Today the Church Universal celebrates Sunday of the Word of God, a celebration established by Pope Francis in 2019. It is a celebration that is close to my heart. I have taught Bible Studies in parishes since 1986 and have more that 2,500 posts on my blog FriarMusings that have something to do with the Word of God. I just think the Bible is awesome, amazing, and from the Old Testament to the end of the New Testament is filled with things you need to know – and more importantly you need to be able to share.
At this point your imagination is filled with images of yourself standing on a street corner with a megaphone, or knocking on door after door, or…. Well, it doesn’t matter because as quickly as those images arise, you have swept them aside: “No way… that is not for me.” Well, not to worry, it’s not for me either. But standing up here in front of you, sharing stories of the Bible, talking about what it meant and what it can mean for us today. I am in my “wheelhouse” and can do this all day. Why? Because it is storytelling. Stories that have been shared over the backyard fence, passed from generation to generation, written down, retold, turned into movies and books, and in a gazillion posts on internet blogs, podcasts, YouTube videos, and more. They are epic stories of love, betrayal, heartbreak, finding love, learning to trust, daring to believe, and above all, they are stories of God’s love for us, His plan to save us, and all these stories point to and lead us to our Lord and Savior, Jesus. These are stories worth knowing and telling again and again.
And I am not telling you to become a “quotologist” that can spout single verse after verse as though that were the final answer – or even to memorize the whole story. If you can do those things, great! But any one of us can tell the story in our own words and offer what they mean to us. And I tell ‘ya what…. I’ll go first.
Our first reading today was the story of Jonah. It is one of those stories that has been reduced to children’s videos and stories that go like this: Jonah asked God to do something for him, to go and tell some people that God loves them. Jonah was scared and ran away, the other way. He got on a boat and tried to sail far away, but God sent a storm after him. It was a terrible storm and the sailors thought that if they threw Jonah overboard then God would calm the storm and they would be saved. So “man overboard!” But Jonah is swallowed by a whale and in the belly of the whale, Jonah prays and asks God’s forgiveness. God forgave Jonah and had the whale return Jonah to the beach. Having learned his lesson, to obey God, Jonah went and did as God asked. Amen. …But that is not the real story!
God asked Jonah to go preach repentance to the city of Nineveh, the capital city of the mortal enemies of Israel, the Assyrians, the merciless bloodthirsty terror of the middle east in its day. In Jonah’s mind these are the very people upon whom God should reign down fire and brimstone and then open the ground to swallow them whole and erase them from history. Jonah has no intentions on cooperating and so he goes “down” to the sea port of Joppa, books passage on a ship heading to the far land of Tarshish. He goes “down” onto the boat. Then he goes “down” below decks to take a nap. All the while God is pursuing Jonah. God sends a terrible storm that threatens to capsize the ship. The sailors figure that Jonah must have done something to anger his God. Jonah confesses the story of his running away in disobedience and the sailors offer Jonah up in an attempt to satisfy Jonah’s God. They toss him overboard and “down” goes Jonah. “Down” to the depth of the ocean and ultimately “down” into the belly of the beast. Are you getting the picture? Turn your back on God and it is all “down” from there.
After three days in the belly of the whale, Jonah prays, but he doesn’t ask for pardon for his disobedience. He simply acknowledges that God is all powerful and worthy of worship in the Temple, basically says, “OK, you win.” And by the way, the whale doesn’t just return Jonah to the beach, he vomits onto the beach… just saying. Picking himself up (and presumably cleaning up a bit) Jonah sets off to Nineveh.
Nineveh was the largest city in the known world. It was massive. It would have taken the better part of a day to circumnavigate the outer walls and another 2.5 days to walk through the whole city. Jonah sped through the whole city in one day. In Hebrew his proclamation was five words….just five words. It plays a little longer in English: “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Notice he doesn’t even say, “Repent” as though the judgment might be forestalled. I think Jonah pulls off the prophetic minimum: speed walks the city, uses minimum words, and hopes they aren’t listening.
But they were. From King to cows, everyone puts on sackcloth and ashes, calls out to the God of Jonah in the hope… in the hope “Who knows? God may again repent and turn from his blazing wrath, so that we will not perish” (Jonah 3:9) And God relents, the people of Nineveh are saved, and Jonah gets all grumpy, pouty, and mopes around outside the city. This was not the outcome Jonah wanted. He even became angry with God. God speaks with Jonah to explain that God desires that all be saved. I don’t think Jonah was listening.
Jonah, the reluctant prophet with a bad attitude, doing the minimum possible – even that is enough for God to work with and accomplish great things.
Jack and Jill, faithful parishioners, reluctant evangelists, nervous that they don’t know enough to tell a bible story, afraid they will do it poorly. Even that is enough for God to work with and accomplish great things.
Homework: pick three gospel stories – Old or New Testament. Know them well enough to ad lib the story (maybe even memorize one good verse!). When opportunity seems right, tell the story over the backyard fence. God will do the heavy lifting.
Be an evangelizer. Tell a story. This is Sunday of the Word of God.
Amen!