Second Chances, First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/22/2012, by Rev Steven R Mitchell

Second Chances
By Rev Steven R Mitchell
First Congregational UCC, Rock Springs, WY 1/22/2012
Based on Jonah 3: 1-5, 10 & Mark 1:14-20

“Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time…” Have you ever done something that was really wrong and wished that you hadn’t? Said something to someone and wished you could take it back, because what you said destroyed instead of build up? Or made a decision years ago and wondered what your life might be like if you had made a different choice?
In the classic movie, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, the main character George Bailey had his life all planned out for himself. He was going to go off and see the world after graduating from High School, then attend college and graduate with an architectural degree, then design building. There wasn’t going to be anything or anyone who was going to get in his way of achieving the goals he had for himself.
No body or anything, except life. At each important cross road in his life, George had to make a decision that challenged his dreams. As a young boy he lost the hearing in his right ear because he saved his younger brother from drowning in an icy pond. In Junior High, George was physically beaten by his boss, the druggist, for not delivering medicine to a family; medicine that the druggist, who in a distraught state of mind over the death of his own son had mistakenly added poison to the prescription. George had no plans of falling in love with the beautiful Donna Reid, but ended up marrying her and together they had four children. On his wedding day, George spent all his savings to stop a run on the family savings and loan at the beginning of the depression. George gave up his dream of adventure and becoming an architect when he took over the leadership of the family business, a business he hated in order to give an option to the citizens of Bedford Falls in doing business, so they would not be held captive to the evil Mr. Potter.
All of George’s life, the decisions that he was asked to make, seemed to always benefit others but never fulfilled his own dreams. George’s greatest challenge comes when his Uncle Billy misplaces the company’s deposits. For George, this meant scandal, financial ruin for the company, and prison for himself. He finds himself, standing on the edge of life, ready to jump off a bridge to end his life, for he felt that he was a failure; all of his decisions came to no good end. At this point in George’s life, God intervenes by sending down an angel who needs to earn his wings named Clarence.
George, true to his nature puts off killing himself to save the drowning Clarence. As the two are drying off next to a fire, George wishes he had never been born. With the help of Clarence, George is given a second chance; a chance to see what life would be if he had never been born. Since George wasn’t around to save his younger brothers life, his brother wasn’t able to save the lives of a thousand soldiers on a transport vessel during WWII. The druggist went to jail, because George wasn’t there to prevent the mistaken prescription. The beautiful Donna Reid never married and had an unfulfilled life. There was no Bedford Falls, as the town was owned by the evil Mr. Potter and was named Pottersville. George then realizes just how precisions his life has been and begs for a second chance to continue to live the life that he had had.
The story of Jonah is a great story about the adventures of a prophet. It shows us more of the human side of a prophet’s life, one that helps us realize that even though one is called to be a prophet for God, one doesn’t always willing follow orders. With Jonah, he is told by God to go to Nineveh and tell them they have only forty days before they are destroyed. Jonah being the devoted prophet that he was turned and ran the other direction. Of course, this decision brought on particular calamities for a lot of other people. Like George Bailey, the actions of Jonah weigh heavily upon what happens to others.
Also like George Bailey, Jonah at several junctures of his life journey is asking God to take his life that it is just too unbearable to continue on. Then God answers by coming back to Jonah a second time, and once again telling Jonah to go to Nineveh. So with much fear in his heart, he travels into Nineveh and delivers the message that God told him to deliver. To his surprise, the Ninevehites hear the word and repent are spared by God.
There is a similar reaction to the word of God, found in the first chapter of Mark, as we see Jesus, walking up to Simon and Andrew, then coming upon James and John and saying, “come follow me, I will make you fishers of humanity.” Upon hearing this invitation, these four men changed course, changed careers.
The main focus in today’s lectionary readings asks us to ponder upon the suddenness to which we can change when God speaks to us. There is no indication by Marks writings that these four fishermen had any prior knowledge of Jesus and his mission, only that when Jesus asked them to drop what they were doing and in following him, they did just that. For the people of Nineveh, they were not even told that their destruction was going to be coming from God, or that by repenting there would be hope of survival. They just inherently knew that they needed to repent from their actions.
Sudden change! Second chances, this is what we are reading about today. Barbara Brown Taylor, professor of religion at Piedmont College in Demorest, Georgia writes: Much has been written about the response of the disciples who dropped everything to follow Jesus. Why did they do something so drastic, and how could they up-end their lives so dramatically, and would that really be a good thing for us to do, that is, if we could "manage" it?
Could we measure up to the standard of those disciples, and drop everything, too? We might wonder why and how those first four disciples could do such a thing, without even a stirring sermon from Jesus, or maybe a dramatic miracle, or better yet, the sky opening up and a voice announcing that this was God's own beloved, and that they should listen to him Such an incident would have provided some clear explanation for their sudden abandonment of everything to follow Jesus. What did they know, on that seashore that we don't know?

We're missing the point if we linger on such questions. This is a story about God, not the disciples or us. To focus on what the disciples gave up (and whether we could do the same), is "to put the accent on the wrong syllable." This "miracle story," is really about "the power of God - to walk right up to a quartet of fishermen and work a miracle, creating faith where there was no faith, creating disciples where there were none just a moment before." Now this way of approaching the story may, oddly, make us uncomfortable, especially in a culture that emphasizes our choices and independence, our ability to shape our lives and determine our destinies. We can do whatever needs to be done; it's within our power; we can fix and improve everything; we can take hold of the future and make it what we want it to be. In fact, we have to do it, in order to please God and get to heaven. The better we are, the more saintly and sacrificing we are, and the more likely we are to earn our salvation.
With this type of thinking, Taylor says: "What we may have lost along the way is a full sense of the power of God – to recruit people who have made terrible choices; to invade the most hapless lives and fill them with light; to sneak up on people who are thinking about lunch, not God, and smack them upside the head with glory". Whether we're ready or not, God acts. Sermon Seeds, 1/22/2012
There are major changes going on within our community of faith. We are looking for a settled pastor to lead us. We are facing a budget that calls for more money than what is currently committed. Do we truly believe that God has the power to lead us, like the fishermen did when Jesus said, drop your nets and follow me? Or do we act like Jonah, size up the request as being too expensive, too risky, falling back on the false sense of "prudent paths of action" and try to run away from doing what God is asking us to do? As Barbara Taylor says, "are we putting the accent on the wrong syllable", have we lost along the way the sense of the power of God?
We stand at the threshold of new choices, of second chances. Will we run from the challenges or will we take up the call of God? Amen