Faithfully answering God’s call

“Faithfully answering God’s call” – January 24, 2021
(speaker – Gary Broadston – Union Park United Methodist Church)
Scriptures: Jonah 3:1-5, 10; Mark 1:14-20
Last week we heard that God called Samuel 4 times before he finally responded. We also heard
that God may speak to us in several different ways but are we able to hear the call from God?
Our passage in Jonah today speaks of the word of the Lord or God coming a second time to
Jonah telling him to “Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city and proclaim to it the message
that I tell you.” Do you remember the first time that God called Jonah to go to Nineveh? The
first time he was told to cry out against the city for the wickedness that God was seeing there.
Jonah was afraid to go and do as God had called him to do and instead decided to flee to
Tarshish away from the presence of God. A storm came up against the ship and Jonah was
eventually thrown overboard to save the ship and crew but wait, a large fish was provided by
God to swallow Jonah where he was for three days in the belly of the fish before he was spewed
out upon dry land. The first time God called Jonah to go to Nineveh didn’t go so well. The first
time the Word came, Jonah went the other way. God’s Word said go; Jonah’s feet said no. And
for his troubles, he got a sea cruise in an inside cabin with no view and a pervasive smell which
was followed by being thrown into the sea.
God never gave up on Jonah, even though he might have seemed a lost cause. There isn’t an
inevitability of a response when called. Some of the devout, some may be inclined to run away
rather than to follow. Jonah was a prophet; Jonah worked for the Lord. And still, when faced
with the call to follow into what he thought was dangerous, or futile territory, he ran away.
Rather than dropping everything, he gathered up his fears and ran for it.
“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time.” And this time, he decided he’d better
the direction that God told him to go. The problem was it pointed toward Nineveh. If there was
ever a town where Jonah didn’t want to go, it was Nineveh. If there was ever a place full of the
wrong sort of folk, it was Nineveh. No wonder Jonah didn’t want to go. They didn’t like him,
and he didn’t like them; and they were both happy keeping things that way. Except that God
came to Jonah a second time telling him to go.
go
in
God never gives up on us, even though we might seem hard to reach and convince to follow the
call from God. Remember that the question before us is when God speaks do we listen. Last
week Caesar indicated that listening to God calling out our name and heeding that voice may be
hard for us to do. He asked us how many times God had spoken to us, but we didn’t know it was
the Lord? How many times have we recognized that God was speaking, but we didn’t hear his
message because we were too busy with other things in our daily lives? To hear the word of the
Lord to us, it is essential that we pray from the heart. It’s possible that we don’t hear the voice
because of distractions. There may be many things that distract us from listening. Become aware
of God’s presence and His love for you. God may be speaking thru Scripture, in our prayers, thru
our friends and family, thru events in our lives like failures and accomplishments, thru our
dreams or visions or by that still small inner voice. We must prayerfully communicate with God
daily and seek to know his wishes for our lives. God never gave up on Jonah, even though he

might have seemed a lost cause. God likewise will not give up on us and may keep trying to get
us to answer his call.
God has a thing for lost causes. It was a cause God was trying to enlist Jonah to assist with in
Nineveh. Reluctantly Jonah finally went, dragging his feet all the way into a city that was “a
three days walk across.” He walked one day and was a third of the way in when he planted his
feet on a busy street corner and muttered his eight-word sermon “Forty days more, and Nineveh
shall be overthrown!”. Jonah thinks to himself that he was done (had fulfilled God’s call) and
turns to make his way back out of town. He was ready to avoid the rath of the people and then
realized that the city was eerily quiet. His eight-word sermon froze people in their tracks. They
were staring at him with that “deer-in-the-headlights” or “hand-caught-in-the-cookie-jar” kind of
glaze. One by one, they turned and looked internally but did not like what they saw. Next, they
began grasping at straws to save their lives. They put on sackcloth as a sign of how bad they felt
and poured ashes on their heads. Whole families, whole neighborhoods, turned their lives
around. They repented and they turned their lives around in response to the warning given by
Jonah. They were heading in one direction and then because of eight words from Jonah they
turned their lives in a whole new direction.
Verse 10 tells us “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, he
changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not
do it.” Can you imagine how disappointed Jonah was as he waited for God to destroy the city
and see that God had changed his mind. Would we also be upset that even after being asked by
God to do something and then God not following thru with his promise. The people of Nineveh
were loved by God as was Jonah and they were important in God’s sight. This reminds us that
we too are important and loved by God to the extent that if we repent God will forgive our sinful
ways as well.
If we are told by God to do something that we do not want to do, will we like Jonah try to run
away and try to find excuses? We may say things like we are not able to do it because we don’t
have the necessary skill or gift. Just remember that we will be given all the abilities and skills
needed to do what is required when God asks us to respond and follow his request. It is human
nature to resist and feel that we may be threatened by the request. We may also have already
judged what we feel will happen or should happen.
Jonah’s problem was that his reluctance came from the fact that he was afraid that God would
love the Ninevites as much as God loved him. He was afraid that God would forgive the citizens
of Nineveh as God had forgiven him. That thought burned him up. In the mind of Jonah, God’s
grace was unfair if the Ninevites were forgiven. It was too incredible, too encompassing, to0
accepting. Jonah was caught up in the net of God’s love. Who knows who else might be
included? Jonah became angry that the destruction of the city did not happen as he waited to see
God follow thru with what he promised he would do. God loved the Ninevites and was able to
forgive them when they repented just as he loved Jonah and had forgiven him.
The Gospel reading for today, Mark 1:14-20, is also about God’s call. This time Jesus calls
Simon and his brother Andrew as they were fishing. Later he saw James and his brother John in
their boat and called them to follow him as well. We too are called to follow Jesus.

“I’ll make you fish for people,” says Jesus. But before they could fish, they had to be caught. We
are all fishers if we share our faith with others. “Follow me,” Jesus says and we follow. Most of
the time, some of the time, we follow and sometimes very reluctantly. Other times we are like
Jonah resistant to follow and try to run away. We live an invitation that we can also give to
others. Follow with me. Follow as I follow. And we might even find ourselves in a downtown
Nineveh when we say follow me. What is our expectation of what we share and our call to also
follow?
It’s important to realize that God calls us in love and that we must make an effort to listen for
that call and to respond. God may be calling you today to be that person who will change the
lives of others and allow them to accept what we tell them and turn their lives around and repent
and in doing so find that God will, out of love, accept their new devotion as they then follow
Jesus and God in new ways. We too may be just like Jonah when he went and preached to the
Ninevites. Jonah did not expect the result he witnessed and was angry. We pray that we do not
prejudge those we reach out to and become angry when we don’t see the response we
anticipated.
How could a few words turn a life around? It is almost too incredible to be believed. If we were
to accept the possibility of such a thing happening, then we would find no situation beyond our
ability to affect; we would find no life beyond the possibility of redemption; we would find no
excuse to wash our hands of anyone at any time. Because we just might have the word or words
that would cause their lives to be turned around. We think it can’t really be possible in the real
world. The real world is hard and cruel, and there are good guys and bad guys, and we know who
is who. Or do we? We may live a world different from Nineveh, at least the Nineveh that Jonah
found or helped to create. Our world is a world of hard work, back-breaking labor to get
anywhere. Or is it? What is our expectation of our chance of changing the world or even just one
person?
Pray that you are receptive to hear the voice of God and listen for him to lead you to unexpected
adventure as you follow the call. Faithfully answer the call from God.
AMEN.
Prayer
Heavenly Father,
We pray that when you speak to us it is heard and we respond to the call. As we listen for you to
speak to us in various ways, we are ready to respond in love to those you direct us to interact
with. Allow us the opportunity to serve you out of love as we reach out to those we encounter
today and every day. Help us learn from the story of Jonah. Help us to faithfully respond when
you call us.
Aman.