What we deserve
20 September 2008 - 21 אלול 5768 by Huw
This was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?
Today’s readings in the Revised Common Lectionary, Proper 20
HEN I WAS 16 or so, we moved into a house up on Wilsey Valley Road, in fact we were in the second to last house on the road “before the bridge”. There were only a few houses beyond us and they were spaced very far along - I had to walk 20 mins or so along the road, dense woods on both sides, before I reached my second neighbours, the Wilkinsons. Even the next house was about half a kilometre away.
Like many folks in our neighbourhood, we had a huge garage - easily room for our two cars - as well as with an upstairs. My brother and I split the upstairs in half and turned it into two “clubhouses”. Like all good budding church geeks I turned mine into a church: an altar, an altar rail, credence table… It took a lot of work but when the time came, I used some really nice sheets and some cloth paints to make a set of Marian Blue Vestments. And, using my copy of a Pre-Vatican II English Missal - there were *lots* of them to be had in used bookstores in those days - I said Mass. And a lot of friends showed up to drink the wine I had in my crystal chalice. Not so many were concerned about the bread…
But in the way all siblings have, my brother and I fought, eventually. I think it started with his friends having a bit of a party up there and sitting a keg of beer on the door in the floor, through which we might enter into the clubhouse. Don’t ask how the boys got a keg. This was 1980 in the Catskill Mountains. All sorts of things were possible: perhaps one of my many cousins bought the beer for them.
When I couldn’t get into the clubhouse, a verbal fight ensued. And, shortly, a drunk brother threw most of the church furniture out of the second story window at me, standing on the ground below, yelling in anger about eternal damnation, and standing in heaven laughing at him burning in hell.
Moments like this stick in my mind, especially since Jimmy died in a motorcycle accident two years later. Now, 25 years along, I wonder what life would have been like with a younger brother. He would have been 43 a couple of days ago. And while I can’t say as we were ever very close, I miss having a brother sometimes.
And I wonder about the God that I believed in then, when I was 16: why was I so willing to have my God send all the people I hated to hell?
Today’s readings in Jonah and in Matthew remind us of a deep truth: that God is “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.” The fathers made much of this - pointing out the parable we read today as an example. In the eastern rite, the traditional morning prayers include prayers for all the departed “at rest here and in all the world” that God will forgive them of all their sins, “voluntary and involuntary”. The traditional Russian burial rite includes and absolution of the departed. Christians live, pray and die firm in the belief in this “gracious God and merciful… abounding in steadfast love.”
Until, for some of us, anyway, we talk about others.
When we have *no reason* to imagine God functions like this. and when we have no desire for God to function like this with us, why are we so eager for God to damn the people we don’t like?
I have a daughter who is a 2nd Lieutenant and who may be looking at sand in the next year or two. In my parish we have a couple whose son just arrived in a sandy country two weeks ago. We also have WWII veterans, one of whom was in on the island hopping hell in the Pacific.
Today I preached from the Book of the Prophet Jonah about the necessity to pray for all, including our enemies. I preached about the necessity to share the Gospel of our Father to all on earth. I spoke about the necessity to bring God’s love to all, even if they end up winning the victory and killing us all. (After all, the Ninevites invaded Israel within less than 100 years after Jonah’s preaching.) The whole time I was thinking of our daughter.
If the worst happens, may God give me the grace to actually remember, believe, and apply this sermon at that time.
Fr E - a curious question: How did you end up preaching on Jonah today?