The Urge to Flee Jonah, Matthew 5:43-46

Batman says to Robin,
"O.K. Robin, I want you to march right into the Joker's hideout
and let him know someone cares and that if he'll just say he's sorry
I'll put in a good word with the commissioner, no hard feelings."
The Lone Ranger says to Tonto,
"We caught those rustlers red-handed, Tonto.
Let's ride straight into their camp and let them know
that if they put the horses back where they found them all is forgiven."
God says to Jonah, "Go at once to Nineveh....""
Holy injustice, Batman! Have you been in the Bat Cave too long?
"Ho, Kimosabe, have you been smoking a little tumbleweed?"
What are you thinking, God? If I go to Nineveh they'll surely kill me,
and if they don't kill me they might repent!
Then what?

It's part of our fallen human condition that we have to have enemies.
If we can't find them we manufacture them.
If we don't have an enemy to blame for our misfortunes,
if we don't have a bitter foe to whom we can direct all our frustration
then we might have to blame ourselves, and that's no good!
The problem is, this preoccupation we have with enemies is like standing too close
to a beautiful mosaic. We tend to obsess on one fragment of tile
and miss the larger, grander design.

When we first meet Jonah, it's at the point of his initial charge.
God says to him, "Go to Nineveh, for their wickedness has come up before me."
Now, you might think Jonah would be happy to deliver
God's message to the Ninevites.
After all, they were Assyrians, residents of the capital city of the country
that had overwhelmed tiny Judah and Israel with military intimidation
and taxed them almost into oblivion.
But instead, Jonah ran.
God wanted him to go East.

He hopped a boat going about as far West as one could go in those days.
But it's not until chapter 4 that we learn the real reason that Jonah ran
In chapter 4, after he has been swallowed and regurgitated by the fish,
after he has reluctantly gone to Nineveh and had a greater response
than he could have imagined,
THEN he says to God, "See! See! THAT'S why I ran toward Tarshish!
THAT'S why I wanted no part of preaching your message.
Because I KNEW, I KNEW that you are a gracious God and merciful,
slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love,
AND ready to relent from punishing!"

Jonah's tale is the kind of tale a jester might present for the King's amusement.
It's full of humor and unexpected reversals but also deep truth.
Jonah's story is a tangle of unexpected twists, things we don't see coming.
There’s that thing about going West when God says to go East.
Next the foreign sailors on his ship
turn out to be more devout than he, the prophet.
Then Jonah gets swallowed by a big fish,
and instead of being upset, it's the only time in the whole story
that he expresses gratitude to God instead of whining and sulking.

Jonah finally goes to Nineveh, but he obeys in the most minimal way.
He just walks down Main Street yelling that in 40 days Nineveh will be overthrown.
A trained parrot could do as much.
But his success is overwhelming, if you want to call it success.
The Ninevites, all the way up to the king and all the way down to the livestock,
tear their garments and sit in ashes and repent of their sins.

You'd think he'd be happy, you'd think he'd feel proud,
but remember, Jonah has lost an enemy,
and a good enemy is a valuable commodity.
A good enemy must be cultivated, nursed over time.
It’s hard to invest so much hate in an enemy
and then have that investment suddenly taken away.

What is it that we are to take from this fish story?
The Lectionary readings use this story of Jonah’s reluctance to follow God’s command
as a backdrop for the story of Jesus calling his first disciples
and their eagerness to drop everything and follow him.

Others want to make this story into more of a mandate for evangelism.
They make it a motivational speech about the responsibility we all have
to spread the good news of God’s love to the four corners of the Earth.
Both of these are legitimate themes worthy of attention.
But I've clearly chosen a third alternative.

I've chosen to emphasize the enemy angle,
to marvel at the fact that God commanded Jonah, a Jew
to take a chance for God’s mercy to his arch enemies, the Ninevites.
And I’ve chosen to highlight Jonah’s response
to God’s tendency to blur the distinction between enemy and friend.
His response, of course, was to get angry.

Most all of us have the tendency to construct our own version of reality,
to decide how things are and then marshal evidence to support our views.
To Jonah, Ninevites were bad, pure and simple.
Hadn’t they as a nation trampled weaker nations in a drive for world dominance?
Hadn’t they as a nation shown no mercy in pushing their agenda?
Israel and Judah had tried to resist the Assyrians and that didn’t work
but if they couldn’t fight them they could at least let them stew in their own sin!

Most all of us have the tendency to construct our own version of reality,
Of course, we also tend to ignore the evidence that supports a different view.
We don’t want to hear anything that contradicts what we’ve already decided.
We’ll go to great lengths to preserve our cherished notions
even when a little voice inside is telling us there might be more to the picture
than just the stark blacks and whites we’re so fond of.

Jonah was willing even to be thrown into the sea rather than face his sworn enemy.
But God, in God’s mercy, didn’t abandon Jonah to his stubbornness.
God sent the big fish to turn Jonah around.
God didn’t force Jonah to go to Ninevah.
God simply made it too costly for Jonah NOT to obey.
God showed to Jonah the very forgiveness that Jonah knew God had in store
for the Ninevites and, as mad as it made him,
he couldn’t help but be grateful.
He couldn’t help but go.

I grew up watching Batman and the Lone Ranger,
Gunsmoke and Hawaii 5-0.
Today teenagers play video games with titles like Doom and Mortal Combat
with all too realistic graphics of bloody fights.
What the old TV shows and the new video games have in common
is that the let us indulge our fantasy that the world can be divided
into white hats and black hats, good guys and bad.
They nourish our need for enemies
and assure us that we're on the right side.

If it was just reserved to television or video games it wouldn't be so bad
but nobody needs a scorecard to know
that this trait we have of playing innocent while we paint the other guy evil
carries over into our politics AND our personal lives.

Joppa, the port city from which Jonah tried to run away from God,
is the site of the modern-day capital of Israel – Tel Aviv.
That’s where I’ll be landing in a little over a week
to begin my two week tour of Israel.
That’s also where a member of the militant Islamic Jihad organization
blew himself up Thursday in a fast food restaurant injuring 16 people.

I bring this up not because I’m having second thoughts about going,
but because it helps put into stark relief just what God was asking Jonah to do
and why Jonah felt such an overwhelming urge to flee.
You’ve seen the struggle – the checkered history of tit-for-tat violence
in the area some call Israel and some call Palestine.
They've got this enemy-making instinct down pat!

So, for God to ask Jonah to go to Ninevah
is literally like asking an Orthodox member of the Likud party of Israel
to take a message of salvation and hope to an Al-Qaida cell in Baghdad.
But that’s what God asks.
And God’s asks it of Jonah as much for Jonah’s sake as for the Ninevites.
The Ninevites respond to God’s mercy.
But by the time the story ends we still don’t know if Jonah can.

Jonah’s story is a humorous story with a sharp point.
It hit’s you and me squarely where we live,
forcing us to consider those whom we call our enemies
and what God may be asking of us.
Later today at our retreat, the Session will be studying the final report
of the Presbyterian church’s "Peace, Unity, and Purity" Commission.
This is the commission of twenty Presbyterians from across the theological spectrum
who have met together for four years to try to sort out
how God is calling us to quit making enemies of one another.
The reality is that it took four years of meeting, of studying the Bible together,
of sharing communion for them to be able to let go of their preconceived notions
and find their common connection in Christ.

Our community has been troubled recently by a clash of different world views.
Each side of this struggle has cast the other side as the enemy.
It’s understandable. It feels like there’s a lot at stake.
The question for Christians though, is how is God calling us to see the situation
in light of what we know of God’s penchant for forgiveness and peace.

Letting go of our enemies is tough.
Surely a little hate in our hearts isn’t TOO much to ask!
But there it is, plain as day - those words Jesus said to his disciples
in the sermon on the mount.
"You have heard that it was said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.'
But I say to you, 'Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,
so that you may be children of your Father in heaven,
for he makes his sun rise on the evil and the good."
The Ninevites responded to God’s mercy.
Now the question is, "Can we?"

Come and See Ps. 189:1-12,23, 34 John 1:43-51

Jesus is just getting started, right?
He’s learned a trade, kept his nose clean.
He’s a little odd, but clearly a bright, well-spoken, intelligent young man.
Sure, he’s from Nazareth, so he’s had a better shot at being a big fish in a little pond
than if he were from Jerusalem, say.
But being from Nazareth carries it’s liabilities as well.
It’s like being from Schuyler, maybe, or Wingina - not IMPOSSIBLE to succeed,
but not as LIKELY.
So Jesus has decided he’s got a greater destiny than building kitchen cabinets
and he’s left home.
He’s identified by those who meet him as "Rabbi,"
though nowhere in the gospels do we get a look at his Jewish School diploma.

As John tells the story, Jesus is baptized by his cousin, John the Baptizer,
who then gets Jesus started in the Rabbi business
by giving him two disciples on permanent loan.
John gives Jesus Simon Peter and his brother Andrew,
both from the fishing village of Bethsaida.
When Peter and Andrew ask Jesus where he’s staying,
Jesus replies, "Come and see."
"Come and see." Pay attention, you’ll hear that again.
This is where our passage today picks up the account.

The next day, we’re told, Jesus decides to go to Galilee.
There he finds Philip, who’s identified as being from Peter and Andrew’s neighborhood
It seems clear to me that John emphasizes the connection;
that he wants us to know Jesus went to Galilee specifically to find Philip
on Peter and Andrew’s recommendation.
That’s the way it seems to work in John’s story.
He wants us to know that Jesus is part of a network of relationships,
the center hub in a wheel of connections.
John the Baptizer refers Peter and Andrew to Jesus,
Peter and Andrew refer Jesus to Philip,
and, as we see, Philip goes out and gets Nathaniel.

Matthew, and Mark, and Luke tell it differently.
They tell the story of Jesus’ calling his disciples
with an emphasis on the individual responses.
Jesus sees, he calls, and "Bam!" they drop everything to follow.
But John want’s us to see the web, the network,
how everything’s so interconnected.
In John, the choice to follow Jesus comes not so much as a bolt from the blue,
but as a natural consequence of knowing and being known.
In John, being a disciple requires not so much an abrupt tearing of the social fabric,
as it requires a re-weaving of the fabric to bring in new colors and textures.

This is important, this story of how one becomes a disciple of Jesus.
It’s important because if you’re new to the whole idea of Christianity
you need to know that it’s not enough just to engage Christianity
as an interesting philosophy or as an intellectual curiosity.
It’s not enough to just keep it at arms length -
to stand back and admire it from a distance as one might look at a piece of art.
I don’t mean you won’t be welcome here if that’s what you want to do,
I simply mean that you will gain little from the exercise
unless you’re willing to put your headgear on and your mouth guard in
and get down on the mat and wrestle.
For worship to be anything more than just a mildly pleasant Sunday morning exercise
or for the community of faith to be anything more than friendly acquaintances,
you have to grapple, go tooth and nail with what it might mean if YOU were to become
an authentically engaged, sincere, if awkward, disciple of Jesus Christ.
That includes figuring out what gifts you bring to the task.
It also includes exploring how you might need to change.

For those of you who have already gotten on the mat,
and maybe even been pinned a few times,
the question of how one becomes a disciple of Jesus is also important.
It’s important because there is a loud and flashy strain of theology in our culture,
especially here in our beloved South,
that would have me believe that becoming a disciple IS an individual experience,
that it’s ONLY about what’s going on in MY heart and MY head,
whether I have what it takes to make a decision to follow
and what kind of dramatic victory I’M going to win.
This strain of theology would have me think that coming to faith
IS done in isolation, just between me and Jesus.
This kind of thinking is so pervasive in our Southern culture,
so strongly worded, so adamantly proclaimed by every TV evangelist
and Christian bookstore that it’s easy for those of us who have come by
another way to feel inferior and to question the reality of our discipleship.

But John wants us to know that while there is biblical support for this Me and Jesus
point of view, there is also ample evidence that Jesus also honors
a different kind of discipleship as well.
Take, for example, this story of Jesus’ encounter with Nathaniel
and of Nathaniel’s decision to follow Jesus.

You remember the story so far.
John the Baptizer referred two of his disciples to Jesus, Simon, renamed Peter,
and his brother Andrew, both from the Northeastern Galilean village of Bethsaida.
Implied in the story is the assumption that Peter and Andrew told Jesus about Philip,
because next thing we know Jesus goes straight to Galilee and finds Philip.
We’re not told why exactly, but Philip is impressed by Jesus,
impressed enough to go then to Nathaniel with an invitation.
"We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote,
Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth."

Now, here’s where it gets interesting.
Jesus has already seen Nathaniel sitting under a fig tree,
so it’s not unlikely to think that Philip encounters Nathaniel at a spot
that’s within earshot of Jesus - maybe a village market or a courtyard.
I picture Nathaniel as a natural skeptic, somebody who likes to do some verbal sparring.
He sees Philip’s enthusiasm and hears the word "Nazareth,"
and I imagine him raising his voice just enough for Jesus to hear,
"CAN ANYTHING GOOD COME OUT OF NAZARETH?"
Notice that Philip doesn’t chastise him for his irreverence.
He doesn’t try to argue Jesus’ credentials or browbeat Nathaniel into acquiescence.
He simply shrugs and echos what Jesus said earlier to Peter and Andrew. "Come and see," he says. That’s all. "Come and see."

OK, so in my picture Nathaniel has just good-naturedly insulted Jesus’ home town.
Instead of taking offense, though, Jesus rises to the challenge
and with tongue firmly in cheek greets Nathaniel with dripping flattery,
"Ah, here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit."
Then Nathaniel gets into the rhythm of the good natured banter
and says, "How do you know so much about me?"
and Jesus responds, "I saw you under the fig tree earlier."
Now, here’s where the inflection and tone you use when reading this story
makes all the difference.

If you read Nathaniel’s response in sonorous, meaningful tones
it becomes a profound statement of faith.
"Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!"
I’m not saying that’s impossible.
I’m not saying that’s NOT the way it happened.
But consider what it means to read his response in this serious kind of way.
If all Jesus said to Nathaniel was, "I saw you earlier under the fig tree"
and based on that Nathaniel comes out with some profound statement of faith,
then the story becomes all about Nathaniel and Jesus.
The story becomes all about NATHANIEL’S insight, NATHANIEL’S faith,
and all about JESUS’ divinity, the halo that sets him apart from other men.
It becomes another one of those ME and JESUS encounters that some people have,
but not everyone.

Remember what I said earlier about John’s style?
That his understanding of discipleship
is more prone to focus on the network, on connections?
Remember that he’s more likely to see discipleship
not so much as a one-time ME and JESUS kind of supernatural experience,
but as an ongoing intertwining of relationships,
a continuing weaving together of EVERYTHING we bring to the table
all the doubts, the enthusiasms, the comforts and the fears?

So, what if, following John’s lead
instead of reading Nathaniel’s response in solemn tones,
we read it as though it’s a continuation of his bantering with Jesus.
Instead of "RABBI, YOU are the Son of God! YOU are the King of Israel!"
what if Nathaniel instead says it in more playful tones -
"Rabbi! You ARE the Son of God! You ARE the King of Israel."
And Jesus shoots back, "You think that’s something? Boy, you ain’t seen nothin’!
Come with me and you’ll see some really amazing things."

Do you see the difference? It may be too subtle a point I’m trying to shave here,
but I think it’s easy to get caught up in this idea that becoming a disciple means
leaving your personality and your sense of humor and your intellect
back there on the front porch as you slough off all your past relationships
and step out like the Lone Ranger to be with Jesus.
That may be the way it happens for some,
but it is just as legitimate for your discipleship to happen over time,
for it to grow maybe even imperceptibly over a period of years:
nurtured by your friendships, challenged by your setbacks,
undergirded by worship and guided by scripture.

We are ordaining new elders today - elders you elected back in September.
One of the things the Session does on your behalf when you elect new elders
is to ask them to tell about their faith journey - their path of discipleship.
Carter Eggleston, our youth elder, told us that he can’t remember NOT being a part
of the Rockfish family of faith.
His growing up to God has been simply a natural part of who he is.
I’m confident that Carter will continue to question his faith, use his intellect,
inject his humor, wrestle with doubts - that also is a natural part of who he is.
Because he is a part of a network of relationships,
because he is connected in this web of people who see wrestling with faith
as the way to grow in faith he will continue to develop.

It’s interesting to note that we never hear of Nathaniel again.
Some make the case that he and Bartholomew mentioned in Acts
are one and the same, but no one knows for sure.
Still, I like to imagine that even though he doesn’t have the name recognition
of Peter or James or John, Nathaniel made Jesus laugh.
When the other disciples were too quick to acquiesce to Jesus’ commands
I like to imagine that it was Nathaniel who stepped up to engage Jesus in debate.
I like to think that he was there to poke a pin in any of the other 11
who got too full of hot air.
And, I like to think that as they walked from town to town he was one of the ones
most eager to introduce others to Jesus; to expand the network.
"Come and see," I hear him say. "Come and see."









7

Rich Variety Matthew 2:1-12, Ephesians 3:1-12

Some people welcome variety.
Some people do what they can to avoid it.
I used to think I was a "welcomer."
Now I realize I’m more an "avoider."
I come by it honestly.

My father was the kind of man who found something he liked and stuck with it.
For example, he wanted us to have a dog when we were growing up.
After a couple of trial runs with other breeds he settled on the noble Fox Terrier
as his breed of choice.
Intelligent, energetic, not too big, short hair – the perfect dog.
Not counting a litter of puppies that were given away to friends,
he and my mother had five different fox terriers as pets.

Then there were cars.
He liked Chrysler products – Dodges in particular.
His favorite model was the Dodge Coronet – simple, economical, nothing flashy.
It was a good, solid car. We had several through the years.

Then there was the experience of what we called "eating out."
Mom would have loved an Italian restaurant every now and then,
maybe some French cuisine.
For Dad it was cafeterias. Morrisons. Picadilly. K&W.
They were brightly lit, you could see the food before you bought it,
and, if nothing fancy, at least you could count on the food being substantial, filling
- AND cheap.

Dad was not a fan of variety. He liked to know what to expect. I’m the same way.
People ask me, "How was your Christmas?"
My response is always the same – "OK, but I’m happy to get back to my routine."
I can tolerate disruptions for awhile.
I can deal with all the frenzy, the extra responsibilities, the postal holidays.
I can move the furniture and do the tree thing,
but I do dearly love it when the decorations are packed away,
the last shed needle is swept out,
and everything is back in its place.
Variety – Schmariety! GIVE ME WHAT I EXPECT!
Don’t mess with my routine.
Don’t throw me any curve balls.
Don’t spring anything on me at the last minute and expect me to be happy!

You can see, then, why I might get a little nervous
when I read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians and he starts going on about
the wisdom of God in it’s "rich variety" that has been revealed through Jesus;
this "mystery" of grace that God has sprung on an unsuspecting world.
"Variety," "Mystery," – those aren’t words I’m comfortable with.
They’re too unpredictable!
They leave the door open for most anything!
That’s EXACTLY Paul’s point!
That’s EXACTLY what Matthew is trying to convey when he alone
tells the story of Gentile fortune tellers from the East following a star
to Jesus’ house and kneeling at his little feet.

If you want to find the good news of the gospel of Jesus Christ in a nutshell
you can’t do any better than this story of these foreigners, these goyim,
these astrologers and soothsayers and readers of tea leaves
following a star to Jesus’ house to acknowledge him as king
while the secular and religious Jewish elite are going about their routine in Jerusalem
CLUELESS as to this new thing God is up to.

I guess I should say this story of the Magi is good news
to those who have been LOOKING for God to do a new thing.
It’s good news to those who are accustomed to being shut out of rooms
where power is brokered and deals are made
and lobbyists and special interest groups and government officials
scratch each others backs and do their best
to keep their control locked in and buckled down.
It’s good news to those who have become used to being disregarded
or looked down upon or laughed at
for marching to the beat of a different drummer
or daring to paint sky green and grass purple.

This story of foreign visitors to Jesus’ house is good news
to those who question authority and doubt the relevance of a God
who can be managed and catalogued and packaged
into five fundamentals or seven habits or ten principles.

But to those of us who prefer our routine,
to those of us who like to know what to expect,
to those of us who aren’t big fans of variety
it can be unsettling.
To those of us who like predictability
it can cause quite an internal uproar to realize
that, while God’s love for God’s world IS predictable,
God chooses to express that love in ways that can be quite surprising!

For centuries the church has recognized this propensity God has
of springing new things on us.
We call it "Epiphany" – which means literally "Light into."
We use this word sometimes to communicate a new idea or a new understanding
that leads us, perhaps, to a new way of thinking about an old dilemma.
In the story of the Magi, later confirmed by Paul in his letter to the Ephesians
we read of an epiphany – Light shining into the world.
The epiphany heralded by the Magi, the surprise that shattered the night sky
is that God became flesh,
born not to the Royal Family of Herod in Jerusalem
but to Mary and Joseph in Bethlehem;
first revealed not to the temple elite but to Gentile foreigners;
Messiah, not by political or military mandate
but by humble obedience in ministry to humble people.

Paul describes it as a mystery finally unveiled, a secret finally told,
and we need to pay attention to it’s content.
Abraham didn’t know it. Moses didn’t know it. Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi didn’t know it.
Only those of us who have been privileged to come after Christ know it –
know that God’s covenant is not just with the Jews,
not just with Abraham’s tribe or David’s offspring
but with all who call upon God’s name.
There IS no elite group, no chosen tribe, no special clan, no 700 Club
who can claim God’s blessing as theirs and theirs alone.
The mystery is no longer a mystery.
God’s grace is free to all of God’s children.

But it’s not just important that we know the content of this mystery, this epiphany.
It’s important that we understand the nature of it as well,
and the church’s role in being good stewards of God’s wisdom revealed in it.
Paul writes that God’s grace is available in a "rich variety."
You know what I think? I think this means that we who try too hard
to make our faith "predictable" and "routine,"
those of us who try to manage our faith and eliminate all surprises
run the risk of obscuring that which God has already chosen to reveal.
Those in the church who insist upon some kind of rigid orthodoxy,
especially in those aspects of belief and practice
about which the Bible is either largely silent or gives varied testimony -
we run the risk of working at cross purposes with God.

I know this is unsteady ground to tread because none of us
wants to be caught in the position of saying something ridiculous like
"It doesn’t matter what you believe as long as you believe."
None of us wants to bear the responsibility of leading someone less mature
down a path of distraction or even destruction
just because we don’t want to step on their toes or appear judgmental.
But lets rise to the occasion here!
This story of outsiders being the first to pay homage to Jesus,
This letter of Paul to the Ephesians that talks of mysteries revealed
and secrets finally shared
IS a message for mature audiences.
Let’s not dumb it down to the lowest common denominator!
It is rich in complexities and complex in its richness!
and those who want to stamp it and box it and sell it on a T-shirt
do it a grave disservice.

As far as I can tell from reading both the Old Testament and the New
Our God is a God of surprises, of epiphanies.
Our God is a God who can turn old rubbish into new treasure,
a God who nourishes us, yes -
but not with dry toast and tapioca pudding.
Our God is a God who likes to spice it up,
make our eyes water, and our tongues dance,
our lungs heave and our hearts flutter.

We, the church, have a duty to tell everybody we can about this richness.
We, the church, have a responsibility to embody this variety.
I’ve been doing this minister thing for twenty three years now
and one thing I know for sure is that few of us Presbyterians embrace variety.
I KNOW I’m not alone in my love of routine,
my tendency toward wanting to keep things laced up and buttoned down.
We have to fight this in ourselves, go at it tooth and nail,
otherwise we’ll get complacent.
We’ll get so satisfied with ourselves that we might break our own arms
patting ourselves on the backs!
I don’t mean sink in despair or get all morose about our comfort with routine.
But we do need to be honest that most of us would have felt more at home
in Herod’s court than with the Magi.
We do need to push ourselves beyond the edge of comfort
to not only welcome those who come in through our front door
but to go out and invite others into our fellowship
who may be otherwise reluctant to come.

I feel like before I close I need to explain the photograph of the zebra and the giraffe
on the front of your bulletin.
I was visiting a young man in the Albemarle County Jail Wednesday.
I see him every two weeks or so.
I often tell him what I’m going to preach on the following Sunday to get his reaction,
so I was telling him about the passage from Ephesians and how these words,
"The wisdom of God in it’s rich variety," had grabbed my attention.
Without missing a beat he said "Like zebras and giraffes!"

I thought a moment. I flashed on how exotic those Magi must have appeared
to Mary and Joseph with their gold and frankincense and myrrh;
how absolutely surprised the new parents must have been
when these travelers from the East rapped on their door;
how glad I am that God still gives the occasional epiphany
to the least likely of God’s children.
"Yes!" I said, "Like zebras and giraffes!"

Making All Things New Ecclesiastes 3:1-13, Revelation 21:1-6

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…

I was listening to National Public Radio Thursday
and heard that the Berghoff Restaurant, a 107 year old Chicago landmark
will be closing in February.
After working there 55 years, current owner Herman Berghoff, age 70, wants to retire.
He’s going to lease the space to his daughter who runs a catering business.
The Berghoff was begun by the current owner’s grandfather, also Herman,
who immigrated from Germany and opened a place where he would give away
sandwiches for free to anyone who would pay a nickel for a mug of his beer.
When asked to reflect on the landmark’s closing, Michael Santiago, longtime maitre’d
said, “Nothing lasts forever.”

For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven…
Restaurants open, restaurants close.
A baby is born. An old man dies.
A year begins. A year ends. A year begins again.
It does seem a cycle, this life of ours.
Was Michael Santiago right? NOTHING lasts forever?
That’s what the author of Ecclesiastes would have us think.
His premise is that EVERYTHING is part of the cycle,
that EVERYTHING, good AND bad, comes and goes,
and the best we can hope for is something tasty to eat,
something satisfying to drink,
and a little enjoyment out of our daily work.

Don’t get me wrong, that’s not a bad sentiment.
In fact, the older I get, the more I appreciate that kind of simple expectation.
Teenagers are terribly critical of parents and others who seem to have settled
for so little in life.
From their vantage point they imagine that there are so many exciting things to do;
so many dragons to slay and citadels to conquer
and they can’t wait to write their names indelibly across the sky.
They imagine that they will never let themselves get so boring as we!
For example, a few days ago, I asked my daughter Katie
if she had any New Year’s Eve plans, and she replied, “Not yet.”
So, joking, I proposed we do what we did as a family when she was a little girl,
gets some hats and noisemakers and pop open a bottle of sparkling cider about 8 p.m.
She sneered at the thought and with great condescension said,
“That’s all you guys EVER do!”
And it’s true! Kathryn and I have never celebrated New Years Eve with much flare.
We’ve been more content to spend the evening quietly.
After all it’s only another year. Just one more year in a cycle of years.
What else should we expect?
A little to eat. A little to drink. A little satisfaction out of our daily toil.
It’s not such a bad way to look at things.
Those teenagers will learn.
Wait until they get a mortgage!
You’re born, you live, you die - everything is part of the cycle.
Planting, reaping, laughing, weeping, love, hate, peace, war.
And, to further quote the author of Ecclesiastes,
“There is nothing new under the sun.”
OR IS THERE?

John, writing in exile from the island of Patmos, one of the Greek islands,
offers us in Revelation a different vision than the author of Ecclesiastes.
In John’s vision, life may be cyclical on the surface,
but there is, in his view, an overarching linear movement,
a grand progression from beginning to end,
a broad sweep of eternity which INCLUDES the familiar cycles
but is not LIMITED by them.
We are bound by time, but John, in his faith,
understands that God exists outside of time.
And while we experience life in cycles: birth, death, joy, pain, peace, war,
we are, by God’s grace, related to a Creator who stands outside the cycles.
Our perceived reality may be that there is nothing new under the sun,
that one year follows another, follows another, follows another,
but John’s vision is that God is always in the process of making all things new.

Ecclesiastes is classified in the Old Testament along with Proverbs
as “Wisdom” literature.
Though it claims a connection to King Solomon
literary evidence suggests it was written much later.
The author does break new theological ground when he writes that it’s possible
to find satisfaction and not just drudgery in work.
But, overall, he comes across sounding more bored than satisfied.
“Vanity of vanities” he likes to say. “Everything is vanity.”
Bored – maybe cynical.

You know what he REALLY sounds like?
He sounds like an upper middle class preacher
who lives off the largess of a benefactor or two
and has nothing to challenge him, nothing to excite him,
nothing to make him sweat OR dance.
He enjoys his meals, a good bottle of wine every now and again,
and he is the center of his own universe.
He’s the kind who proclaims loudly to any who’ll listen
that the only experience worth having is HIS experience,
the only thing worthy of trust is that which HE can taste, touch, see, hear, or smell.

But the author of Revelation, this seer identified as John, is very different.
First of all, he’s in exile for some reason on an island.
We don’t know details, but we know what “exile” means.
It means that he’s cut off from familiar surroundings,
cut off from people he loves,
cut off from his routine frame of reference.
Furthermore, he’s obviously writing to people who are suffering persecution.
Because John has such a flare for imagery in his writing
the book of Revelation seems, at first glance, very mysterious.
But scratch beneath the surface and it’s not mysterious at all.
It only SEEMS mysterious because it’s written in code to confuse an oppressor
in much the same way slaves in the South would sing songs to one another
that sounded to white masters like simple hymns of faith
but which, in fact, carried hidden messages of defiance and freedom.

John is writing in a turbulent time
to fellow Christians who are severely persecuted by Rome.
He doesn’t have the luxury of reclining with a glass of wine
to write poetry or to wax eloquently on the “vanity” of life.
His mission is to interpret the signs of troubled times and find in them hope.
His task is to look beyond himself,
to break out of the narrow box of his own experience, his own senses,
and discern what God is up to.

If he were the author of Ecclesiastes he would say to his suffering audience,
“Look, that’s just the way it is. You win some, you lose some.
It’s just plain old bad luck that you happen to be stuck in a down cycle.
Just accept it. That’s all you can do.”
But John is given the gift of being able to see beyond immediate circumstances:
beyond the upside of comfort and the downside of pain,
beyond the upside of joy and the downside of grief.
He knows about cycles. But he knows that just because we are limited by them
it doesn’t mean God is.
God revealed that to him – God revealed that to us all – in the birth of God’s son,
in the interjection of God’s self into human history.
No, that’s not entirely true.
Despite the witness of Ecclesiastes that life is just the same old thing over and over
the Jews had known ever since God made covenant with Abraham
that God chooses to stand with one foot in eternity and one foot in human history.
Jesus was simply the once and for all confirmation of that;
the final, unambiguous, BIG BOLD LETTERS spelling that out.

The birth of Jesus in a specific place, at a specific time, to specific parents
was the clear indication that we aren’t just fish in a pond swimming round and round
instead, we’re fish in a river swimming toward a destination.
And John tells us in his grand, metaphorical way what that destination will be like.
Though we may FEEL trapped in the cycle of birth, death, love, hate, peace, war
at times more sure of God’s absence than God’s presence,
there will come a time when it will all be made clear.
There will come a time when it will be evident what, in Jesus, God has already begun.
Now we see only glimpses of it. Now we only catch bits and pieces of it.
Like a conversation overheard through a closed door
or brief activity caught in the corner of the eye.
But there will come a time when God’s presence among us will be clearly revealed
and we will drink deeply from the spring of the water of life.
UNTIL THAT TIME, we have to be vigilant
that we don’t get sucked into a cycle of despair or cynicism.
It’s easy to do. Especially as we get older and think we’ve seen it all.
That’s why we need teenagers around us!

You may have seen the story in the paper Friday about Farris Hassan,
a 16 year old boy from Florida who got so into the idea of “immersion” journalism
that, without his parents’ knowledge, he traveled over Christmas break to Baghdad.[1]
Farris, who is of Iraqi ancestry but who was born and raised American,
went to Iraq because, as he wrote in an essay, he wanted to “experience during my
Christmas the same hardships ordinary Iraqis experience every day,
so that I may better empathize with their distress.”
His mother, though clearly proud of her son, reacted understandably saying,
“I don’t think I’ll ever leave him in the house alone again!”
And, while the potential danger of his trip has begun to sink in,
Farris still told reporters, “You go like, to the worst place in the world
and things are terrible, but when you go back home you have such a new
appreciation for all the things you have there,
and I’m just going to be, like, ecstatic for life!”

And the one who was seated on the throne said, “See, I am making all things new!”

1 American Youth Disappears to Make Perilous Trip to Iraq. Charlottesville, VA: The Daily Progress,
Section A, pp. 1, 9, Friday, December 30, 2005.