lesson comes: if he is so angry about a bush that has died that he didn’t plant or nurture, what about the people God did plant and grow and nurture in Nineveh, shouldn’t they also have their life?
[silence] Well played, God, well played.
Jonah’s temper tantrum isn’t the only one in our texts this day. We also have the one that occurs in our gospel text, though it is a bit more tempered. It simply says that those who had been working all day grumbled when they received the same wages as those who were picked up at the end of the day. A little grumbling on the outside, but I suspect the inner dialogue was a little more like this: “How can this be?! These people didn’t work all day. They simply sat and waited. I was out here. Slaving away. Working. All day. I should get more pay than they do. It's NOT FAIR!” Which is, I suppose, in some ways of thinking, true. It might not be fair. But it is just. Isn’t it? For all to have a wage, a way to live, to eat, to have a home, even if work is not plentiful, because you were out there, willing to work the whole day, even if you only got picked up for the last part of it.
These are the ways of the kingdom of God. The last shall be first. Mercy will be given. All of it turns the way of the world’s thinking on its head. Which is perhaps the purpose of the gospel.
In my seminary preaching course we were tasked with summing up the gospel in a couple of lines. Here was my gospel statement: God’s extravagant love and grace, through the life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, reconciles us to God and is turning creation right side up. Now the last are first, the poor are rich, the weak are strong, the lost are found and the broken are restored.
These texts that we have before us today are exactly that, good news that turns the world upside down, or perhaps right side up. And sometimes, when we find ourselves in certain positions, like that of Jonah, or that of the laborers who worked all day, it is hard to accept this world-turning way. We want to stomp our feet and say “No fair!”
But other times, this is the best good news. Because this good news is not just true for our neighbor, but true for us as well. God’s love is for us, always, no matter how late we are to the party. No matter how long it took for us to get it right. No matter if we still aren’t getting it right.
There is a passage that I love in the letter to the Romans, from the eighth chapter. It goes like this: “For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
Nothing can separate us from the love of God. As Desmond and Mpho Tutu taught us last week:There is nothing that cannot be forgiven.There is no one undeserving of forgiveness.
So go ahead if you must. Feel your big feels. Shout your “it's not fair.” And then let the good news shift and change your response as you trust and hold fast to this: Nothing can separate us from the love of God. Nothing can separate your neighbor from the love of God. Nothing can separate you from the love of God. Nothing can separate us from the generous, merciful, love of God that turns the world upside down, I mean right side up. Amen.
The Rev. Christie Webb
Pastor - Mt. Olive Lutheran Church
Santa Monica, California
Sermon for:
September 23 & 24, 2023
