Sermon by Randall T. Clayton, Brown Memorial Woodbrook Presbtyterian Church, Baltimore, MD, November 27, 2016, Advent 1

Text:  Daniel 6

Some years ago a week or two after purchasing a brand new Toyota we were spending a few days relaxing near the coast of Delaware.  We went into Rehoboth Beach one evening for dinner, and parked on a residential street.   While the houses on that street each had driveways, street parking in that area is at a premium in the middle of summer.  We parallel parked our new car, the one without any blemishes or scratches, in a vacant place along the curb.  We had dinner, perhaps walking along the boardwalk afterwards, and then headed back to our car.   When we got to our car, however, we discovered that the vehicle which had been behind us when we had parked in that spot had been replaced by another car, but driver of that car left theirs parked almost on our bumper.  There were not more than a handful of inches between the front bumper of their car and the back bumper of ours. Strangely, the same thing had taken place with the car in front of us.  The one that was there when we parked was now gone, and in its place was a different car, whose driver had parked way too close to ours.  It was immediately clear that we were boxed in.  There was not enough room to maneuver our car out of the parking place and onto the street.  We were boxed in.  It seemed, at least for the moment, hopeless.

I think many of us experience times like that – times when we are boxed in.  Boxed in by our bodies sometimes when they no longer do the things that we want them to do without crushing pain.  Boxed in by a disease that will limit our lives.  Boxed in when we face a choice between the lesser of two evils, rather than one choice that seems to be right. Boxed in because the job we want we didn’t get, or the college we hope to get into said “No,” or the investment we had staked so much on didn’t work out.   Boxed in when we feel helpless to change a situation in our lives, our community, our nation, the world.  Boxed in. Not able to go forward, not able to go backward, just like my car which was parallel parked on a neighborhood street one summer evening. Seemingly stuck in a situation we did not choose and did not wish to be in.

The book of Daniel was written during a time when the Jewish people felt boxed in.  Written centuries after the story it tells  took place, the first readers of it were living in a time when they were experiencing discrimination, when the world looked bleak and the political leadership of their times was scary to them.  Written in a difficult time when a people felt boxed in, the book of Daniel contains stories from an earlier day of a people who also were also boxed in a difficult situation they didn’t desire.  The stories included in this little book were written to rekindle hope in seeming hopeless times and to help them plot a faithful path in light of their fears for the future.

As the story is told, Daniel was a foreigner and a Jew, living in exile under the Persian government after the nation of Judah fell.  Having been carted far from home, and forced to live among people with different customs and a different heritage, Daniel  along with the rest of the Jewish people in exile, longed to go back home; they longed to be restored to their homeland; they longed for a future that seemed brighter than their present.

The Persian king under which the Jews in exile lived was King Darius. Ruling a vast kingdom, under Darius there was a whole cadre of subordinate authorities which included three presidents and 120 satraps who essentially served as provincial governors.  Now, although he was a foreigner, a Jew, and an exile, nonetheless, Daniel had risen in the ranks to become one of the presidents.

Because of Daniel’s “excellent spirit,” however King Darius planned to give him a rather large promotion, setting him above the other 2 presidents and all the satraps.   But the knowledge of that impending promotion made the other presidents and satraps jealous.  They tried to find evidence of corruption, or negligence in his duties, but they couldn’t find anything to pin on Daniel that might shoot down his rising star.  So, they resorted to lying and conspiracy to get their way.

After having stoked the King’s ego, they told him a bold face lie.  They said to King Darius that all three of the presidents and all of the prefects and all of the satraps and all of the counselors and all of the governors had agreed on one thing:  that the king should establish and enforce a new rule, that anyone who prayed to anyone other than to Darius should be thrown into a den of lions. But all had not agreed to that—Daniel wasn’t even consulted.  “Establish the law,” they said.   “Put your signature on the document directing it, so that it can’t be changed or revoked,” they said. That was probably another lie…surely the Persian king could change his laws.  Surely.

But be that as it may, the king established the law and at that point it appears to believe he was boxed in and not able to undo what he had done.

Now Daniel was also boxed in by the king’s actions….if he remained faithful to God, he would likely end up tangling with some hungry lions…but if he wasn’t faithful to God he would save his life.

Boxed in.  What did Daniel do?   He did not simply do nothing even though it appeared he was helpless and the situation seemed quite hopeless.  He could have prayed in secret, I suppose. But what would that accomplish? He could have given up prayer as would have been required by the king’s decree. Instead, he opted to engage in civil disobedience.  He opted to pray in the open, in the front of picture windows facing Jerusalem, in full view of everyone on the streets below.     It was an act of civil disobedience.

When the conspirators saw Daniel praying in the open, they rushed to the King, reminded him of the interdict he had signed, reminded him that he couldn’t change the law (even when perhaps he could have), and reminded Darius that Daniel now had a date with a lion’s den. Although the king was distressed when he heard about Daniel’s civil disobedience, he didn’t seem to have enough backbone to stand up to his courtiers and so Daniel was dropped into a den of hungry lions, presumably to meet a swift death. But God the defender of the defenseless, God the embracer of the exile and the immigrant, God the upholder of the vulnerable, shut the lions mouths, and Daniel emerged alive, in one piece, healthy.

When Daniel was boxed in by the king’s decree, he did something to change things.  He took some action.  And I suspect he was able to take action because he had hope in God’s future.  With hope, he prayed in public, he kept the faith.  He held onto hope of God’s goodness and deliverance, and he did what he could do to resist the decrees of those in power when their decrees ran afoul of the love, and grace, and calling of God.

When my car was boxed in on a neighborhood street in Rehoboth, we wondered what to do.  We realized we could start knocking on the doors of houses along that street in the hopes that we might find the owner of either the car in front of the one behind us.  But in all likelihood the owners of those cars weren’t in those homes but in restaurants somewhere else in the town.  We thought about calling the police, but other than issue a ticket, we figured there was little they could do.  And so, it appeared that in our boxed in state, we could do nothing but sit and wait.  But as we sat there, frustrated and angry, we seized upon another option….to use our driving skills and patiently work the car out of its jam.   Over the course of the next hour or two we went forward a few inches, turned the wheel, and went back a few inches. Forward and reverse. Forward and reverse. Forward and reverse. Moving ever so slowly, moving ever so carefully, making what felt like almost imperceptible progress with each shift of the car’s direction.  But finally, after much work we were able to get free of our box and start on our way home.

Some boxes in which we find ourselves allow only for small actions, like getting my car unboxed from its parking place.   Sometimes it’s a multitude of small actions that mount up to ultimately transform the situation.  To escape other boxes, or to help others escape them, we may be called us to become civilly disobedient as we engage in the struggle for freedom and liberation for all of God’s people.  And other times, getting un-boxed may require that we re-think priorities, re-imagine a future, or commit ourselves to a different path.  But in each case, it seems to me, the energy to transform those boxed in situations grows out of hope.  Without hope, we would only be helpless in difficult or scary times.

As we enter the season of Advent, we recall where our hope is found: It is found in God’s redemption, God’s salvation, and God’s future. The hope we remember as we prepare for Christmas is a hope that is grounded in what God did in and through a man named Jesus, who looked like us, lived like us, and yet was God. Our hope is in one who was born to a poor, unwed, peasant teenager, who turned the world upside down with his love and who invites us to do the same.

Despite the sometimes bleak outward circumstances in which we find ourselves, despite fear of the future that we sometimes feel which Daniel surely felt too when he was told he couldn’t pray, despite a sense of helplessness to do anything sometimes to change the course of our own history or the history of our world, there is a God in whose future we stand. And knowing that we stand in God’s future, and knowing God’s love shown to us in Jesus Christ, perhaps our hope may motivate us to continue to do whatever it is that we can to stand for love, to stand for justice, to stand for peace, even in this world, even if it means only taking tiny steps.

If we are going to get out of the box, it takes hope. And hope is always in generous supply in God’s household.

Sermon by Randall T. Clayton, D.Min., Brown Memorial Woodbrook Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, Maryland. November 6, 2016.

Text:  Jonah 3:1-10

If I say “Jonah”, many of you will probably think of a big fish—a big fish who swallowed up a prophet named Jonah and 3 days later spit him out on dry land.  But while that incredible, really unbelievable incident, does occupy a central place in Jonah’s story, ultimately the tiny 44 verse, 4 chapter book really isn’t about a big fish swallowing a Hebrew prophet.   The writer employed humor, irony, and exaggeration to point to some deep truths about God.

In Jonah’s day the Assyrians were the major world power, but they were neither benevolent nor kind.  They were a ruthless, bent on conquering other nations and expanding their borders and influence, employing brutal and vicious methods to subdue and terrorize their enemies.   And their enemies included Israel.   So, when God told Jonah to get up and go to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire, and proclaim God’s judgment against their wickedness, one could understand why Jonah might have been reluctant.   Going there could put his life in danger.  No Hebrew in his right mind would desire to go near those blood thirsty terrorists. So instead of getting up and going to east, Jonah got up and went west. Instead of going in the direction God called, Jonah went in the exact opposite direction. Facing westward rather than eastward   Jonah went to Joppa, a town south of Tel Aviv, and booked passage on a ship bound for Tarshish, which was a town most likely located somewhere along the coast of Spain today.

Run from God and God’s call, Jonah did, but he couldn’t hide from God.  Pursuing Jonah,   God caused a great storm to arise on the waters, and while the ship’s crew were trying their best to keep their vessel afloat by throwing the heavy objects overboard and praying to their gods, Jonah was below deck asleep.  When the captain discovered him down below, interestingly, he didn’t ask Jonah him why he wasn’t helping bail water, but rather he demanded to know why Jonah wasn’t praying too.

Being a rather superstitious lot, sailors sometimes believed that bad storms were some kind of punishment for someone on the ship so the sailors decided to cast lots to see if they could determine whose actions might have caused the storm to rock their boat.  Jonah got the short end of the straw.    When they asked Jonah if he knew why the winds and waves were threatening both ship and life, and he said, “I know.  It’s me.  That’s the problem.   I am a Hebrew and I worship the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.  Pick me up and throw me overboard and the waves and wind will calm.”

But the kind, humane, sailors declined to throw Jonah overboard and doubled down on their efforts to keep the ship afloat and get it to the shore.    But despite their herculean efforts with their oars, the ship just stayed where it was, rocking and rolling in the tempest that surrounded them.  Finally they realized they had no choice but to do what Jonah suggested, and they threw him overboard.  When they did, the sea ceased to rage.  Then the sailors worshipped God, becoming I suppose Jonah’s first converts.

As Jonah was sinking in the waters of the sea, God provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah spent the next three days and three nights in that fish’s sloshy belly. At the end of three days God spoke to the fish and the fish spewed Jonah out on the shore.

Lying in the sands along the sea, Jonah heard God’s voice again telling him a second time to get up and go to Nineveh. This time Jonah probably figured he had no choice…he could run indeed, but God would pursue.  He could flee from God, but he couldn’t escape from God’s call.

So he went to Nineveh, and barely setting his foot inside the city, he preached one of the shortest and least creative sermons ever delivered.  He told no jokes, offered no illustrations or poems, but merely said,   ““Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Clearly his heart wasn’t in the task because of getting people to turn around.   He thought the Ninevites were beyond salvation and deep down he really wanted them to get their justly deserved destruction anyway.

His sermon, however, was amazingly effective.  In fact, an entire city came to believe in God.  The entire capital of the empire of Assyria repented.  The king declared that all the people would don sackcloth and fast as a sign of their contrition and their intent to change.  And furthermore, the king declared it wouldn’t only be people who would wear sackcloth and fast, but even all of the animals in the kingdom would too.  Dogs, cats, cattle, donkey, fish, bird would all wear sackcloth and would only drink water.  Who knows, the king said, perhaps God will change God’s mind?

Seeing that the people had turned around, God decided not to destroy them.

Now one might assume that a prophet who could get an entire city to convert and to change their ways with a single sermon might have been on top of the world.  But Jonah didn’t celebrate his success.  In fact, to say he was not happy that God had not destroyed the people would be an understatement.  His heart burned with anger when he realized that fire and brimstone weren’t going to rain down on the city of Nineveh. “I knew you are a gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing…I knew that…that’s why I didn’t want to come to Nineveh…I knew you’d forgive them and they don’t’ deserve it.  They need your judgment not your mercy.   So, God, Jonah cried, if you are going to have mercy on the likes of the Ninevites, I’d rather just die right here and right now.”

As Jonah was sitting beside the city pouting and sulking and angry, God caused a bush to grow over Jonah’s head which shielded Jonah from the sun and heat of the day.   While Jonah was not happy that the Ninevites repented or that God had chosen to have mercy on them, Jonah was surely happy about the bush that shaded him from the searing rays from the sun above in a cloudless sky. Then God appointed a worm to attack the bush, and the bush died, and Jonah found himself sweltering in the hot sun once again…and the fires of his anger were stoked again.  But God said to Jonah, “You are concerned about the bush for which you did not labor and which you did not grow, right?” Jonah had to admit God was right. And God said, “So should I not be concerned about Nineveh, the people there and their animals? Should I not be concerned about Nineveh?”

The story of Jonah ends here, but Gods story with God’s people continues.

In a world that tends to see and perpetuate divides based on race, social class, sexual orientation or gender identity, or political party,  perhaps Jonah’s story is call for us to look carefully at the judgments we make about entire groups people who are different or who sit on the opposite side of the fence.  God may in fact be working among them too. Surely God loves them also.

As we approach the end of an election season that has felt like it’s been going on since Jonah’s day, it is clear that there are significant divides in our country, divides that are deep and wide.    But God’s love is deeper than our divisions, and God’s mercy is wider than our sometimes narrow judgments.  And therein lies our hope. God shows mercy even to you and to me, as God did to the Ninevites.  Despite our propensity to make rash judgments, to perpetuate divisions, or to look askance at entire groups who look or act or believe differently, God stands ready to forgive and to heal.

And, although we may sometimes be reluctant to follow the path of God’s calling, as Jonah was, because it is painful or frightening, God may still choose to use you and me to embody God’s hope, to share God’s love and to be a beacon of God’s mercy in the world around us. And when that happens, I think peace may replace violence, hope can supplant despair, and love and mercy may become the hallmarks of creation.