Jonah or Nancy

Jonah 1

New American Standard Bible (NASB)

Jonah’s Disobedience

1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai saying, ² “Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” ³ But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.

You probably know me as Nancy, but I am a Jonah thru and thru.  If you aren’t familiar with the whole story, you might read the whole book of Jonah.  It’s only four chapters.

Anyway….. from these few verses, what do we know about Jonah? 

1. God spoke to Jonah.
2. God told Jonah to go to Nineveh and preach.
3. Jonah didn’t like what he heard and didn’t want to go to Ninevah.
4. Instead Jonah tried to hide from God in Joppa and caught a ship to Tarshish.
5. Later in the book, you will learn that Jonah’s shipmates were afraid of him and threw him overboard so that Jonah ended up in the belly of a whale.

So how am I like Jonah?  Well, when we first started making plans for sabbatical, I thought that if I just kept quiet, I wouldn’t have to take a turn at speaking.  I am so very grateful for those who’ve been in this spot before me.  But finally, there was one last week that no one else volunteered for and so it was my turn. 

During this time of sabbatical, I’ve spent much time on other things – most anything so that I wouldn’t have to figure out what to say to you folks. 

1. I’ve spent time with friends and family. 
2. Shopped.
3. Drove here and there.
4. Watched way too much TV and
5. Spent an inordinate amount of time playing games on my computer. 
6. About the only things that haven’t prevented me from working on this message are laundry, housework and cooking.  (I avoid those also.) 

I’m like Jonah because

1. God spoke to me
2. God told me to take my turn at speaking.
3. I didn’t like it and so for the first week of sabbatical, I went to Minnesota.

Now, I’ve never been to Nineveh, but I think that the people of Minnesota must be nicer. I didn’t meet anyone there that I would consider wicked….. not even a little rude.  Minnesotans are pretty nice folk.  Still, even in Minnesota I heard God telling me that I needed to take my speaking turn.

1. So, what is God telling you to do? 
2. What is God telling this congregation to do? 
3. Are we going to obey God? 
4. Or are we going to run off to Minnesota?
5. Or the TV set? 
6. Or the internet?
7. Or Tarshish? 

When will we finally say, “OK God… We don’t want to go to Nineveh, but if that’s where you think we should be, then go with us and guide us along the way.”

This is the ninth Sabbatical Sunday.  During the last nine weeks, what have you heard from God?  Have you been listening?   Are we on a ship heading to Tarshish?  Or on the ship headed to Nineveh?  Will we end up in the belly of the whale?