Sermon for June 25th, 2017

Jonah 3:1-10

And the word of Yahweh came to Jonah a second time:

2. ‘Arise’, he said, ‘go to Nineveh, the great city, and say to them what I tell you to say’. 3. And Jonah arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of Yahweh. Now Nineveh was a city great beyond compare: three days it took to cross it. 4. And Jonah went on into the city, going a day’s journey; and he preached in these words: ‘Only forty days more, and Nineveh will be destroyed’. 5. And the people of Nineveh believed the word of God; and they proclaimed a fast and clothed themselves in sackcloth, from the greatest to the least among them. 6. Word of this reached the ears of the king of Nineveh, and he rose from his throne, and put off his robe, and put on sackcloth, and sat upon ashes. 7. Then it was heralded in Nineveh, and by decree of the king and his chiefs it was proclaimed: ‘Men and beasts, herds and flocks, shall not taste anything, nor shall they eat, nor shall they drink water. 8. Men and beasts shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall call upon God with all their might; and every one shall turn from his evil ways and from the wickedness that his hands have done. 9. Who knows if God will not relent and change his purpose, if he will not put behind him the heat of his anger, so that we may not perish?’ 10.And God saw what they did to turn from their evil ways. Therefore God changed his purpose concerning the evil that he prophesied to them, and he did not do it.

Jonah: From the Belly of Nineveh

The word of God came to Jonah a second time -- share my call story and my resistance to it, my attempts to answer the call in my own way, first as a teacher, youth director, and then telling God I wanted to be a church planter.