January 28, 2024 homily on Jonah 3:1-5,10 and Mark 1:14-20 by Pastor Galen
Second Chance
I am not an avid shopper. But one place I do love to shop is at a store located in a large warehouse downtown near the Ravens football stadium, called Second Chance. At Second Chance, you can buy pretty much anything for your home, from antique furniture to kitchen faucets and even stained glass windows—the majority of which were salvaged from buildings throughout the city that were slated for demolition. I love shopping at Second Chance because you never know what you’re going to find. And I love their mission. Second Chance saves stuff from going to the landfill and provides an opportunity for it to be repurposed and reused.1
But Second Chance doesn’t only provide a second chance for building materials. The nonprofit that operates Second Chance also provides a second chance for people, by providing job training and employment opportunities to Baltimore residents struggling with unemployment. Many of their employees are citizens reentering the workforce after having been previously incarcerated, and so Second Chance has truly given them a second chance.
Jonah and the Ninevites
The biblical book of Jonah is at its heart a story about second chances. It’s about how God gave a second chance to a people who were about to be destroyed, and how God gave a second chance to a disobedient prophet who failed to deliver God’s message to the people.
In truth, the people who lived in the city of Nineveh were deserving of the punishment that God had pronounced upon them. The Ninevites were a violent people, known for their brutality and oppression toward other people. But God decided to offer them a second chance and called the prophet Jonah to leave his hometown and travel to Ninevah to encourage them to repent (or, turn away from their wrongdoing) and turn to the Lord.
Jonah Runs from God
But rather than going to Ninevah to deliver the message, Jonah got on a boat and purposefully went in the opposite direction, seeking to run as far away as possible from the task he had been given.
Later on in the book of Jonah, we find out why Jonah ran. It wasn’t because he was shy, or scared to deliver the message. It was because he disliked the Ninevites so much that he didn’t think they deserved a second chance. He figured that if there was even a slight chance that the people would turn away from their sins and that God would forgive them, he wanted no part in that. And so, rather than going northeast from his home to Nineveh, which would have been about 725 miles away, instead, he got on a boat and headed off to Tarshish—3,000 miles away from Nineveh!
Jonah Had One Job
Now, as a prophet, this was a very bad thing to do. Prophets in the Bible had one job: to deliver God’s message to the people. It didn’t matter if it was a message of hope, or a message of doom and gloom. The prophet was supposed to deliver the message God had given them to deliver. In this, Jonah failed miserably.
Now, imagine if you used an email service where the emails you sent never actually went through. Or you had a phone, but couldn’t use it to call anyone. We would of course start using a new email service, or toss out our phone and get a new one. And so it would have been totally understandable if God had simply chosen a different prophet to deliver the message to the Ninevites. After all, Jonah failed to do the very thing that God had called him to do!
But of course, just as God gave the people of Ninevah a second chance, so too, God also gave Jonah a second chance.
Jonah and the Whale
While Jonah was on the boat on the way to Tarshish a great storm arose. The sailors tried everything in their power to keep the ship afloat, tossing cargo overboard to lighten the load, but to no avail. It seemed inevitable that they would capsize and everyone on board would drown. Eventually, the sailors came to suspect that someone on the boat must have angered the gods, and so they drew straws to find out who it might be. Jonah drew the short straw and admitted that God was probably angry with him because he was running away from God.
The sailors asked Jonah what they could do to make the storm stop, and Jonah suggested that they throw him overboard. (Note: This was how much Jonah hated the Ninevites—he would rather drown in the sea than turn around and go to deliver God’s message of salvation to the people of Ninevah!)
But God did not allow Jonah to drown. Rather, God sent a great fish (we usually imagine this as a whale) to save him. The fish swallowed Jonah whole, and Jonah spent 3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the fish.
A Second Chance for Jonah
During those 3 days and 3 nights, Jonah cried out to God, thanking God for delivering him. And when the whale spit him out on dry land, and God indeed gave Jonah a second chance, calling him once again to go and deliver God’s message to the Ninevites.
This time Jonah went, and told the Ninevites that in 40 days their city would be overthrown. The Ninevites repented and cried out to God, and God heard their prayers, and forgave them, just as Jonah feared would happen.
The story of Jonah, then is not really about Jonah, or even about the great fish. Rather, it’s a story about God. A relentless God who chases people down with storms and whales and begrudging prophets—not in order to punish or destroy them, but to save them. It’s about a loving and compassionate God who gives second chances, and (many times), third and fourth, and 100th chances as well.
Jesus Invited Fishermen to Follow Him
We see this attribute of God in action in Jesus’ calling of fishermen such as Simon and Andrew and James and John to follow him.
Now, there is nothing wrong with fishing. Fishing is an honorable profession and hobby. But in those days, the highest calling for a Jewish boy was to become a scholar or a teacher of the law. Almost all young Jewish boys were taught to read the Scriptures and were given a religious education. But only the best and brightest among them were tapped to continue on in their education, and only a select few became scholars or teachers of the law. (Sort of like one of the many “reality” shows that are popular today.)
And so the fact that Simon and Andrew and James and John were fishermen meant that they hadn’t quite made the cut. If they had indeed wanted to become scholars or teachers of the law, it would have been obvious to them and everyone else that they had not quite been good enough to be chosen.
A Second Chance for the Disciples
But then Jesus came along and gave them a second chance. He invited them to follow him, and they responded to that call. They left everything behind and followed him.
It’s interesting if you stop and think about it, that Jesus didn’t go to the rabbinical schools (the colleges and universities of his day) to choose his disciples. Nor did he choose disciples who were wealthy, or well-connected to help him network or fund his ministry. He didn’t select political interns from Herod’s palace who were trained in speaking to those in power. Rather, at least one-third of Jesus’s inner circle of disciples consisted of fishermen who had been passed over by the religious scholars of his day and who left their prosperous businesses behind to follow him.
In selecting these disciples, Jesus was demonstrating that God truly is a God of second chances.
But it didn’t stop there. Because along the way, the disciples made mistakes. They messed up. They said things they shouldn’t have said, things that made it obvious they didn’t quite get it. They questioned, and doubted, and were often tempted to turn away. They argued with each other about which of them was the greatest disciple, and then when push came to shove, they completely abandoned Jesus in his greatest hour of need.
But Jesus never tossed them aside. Instead, Jesus forgave them, again, and again, and again, and continually invited them into deeper discipleship of him. He continued to offer them second chances, and more.
Seventy Times Seven
Now, all of us like it when we are given a second chance. We’re grateful when someone extends grace to us. But, like Jonah, we don’t always like it when God gives second chances to other people, especially people we don’t like.
But the truth is that we can’t have it both ways. We can’t expect God to give us second chances, and not extend second chances to others. And we too have a responsibility to forgive others, just as we have been forgiven.
Later on in the Gospels, Simon Peter, one of the fishermen Jesus invited to follow him, to whom Jesus offered countless second chances, came to Jesus and asked him how many times he should forgive his brother when he sinned against him. (Just because Simon Peter and his brother Andrew were both followers of Jesus didn’t mean that they always got along!) Simon Peter, thinking that he is being extremely generous, suggested that perhaps he should forgive his brother up to seven times. But Jesus, in his wisdom and his grace, said that we should forgive not seven times, but rather seventy times seven. So many times that we lose count. For if we have been forgiven much, then surely we must forgive others as well.
Forgive, as We Have Been Forgiven
This doesn’t just mean forgiving those who have personally offended us. It also involves us as individuals and a church searching for ways that we can offer opportunities to people whom society has passed over. It means supporting organizations seeking creative solutions to unemployment, like Second Chance, and finding ways that we can assist individuals released from incarceration to successfully transition back into their home communities.
As followers of Christ, we have been given countless second chances. Indeed, we serve a God of second chances. And if we are to become the people of God, then we must extend the same grace to others that has been extended to us.
Amen!
Hampden United Methodist Church 