“ASK NOT WHAT BARAK CAN DO FOR YOU”

JONAH 3:1-10

 

3:1 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah the second time, saying,

2 “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and call out against it the message that I tell you.”

3 So Jonah arose and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly great city, three days' journey in breadth.

4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's journey. And he called out, “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They called for a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least of them.

6 The word reached the king of Nineveh, and he arose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

7 And he issued a proclamation and published through Nineveh, “By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything. Let them not feed or drink water,

8 but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them call out mightily to God. Let everyone turn from his evil way and from the violence that is in his hands.

9 Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.”

10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God relented of the disaster that he had said he would do to them, and he did not do it.

 

It’s been suggested that there are two kinds of people in the world.  There are those who wake up each day and say, “Good morning Lord!” and then there are those who wake up each day and say “Good Lord, it’s morning!” I guess you could say it’s the difference between being an optimist and a pessimist. Since the inauguration this past week a lot of people seem to be a lot more optimistic about the future.  That optimism though needs to be tempered with a word of caution. The word of caution is this: Anyone who thinks that any politician of any political persuasion is going to turn the country around is going to be disappointed.

 

All you have to do is look at what happened in Nineveh to see it just doesn’t work that way. Nineveh was the ancient capital of Assyria and it had a reputation for being a notorious den of iniquity.  It was full of people who were corrupt, callous and down right crooked.

 

The situation in Nineveh was similar to the situation that a preacher encountered shortly after his congregation voted to build a new church.  After the vote was announced a man who owned the local saloon stood up and said, “I think this is a great idea. I’m going to give $50,000 for the new church.”  Unfortunately the announcement but the preacher in an awkward position.  You see the preacher knew the saloon was a place where people went to do some serious sinning. It was a place that was full of women, drinking and gambling. So, with that in mind the preacher thanked the owner of the saloon for his generous offer but said, “I’m afraid I can’t accept your money.”  Upon hearing that one of the other parishioners hollered, “Oh go ahead and take it reverend.  It our money anyhow.” 

 

In the same way, things were bad in Nineveh; so bad that God sent Jonah to Nineveh with a message. According to Jonah the people of Nineveh that they had 40 days to repent; 40 days to turn things around.

 

Now Jonah must have been a really good preacher because the people listened to what he had to say.  They took his words to heart and after they repented of their sins they immediately began to turn things around in Nineveh. 

 

There are lots of people would argue that the same thing needs to happen right here in the good old U.S. of A.  The country is heading in the wrong direction and needs to be turned around. What else can you say about a country where a popular video game gives you points for shooting police officers, soliciting prostitutes and running people over?  That video game, by the way, is Grand Theft Auto and the company that makes it has already raked in over $500 million dollars.  The country is heading in the wrong direction and needs to be turned around. What else can you say about a country where the only way the state can find the money it needs for its schools is by getting people addicted to scratch tickets.  By the way, I saw the lottery at its worse several years ago when I went into Ryer’s to by a newspaper.  While I was there I saw a mother with two little children go to the counter with a gallon of milk.  In addition to the gallon of milk she decided to buy a couple of scratch tickets. When she opened her wallet though she discovered that she didn’t have enough money.  So, do you know what she did?  She put the milk back and bought the scratch tickets.  Do things need to turn around in the good old U.S. of A.?  You bet they do.  Just this past week I got another phone call from the North Reading Athletic Boosters.  They wanted to know if the church would make a donation to support the youth in town.  I told the caller that I would personally take out my checkbook and write them a check for $200 if they would promise not to schedule any games or practices on Sunday morning. The caller didn’t take me up on my offer. He said he would pass the suggestion on to the people who run the sports programs here in town. Apparently, we live in a country where it is now more important for our kids to learn how to kick a soccer ball than it is to learn the Golden Rule.  When you realize where our priorities are is it any wonder that so many of our kids get into drugs and have babies before they’re out of high school?  Then you have the movies that are full of profanity and promiscuity.  You know I’m convinced that a lot of our Hollywood directors think that a sentence isn’t grammatically correct if it doesn’t have a noun, verb and swear word in it.

 

All of this is why it’s hard to disagree with something William Bennett said a few years ago. William Bennett at one time was Secretary of Education. Ths is what he said, “Despite our wonders and greatness, we are a society that has experienced so much social regression, so much decadence, in so short a period of time, that in many parts of America we have become the kind of place to which civilized nations used to send missionaries.”  It’s a scary thought isn’t it?

 

One of my other favorite stories about William Bennett has to do the sanctity of marriage or the lack thereof.  Several years ago he was invited to attend a wedding where the bride and groom were going to write their own vows.  A few days before the wedding he learned that the bride and groom weren’t say the traditional “till death do us part…” pledge. Instead they were going to promise to stay together “as long as our love shall last.”  After he heard that Bennett said he went out and bought them paper plates for a wedding gift.

 

The situation today isn’t all that different from the way things were in Nineveh. Don’t expect the politicians to take the lead though when it comes to turning things around.  That’s not the way it worked in Nineveh.