Good Morning!
This is a morning on which I have the privilege of meeting
with a men’s Bible study group in Willmar.
The group always teaches me something.
The very fact that a group of men are willing to come together to read
scripture together and share with one another their responses to scripture is a
blessing. We are studying Isaiah, and we
are seeking the Lord’s presence in our lives.
One of today’s readings in the lectionary is from
Jonah. It tells the beginning of the
story of Jonah. The Lord called Jonah to
a ministry of prophecy, and Jonah wanted nothing to do with it. It says: “Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish
from the presence of the Lord.” When you
read the early verses in Jonah, you might think that Jonah simply wants to get
away from the presence of the Lord. As
the full story unfolds, we realize that the story itself is more complicated
than that.
The Lord wanted Jonah to preach to the people of Nineveh. At
first Jonah was afraid of what the people might do to him – the messenger –
bringing the warnings from the Lord. But
later we learn that Jonah didn’t think that the Lord should redeem the people
of Nineveh. He even argued with the Lord
about it.
The Lord calls each of us to ministry that can sometimes
seem difficult. We may resist that call
or we may even actively oppose it. We
argue with the Lord because it’s probably not what we want to do. Sometimes we don’t think that we have the
skills necessary to do what the Lord calls us to do. Sometimes it’s a task that we just don’t want
to do. Sometimes we fear failing at the
task. Sometimes we fear succeeding! Just like Jonah.
Successfully bringing the word of the Lord can produce
results that we are not always comfortable with. People may actually change! It’s more fun to condemn someone than to tell
him or her of God’s redeeming power and then watch them change. Helping God to change others changes us as
well, and that’s the part that truly frightens us. If it has made us feel better about ourselves
that someone else has been a worse person than we are, then helping God bring
about a change in that person means that we are going to have to change both
our view of that redeemed soul and our own relationship to them and to the
Lord.
Let us pray:
Lord God, creator and redeemer of this universe and all who
are in it, make us instruments of Your redeeming power for the world. Help us to love one another so much that we
are even willing to change ourselves in order that our neighbors might know
You. Help us to recognize our need, our
sinful nature, and the power and breadth of Your love, a love that accepts even
us. Help us to pray unceasingly the
wisdom and the words of the founders of our faith: "Lord Jesus Christ, Son
of God, have mercy on me." Let Your
love change me, O God that I may become the means by which Your love is known
to all. Amen.
Today’s readings are Jonah 1:1-17; Acts 26:24-27:8; Luke
8:40-56; Psalm 5, 6, 10 & 11.
Blessings.
Pastor Jim
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