Third Sunday before Advent: Second chances

Jonah 3:11-5, 10, Psalm 62:5-14, Mark 1:14-20

 

I really enjoy watching tv programmes like The Great British Bake Off. I love watching others bake incredible cakes and biscuits each week, or sew beautiful garments. There are several programs that follow this format. My favourite one is still the Pottery Throw Down - for me, it even beats Strictly. It amazes me how creative people can be as they make something wonderful to behold - or maybe not - out of a lump of clay. The bit I don’t enjoy, though, is when someone has to leave the group at the end of the programme. There’s often tears and sadness as someone is eliminated.

 

Don’t get me wrong - I don’t have a problem with people winning. But I have realised that what I don’t like about these programmes is that people don’t get a second chance at things. Wow - second chances are great, aren’t they? There is such relief and joy whenever there is one of those weeks where they don’t send anyone home but give everyone a second chance. You can see a sort of hopefulness in the group in the way their hearts are lighter within them, at this unexpected second chance.

 

The verses from today’s Old Testament reading tell us something about second chances - I wonder what that felt like for both Jonah and the Ninevites. We join Jonah halfway through his story. This is actually the second time that God has spoken to Jonah about Nineveh. When God first speaks to him, he tells Jonah to go immediately to Nineveh and cry out against their wickedness. This is the last thing Jonah wants to do - Nineveh had a fearsome reputation for being cruel and violent. ‘No thanks' - thinks Jonah - ‘that’s not for me! I’ll sail as far away from Nineveh as I can.’

 

Perhaps wickedness isn’t the only way to turn our back on God and go in the opposite direction to what he wants for our lives. Instead of going overland to the East, Jonah sails West. But God brings such a terrible storm on the boat, that Jonah asks to be thrown into the sea. And here’s the bit of the story that you might be familiar with - the whale. God sends a very large fish to swallow Jonah and get him to dry land.

 

Now, whatever we think about how possible it might be for someone to be swallowed by a very large fish and survive, Jonah writes a prayer about the experience. In it, he tells us about God. “Deliverance belongs to the Lord!” says Jonah. He says that when he called out to God in his distress, God answered him and delivered him. God hears Jonah’s anxiety and dispair and God responds with mercy, rescuing Jonah and saving him from death. Jonah doesn’t drown is given a second chance.

 

I wonder what Jonah felt about this second chance. Nineveh was the huge city of the Assyrians and was the largest in the world for a number of years. It was also a place of terrible cruelty. Two of the Old Testament books have stories of the violence that Israel experienced at the hands of the Assyrians. The Assyrians slaughtered and enslaved countless people, using exploitation and abuse to get what they wanted. Archeology shows stone carvings depicting the hideous acts they committed.

 

So it’s easy to see why Jonah didn’t want to go there. God was calling Jonah to have compassion on a city that was a threat to his own people, maybe even a threat to those he loved. God calls Jonah to trust God in a situation that was way out of his comfort zone.

 

And Jonah, this second time around, does what God asks. He walks for 3 days across this vast city, preaching God’s message for the Ninevites. He perseveres in warning the Ninevites about God’s judgement on their wickedness. My goodness, those Ninevites benefitted from Jonah’s second chance, didn’t they - because they get to hear about God, in time to have the opportunity to escape God’s judgement. They get to hear about the deliverance of the Lord by someone who knows what that feels like.

 

At this point in the story, everyone has been offered a chance to act on what they hear, either from God or about God. The effect on the Ninevites is quite unexpected, given their reputation for evil wickedness. There’s a radical change in the Ninevites.

They proclaim a fast, and everyone, whoever they are, takes off their nice clothes and dresses themselves in plain garments made out of sacking material. Rather like wearing hessian - very scratchy I would imagine!

 

And just as Jonah learns that deliverance belongs to the Lord, the Ninevites also discover this. God sees how they turn from their wicked and evil ways, and he changes his mind about  the calamity that he said he would bring upon them. Just as God heard Jonah’s anxiety and distress when Jonah was drowning, so God also hears the anxiety and distress of the Ninevites - and at this particular point he delivers them. 

 

We might find it quite hard to read about how God gives these wicked people the chance to turn to him and escape his judgment. It can be painful to think of wickedness going unpunished. I think that it’s very natural to feel confused and maybe even angry with God at times. But it’s what we do with that confusion that matters, and where we go with our anger. In the following chapter of Jonah, we read that God is big enough for us to take our questions to him. He will listen.

 

In fact in the Psalm we read today, we are encouraged to pour out our hearts before God. The Psalmist says that he has found God to be a refuge when he pours his heart out to him. The Psalm says that there is a robustness and firmness about God that we can trust - always. This is where we find hope. Even in the quiet waiting, as we put our trust in God, we can know that we are held safely and securely in the steadfast love of his power.

 

And just as God didn’t let go of Jonah, so he won’t let go of us. God’s grace and persistence with Jonah gives us such hope - I know how much I don’t want God to give up on me. I’m sure that I’m like most people in being grateful for second chances. I’m so glad that God doesn’t use the same format as all those tv programmes like Bake Off, and eliminate us one by one. Instead, he offers a welcome to everyone and anyone who wants to join in. Anyone who turns to him will find him. It’s the beautiful good news that Jesus brings, isn’t it. For he himself journeys out of his comfort zone to visit a vast place, full of wicked people. He also brings the same message - the need to repent - but he also brings good news with him. The good news is that in Jesus, God will deal with evil and wickedness. The good news, that in Jesus there is forgiveness for all the ways we turn away from God. The good news, that believing in Jesus is about having a relationship with God. It’s a relationship where we can pour out our hearts to him, and find God to be a strong, sure place of safety and refuge.

Amen