Sins and sackcloth

Jonah 3:1-10

         I often say it's all about the journey but I was thinking about a twist on that. Sometimes we are on a journey or a path that could well lead to very bad things.   I can think of a drug addict for example, you can see where that path will lead. Closer to home I could think about my own Dad who drank too much hard liquor and smoked filterless cigarettes for over 5 decades. The result? A massive heart attack and 67 years old. If you think about it, it may have been surprising that it didn't happen sooner.  Someone else I cared a great deal for followed a similar path, bad food habits, cigars, cigarettes, alcohol and an apparent aversion for any exercise and he died of at 53. No surprise really. I suppose you could easily see that unprotected sex could lead to any number of STD's or AIDS. Things don't have to be that dramatic but you can still expect certain outcomes from certain paths.

        So we have expressions like 'turning your life around'. Personally I do not believe that God sends anyone to Hell (if there even is one). I believe we turn our back on God, go down our own path and God respects that choice. In essence, we would send ourselves to hell (and I believe God weeps as we do so). So there is a spiritual journey which may need 'turning around' as well.

        Today's passage is all about turning around and repenting. Maybe a bit early for Lent but it gives us pause to think how important repentance is. I still have trouble with the notion of God destroying  Ninevah but as I mention in the 'sending ourselves to hell' idea, there are actions and paths for which the consequences are quite foreseeable. God may not have had to destroy Ninevah, they may have been doing a fine job themselves. Ninevans may have been destroying themselves by their actions and the results may have been quite foreseeable and God would still weep at their deaths even if from their own choices.

       Again, I don't think things have to be so dramatic. Their are many ways in which we depart from the journey of love we are called to live. Our actions betray our destiny in ways big and small all day, almost every day. This is the purpose of daily introspection, self awareness, self assessment and hopefully repentance.

       Today's passage speaks of ancient civilizations putting on sackcloth and ashes much like Christians do on Ash Wednesday. The idea of repentance being a not wholly original idea at all. As long as humanity exists and has free will, there will be need for repentance. We are not perfect but we are called to a perfect life of love none the less. (or all the more).

        Repentance comes in all shapes and sizes, great and small, involving major life changes and small daily routines. It is up to us to search our soul, our heart and our mind to determine what we are called to do. Sometimes God may tap you on the shoulder and give you an idea. Jonah was asked twice before he answered the call. But be forewarned, I have noted that when we ignore God's call, he may easily come back again tapping you on the shoulder with the equivalent of a two by four.

        Repent thy evil, and not so evil ways.

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, ‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.’ So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.