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SERMONS:

Pastor Peg posts her two most recent sermons on this page. If you are interested in reading more of her sermons you can go to pastorpeg.wordpress.com. For the next four weeks we are looking at the book of Jonah. Enjoy.

Flawed Saints

November 2, 2025 All Saint’s Day

Jonah 4:1-11 Colossians 3:12-17

Today we come to the end of the book of Jonah. I wasn't here to preach on the 3rd chapter, but I am sure that Janine did a really good job and gave you some interesting things to think about.

So, let's recap and all come to the end of the book together. Jonah starts out by being told by God to go and preach to the people of Nineveh, the largest, wealthiest, and most ruthless state in the Middle East. Jonah, from the small nation of Israel, is overwhelmed by this command and quickly makes tracks to the ocean, boards the ship for Spain, ends up in a storm, gets thrown overboard and swallowed by a whale. While he's in the whale he prays to God, and comes to the conclusion that, there's no way to get away from God so he might as well this bite the bullet and go and preach to Nineveh. The whale vomits him up onto the shore and Jonah makes his way to the great city. Once he gets to Ninevah he declares that God is going to destroy the city in 40 days. Surprisingly, the people take him seriously and they decide to repent. They fast, put on sackcloth and sit in the dirt to show that they’re serious, as they pray to God to spare them. And God relents and decides that he is going to spare this town and its people.

But Jonah is not very happy about this turn of events.

I don't know about you, but I would have some feelings if I went to a place like Nineveh, and told people that the wrath of God was going to descend on them in 40 days; and they were all going to perish unless they repented, and then they DID repent. First, I might think: Wow I'm a pretty good preacher. These people took me seriously. They're fasting and praying, and they're really scared that God is going to destroy them. I really must have gotten the message across. Yay for me. (Don't we all give ourselves a pat on the back when things go really well in our jobs?)

The other thing I would think is: Boy-oh-boy, my God really has a powerful reputation beyond just the little country and people of Israel. The Ninevah people are really afraid of the power of God. Maybe they've heard about how He led my ancestors out of Egypt. Maybe they've heard about how the walls of Jericho came crashing down. Maybe they've heard about the conquests of the promised land and how God stood with us and let us to victory against so many enemies. Maybe they realize that the God of Israel is the God of all gods; the God of all glory; the awesome God and the everlasting power of the universe. Yeah for God!

I would have been really happy that I had done my job and that I was working for the most awesome employer ever.

But Jonah doesn’t take the win. Instead, he throws a temper tantrum. GOD! I knew it—when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That’s why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness! So, GOD, if you won’t kill them, kill me! I’m better off dead!

Drama Queen much? Yes. But – let’s try to look at it from Jonah’s point of view for a minute.

Ninevah was the capital of the Assyrian empire, the greatest empire of its time, and the people didn’t get to that pinnacle by being nice. They got there by inventing new weapons and ways of fighting that no one had seen before, and running over nations in war. They trounced countries, destroyed cities, and subjugated and enslaved people without mercy. And they were proud of their ruthlessness. Jonah had probably lived in fear of these people all his life. He probably really wanted to see them destroyed, because then his country and people would be safe. And although he didn’t want to preach to them about their demise, he would have been happy watching that whole city crumble in an earthquake and burn down in the fires that followed.

All of us have experienced difficult people we don’t like and who we’ve been in conflict with. We’ve been put into situations we don’t like; many of us have had jobs that were unbelievably messed up. And all of us have wanted the earthquake and total destruction to happen.

Jonah was going to dance on the ruins. And he thought that God was going to follow through and give him that.

But God is the god of sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn His plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness! And even though Jonah knows this, he’s still resentful of God’s gracious love. So, he goes out of the city, puts together a shelter and sits in the shade and sulks. Like a three-year-old whose pouting in the corner for ice-cream and waiting to see if mummy will relent, he’s waiting to see if God will grant his wish and destroy the city.

All of us have times when we don’t get our way and we sulk. There’s nothing wrong with a good sulk. It gets the emotion out of you and is a chance to face our disappointments, evaluate our situation, and figure out where we go from here. Just don’t get trapped in your sulks. Jonah wasn’t evaluating or figuring out. He was just feeling sorry for himself because God wouldn’t do what he wanted.

The interesting thing is that God tried to get him out of his sulk by growing a tree for him to keep him comfortable. And it did help. Jonah started to be happy again, but he still wasn’t moving from that tree, and he was still waiting for God to destroy the city. I really think the reason why God kills the tree, sends the wind, and makes Jonah uncomfortable is because he’s trapped in feeling sorry for himself, and he’s now living in a very negative attitude. God finally confronts his attitude and offers us a very good question: Why shouldn’t God spare all those people and other life forms if they are truly repentant?

Getting caught up in the question of why God’s wrath doesn’t descend on people or situation that we think should have God’s wrath, is one that we need to put down and just walk away from. The working of God’s mind and purpose is so giant that we just can’t see it. And while I believe that individually, and in our communities, we always need to work for justice, fairness, integrity and dignity in our lives, I cannot be responsible for 120,000 other people. I have to do the best I can, and leave the rest up to God.

And I think that this is one of the elements that makes a saint. A saint knows that they are not perfect, or that other people are not perfect, or that the world is not perfect. (God knows this crazy world IS NOT PERFECT!) What they do know is that they can be the best person they can be by working for justice, being kind to others, and living with precepts of God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.

A saint is someone who tries to keep that faith and integrity, even when they know that they’re going stumble sometimes. But they will learn from their mistakes and try to do better next time.

Running From God

October 12, 2025 18^th Sunday of Pentecost

Jonah 1:1-15

Jonah is one of the humorous books of the Bible. That doesn’t mean that it doesn’t have some themes in it that you shouldn’t take seriously. Jonah belongs to a genre of scripture storytelling that uses humor to get theological points across. It’s like how Jesus uses parables that have their Whaaaat? That doesn’t make sense moments, which make you think about things. Jonah is an allegory, or an extended parable, (that might have been based on real events) told in an amusing way to help people think about how they relate to God in their lives and how God relates to us. In fact, Jonah is probably the surviving story that we have from antiquity of this genre.

Did you know that until the Reformation, this was one of the most popular and most preached books of the Old Testament? People loved it, and a lot of plays and songs were made about it, because it’s a fun story! Today we mostly learn this story in Sunday school, or there might be a section of the book that pops up in our lectionaries. So, it’s nice that we’re doing this sermon series on Jonah: The Reluctant Prophet, and we’ll get to look at the whole book!

The story starts off right away with God telling Jonah: Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer.

Now unlike other books of prophets, which usually start out by introducing the prophet by saying, so-and-so was a prophet of Israel, or even giving us some background about when they were called by God, this book just starts out with God telling Jonah to go preach in the city of Nineveh. This tells us that Jonah isn’t a prophet already; he’s just an ordinary person. He could be a farmer, or shepherd, or a carpenter; it doesn’t matter. The point of the introduction is to clue us in that Jonah could be anyone, and that God can call anyone, at any time, into His service.

Now Jonah doesn’t say: Yes, Lord, right away I’ll go preach to all those people. He makes tracks in the opposite direction.

But before we judge Jonah too harshly, the readers or hearers of this story would know that Jonah has a right to be scared. Ninevah was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, and the greatest power in the Middle East when it was in existence. The city started in 6,000 BCE as a settlement on the Tigris River, in what is now Iraq. And because it was located on a strategic area of the river, it became a central meeting point for people. Over many millennia, from the bronze into the iron age, it grew to be a center of agricultural, commerce, pottery and metal working development.

For 760 years, between 1365 until 605 BCE, it was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. At its height its footprint was about 1,900 acres and the inside of the city was surrounded by a 7.5-mile wall. Supposedly it took you three days to walk from one side of it to another. The population averaged at about 350,000 people – that’s three times the size of Albany. Ninevah was one of the Megapolises of the Ancient World.

But it was also known as a place of cruelty. You have probably heard of the Code of Hammurabi, from early Babylon, where we get the famous phrase an eye for an eye. This code influenced all of the cultures of the surrounding regions. There wasn’t a lot of mercy in the Assyrian Code of Law, so the culture wasn’t a kind one. They were considered to be a proud and ruthless people.

So of course, Jonah, an everyday man from the little country of Israel, is terrified to go and confront the mightiest city in the world. I can relate. Have you ever been given a job that was so immense or difficult that you just didn’t think you could do it? One that, if you failed at it, might ruin you and your life? We don’t want to do those kinds of jobs; we don’t want to accept those kinds of challenges.

How do we run away when we’re faced with challenges like that? Well, some people turn to drink or drugs. Some people hide in house or craft projects, or read, or start to binge watch TV. Some people travel or even move to another country. You might think that’s extreme, but I knew a number of ex-pats in Japan who were living there because things were too difficult at home. They’re modern day Jonahs.

But Jonah is not running away from personal projects or jobs that he doesn’t want to do in daily life. He’s running away from something that God wants him to do.

Now, Jonah is in a covenant relationship with God, by default. Every Jewish person knew that God made a covenant with Abraham and all his descendants, that he would be there for them if they would worship Him and obey Him. And that covenant was renewed when Moses brought the Ten Commandments down from the Mountain and then gave them the promise-land to live it. It is a two-way street. As long as Jonah obeys God, and does what He wants, Jonah is going to be protected and guided on the way. But Jonah doesn’t see that as a possibility. He runs down to the Mediterranean Sea and boards a boat headed to Tarshish, or ancient Spain. That is about as far away as you could get from Israel in the ancient world.

Now we are all here today in this church as followers of Jesus. We are all a part of the renewal of that ancient and sacred covenant with God through Jesus Christ. Through Jesus, God’s covenant was opened up and made available to everyone in the world, not just the Jewish people. If God calls on us to do something, no matter how hard it is, He is going to be there with us during the project. We are going to have His help, we are going to have Jesus’ help, and we’re going to have the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

Jonah apparently is so scared that he has forgotten about this covenant. He gets into that boat and snuggles down in the hold and takes a nap. Yep, I’m hiding in this boat, going the opposite way, and God can’t see me.

But God knows where Jonah is, and he causes a storm to push the boat about so badly that they ship is in danger of breaking up. The sailors are terrified and praying hard to their gods. The only person who isn’t praying is Jonah – because he’s asleep. So, the sailors wake him up and tell him to pray to his God, maybe that will tip the balance.

But Jonah recognizes that he’s the problem. And after they draw straws to find out who’s responsible he confesses that he’s in disobedience and running away from what God wants him to do. But Jonah also realizes that it’s not just about him anymore. All these sailors are now in peril because he hasn’t been doing what he’s supposed to be doing. So, he tells the sailors to throw him overboard in order to save themselves.

We can see that Jonah might be scared of doing what God wants him to do, but he’s not a bad person. He doesn’t want to see other people hurt because of his actions, or inaction. Sometimes that happens to us when were confronted with stuff that we don’t want to do. It might not be fun but if we don’t do it other people are affected. No person is an island, we are all in some way connected to each other, positively and negatively.

You know addicts often say: The only person I’m hurting with my drinking (or fill in the blank on that) is myself. But actually at least six people are going to be negatively affected by someone’s addiction. On the reverse, if you hunker down and do something good, even though it’s difficult, at least seven people are going to be affected for good. So, the next time you’re resisting doing that hard job remember that in the end you are going to be benefiting more than yourself.

The sailors are also good people. They row very hard and try not to throw Jonah overboard. Finally, they do with a prayer: O GOD! Don’t let us drown because of this man’s life, and don’t blame us for his death. You are GOD. Do what you think is best. Can you imagine how hard that must have been for them? That’s another warning for us – we need to consider what actions the people around us are going to have to do if we don’t do our difficult jobs, and the emotional toll that it might cost them.

Immediately the sea calms down, demonstrating to them that they made the right decision. That’s where we’re going to leave the story. Next week we’re going to talk about what happens when he gets swallowed by the whale.

In the meantime, think about those difficult jobs that you have to do. God doesn’t want you to run from them – He wants to help you get through them. You are all in covenant with God and you can ask for help. If you do, it will help to keep you out of life’s storms and put you on a right and positive path with God, Jesus, and the Holy Spirit.