Our readings from the book of Jonah and from the gospel of Mark make three similar points: 1) that everything depends on the Word of the Lord, 2) that this Word demands of us our repentance and conversion, and 3) that God’s Word cannot be stopped and will be effective come what may.

With regard to the first point, that everything depends on the Word of the Lord, let me make two remarks.

First, a preliminary point: the Word of the Lord does not strictly depend on the personal qualities, readiness, or capabilities of the preacher. We put entirely too much stock in this, but it’s style over substance. An example: Seminarians can be cruel. When I was a seminarian, we used to joke about one of the standard reactions people give to preachers who wouldn’t recognize the gospel if it bit them. They would say, “But he was so sincere.” It was the kind of thing people say when, not wanting to be offensive, can’t really say anything good or intelligent or helpful about the sermon’s content. “But he was so sincere,” is what we used to say about each other’s sermons when one of us preached a particularly bad one. At the end of the day, the preacher’s sincerity, and perhaps also even his/her particular preaching style, though not irrelevant, is really more or less beside the point. The Word of the Lord is just that, the Lord’s infallible Word delivered by a fallible human instrument.

The second point is that literally everything depends on this word that fallible human beings utter in God’s name and at his command—everything. There would be no creation, no earth and sky, no world, no you or me, if God had not said, “Let there be light.” Creation out of nothing, creation’s sustenance and sustainability, and its ultimate redemption, all hang on the Word of the Lord. The Word is not an ordinary take-it-or-leave-it word of a human being, but is rather the world-creating, death-defeating Word of God by which all creatures live and move and have their being.

We, however, are usually fixated on the peripheral: on the accoutrements, the setting, the style, the mood. We look for sentiment and sincerity. Sometimes this is all there is, in which case we should demand that our pastors and prophets and leaders do their homework and focus on the Word of the Lord and not some clever but irrelevant word of their own devising. Sometimes, however, the treasure is there but we may have to dig deeper a little in order to find it, wait awhile in order to receive it, ruminate and ponder and deliberate in order that we may believe it. Some of us are so attached and so attracted to the frills that we cannot get beyond them, while others of us may be turned off by the style and the frills and never take the time to ask the hard questions or to look deeper. In either case, we end up cutting ourselves off from the word of life on which everything depends, and that is certain death.

The second thing our readings focus on is the fact that the infallible Word of God demands our repentance and conversion. The book of Jonah says that when the people of Nineveh heard Jonah’s proclamation, they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. In Mark’s gospel, the content of Jesus proclamation, too, was simple and straightforward and made a similar demand: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near, repent, and believe in the good news.” The main difference between Jonah’s and Jesus’ proclamation of the Word of God is that in Jesus’ case he says that the time has been fulfilled and that the word of God actually is bringing on, in the hearer’s presence, the kingdom of God. With both Jonah and Jesus the Word of the Lord means the execution of God’s judgment, a judgment that demands our repentance and our conversion.

Repentance means that we turn our lives around and go in a completely different direction and that we change course, get new bearings, and find a new goal. Conversion means a sweeping and radical change of attitude, mind and heart. There is no salvation for those who are not converted, not changed, not transformed, into the sons and daughters of the God of Israel, the God who in Jesus Christ and his resurrection from the dead, includes all nations in the special covenant of faithfulness that the God of Israel has established with his special people, a covenant of faithfulness that breaks through even the bonds of death.

But we generally think that repentance and conversion are for sissies. Some of you may remember a popular movie from the early 70’s where the memorable line was, “love is never having to say you’re sorry.” What nonsense! Love usually means that we constantly need to say we are sorry, because that is what relationship demands. Love is not a general universal concept that God exhibits toward us and we toward each other. Love is not an ideal that God lives up to perfectly. No, God is love. Love is what God has done and is doing at every moment in creation, what God has done and continues to do with his people Israel, what God has done and does now in the self-offering of his only-begotten Son, what God has done and promises yet to do in raising Jesus from the dead. Our love is a reflection of God’s action in the world. And as God’s action is all about self-sacrifice, openness toward the other, giving of oneself completely and unreservedly, i.e., it is all about conversion, our turning toward the needs and aspirations of the beloved, and turning away from the temptation to isolate and insulate oneself from the hurt and pain of others.

The third point our readings impress on us is that God’s word cannot be stopped and that it will be effective come what may. The story of Jonah is a perfect example of this. Jonah was an unwilling prophet, a reluctant spokesman. God called Jonah to be God’s mouthpiece, to deliver a one-sentence message to the people of Nineveh, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Jonah did not want go to Nineveh. He did not think the message would have any effect on the people. But God wanted his message delivered, and it would be delivered—by Jonah—come what may. So even when Jonah was thrown overboard on the voyage to Nineveh, he was miraculously rescued and delivered by a great fish so that Jonah could complete his task. Despite Jonah’s reluctance and skepticism, and despite Jonah’s being thrown overboard into a raging sea, God was determined to accomplish his task, determined to deliver his word by the mouth of the Lord’s appointed prophet.

In some respects we are very much like Jonah. We also may doubt that God’s word will be fulfilled because of what we see happening all around us that belies such a different reality. We can then become, like Jonah, reluctant prophets, skeptical and cynically expecting the opposite of what God intends. We must learn to say, with Israel, as our Psalmist declares, “For God alone I wait in silence; truly, my hope is in God…Put your trust in God always, O people, pour out your hearts before the one who is our refuge.”

The Word of the Lord will be spoken no matter what, and what the Lord promises and declares will happen come what may. That is the message of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection, that even when everything has been taken away and the promises seem to be empty and hollow, then it is that life and faith in the God of Israel can be not only restored but also transformed by the miracle of love fulfilled. Trusting in God’s message of faithfulness and hope delivered to a faithless and hopeless world, we should not be afraid to leave everything behind that attaches us to the past and keeps us chained in fear, bound to things that only lull us into a false sense of security. Instead, we should allow ourselves to be renewed and transformed by our hope in the promise that led Simon and Andrew, James and John to drop what they were doing to follow Jesus, who though he will lead them to the cross, will never lead them astray. Rather, he will lead them to a life marked forever by God’s victory over death.

-Amen-