Ash Wednesday
Ash Wednesday
February 25, 2009
“Who Knows?”
Jonah 3:1-4:11
Joel 2:1-2, 12-17
Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish. -Jonah 3:9 NRSV
Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him –Joel 2:14a NRSV
This morning as I was reading two words jumped out at me, “WHO KNOWS”. Both of the selected passages are from times of trouble. In both cases the people in a time of crisis decide almost in desperation to repent and turn to God for deliverance.
In the first reading, the prophet Jonah has just grudgingly proclaimed the judgment, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ This of course was exactly what Jonah wanted. He really had a deep-seated desire to sit back and watch as the fire fell from heaven and devoured the city of his enemies. The irony is that this most successful of prophets would not get his wish. The people of Nineveh chose to repent and are spared the wrath that was to come. This remarkable change of heart is recorded in Jonah 3:5-10, which says…
And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 6When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” 10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it. -Jonah 3:5-10 NRSV
In the second reading the people are called to a solemn assembly in Jerusalem in the face of a time of disaster and ruin. It is impossible to know what exactly the crisis was, it could have been an invading army that was as numerous as a swarm of locus or a swarm of locus as destructive as an invading army. I guess if your food is gone and your homes are destroyed it really does not matter what the cause the more important question is “what are we going to do about it?” In response to all these things the response is again quite surprising. Joel 2:14 states, “Who knows whether he will not turn and relent, and leave a blessing behind him, a grain offering and a drink offering for the Lord, your God?” (NRSV)
I admit that I have not seen a prophet fresh from the gullet of a fish walking through town screaming or an invading army or pestilence ravaging the surrounding countryside in recent days. However, I have seen a people in crisis. I have seen homes consumed by greed and abuse. I have seen homes consumed with fire leaving folks with only their lives. I have seen people losing jobs and financial security in every part of our community. Worse yet is the general consensus that the worst is still yet to come. What have we tried? What haven’t we tried? We have spent our children’s future bailing out the very institutions that have consumed our homes and livelihoods. We have over come our fears and prejudice in a bold or desperate grab at hope and change. We have started to rethink our thoughts and behaviors. We have tired to think happy and positive thoughts. We have cried loud laments. We have done something, anything. We have done nothing. And still here we are on this Ash Wednesday in the same dire situation.
There might be a word of hope to us in these ancient accounts. “WHO KNOWS” might be the beginning of our salvation too. What if we were to follow the leading of Scripture and gather together in solemn assembly and repent? What would it hurt us to turn our attention to God for a change? Why not confess that we as a people have turned our backs on God and have not remembered the widow, the orphan, the stranger and the poor? After all we know it to be true. Maybe, God can give us new hearts and minds to face the days to come. Maybe a renewal of our covenant with God and each other is precisely the remedy that our community so desperately needs.
What if Nineveh was not overthrown in forty day because the people of Nineveh in response to the word of God overthrew it themselves in three? What if the people of Jerusalem survived the destructions of famine, pestilence and war because they came together and reclaimed their identity and solidarity as a people of God? WHO KNOWS?
Today I encourage you to attend an Ash Wednesday service in your church or community. Pleasant Grove United Methodist Church will have our Ash Wednesday service tonight at 7:00 pm. I do not know if observing the disciplines of Lent will change our world, but they might change us. If we are changed, we might be able to help others in a deeper and lasting way and this might begin a chain of events that helps us turn the corner. Who knows? Why Not?
Today let us pray the words of Joel 2:17
“Spare your people, O Lord, and do not make your heritage a mockery, a byword among the nations. Why should it be said among the peoples, ‘Where is their God?’” AMEN