GOD OUTSIDE THE BOX
Jonah 1:1-17, Jonah 3:10-4:11
[Since spoken communication differs from written, some of the grammar and syntax of this transcript may seem awkward in written form. To keep integrity with the spirit of the original delivery, the transcript seeks to stay close to the exact words spoken.]
This week I'm going to do something a little different, in my approach to the sermon, than what I normally do. I'm going to tell some stories--stories that may not seem to have much to do with each other. And maybe you can figure out a thread that runs between them, but if you can't I will give it to you. I will somehow, with divine help, connect these stories to one another. So hang in with me, as you hear these.
The first story you already heard--it's the story of Jonah, the reluctant prophet. And we'll talk more about that, of course, in a moment. But here's the second story that I want to share with you. It's about a real historical figure named Charles Blondin. Charles Blondin was one of the greatest heroes of the 19th century. In the era before we had great baseball and football heroes, there was "The Great Blondin" who made his fame by doing feats of derring-do and defying death and danger as an acrobat. But his most famous acts were as a tightrope walker. And his greatest fame came in June of 1859 when he became the first person to cross Niagara Falls on a tightrope--a quarter mile, from the United States to Canada.
And he didn't do it only once--he did it many times, each time with a different daring spin to the attempt. He did it in a sack; on stilts; on a bicycle; in the dark. One time he even did it with a stove and cooked an omelet and ate it between the United States and Canada. But one of his most famous feats crossing the Falls happened when he asked his assistant to bring out a wheelbarrow. And he had his assistant put a 200 lb weight in the wheelbarrow. And he blindfolded himself, and walked across the tightrope from the United States to Canada, pushing the wheelbarrow. And when the Canadians greeted him, their cheers were louder than the Falls below. "You are the Great Blondin!" they cheered. And he silenced the crowd, and he asked them this question: "Do you believe that I'm able to carry a man across the Falls?" And they all answered, "Yes! You are the Great Blondin! You can do anything, of course! Yes!" And he silenced the crowd once again, and asked, "Who's first?" There was no response.
(A postscript to this story, though. He did do that feat with his assistant on his back at one point. That's true. You can look it up.)
Here are some more stories. In 1999 the oldest synagogue west of the Mississippi River was deliberately burned down, and its library of 5000 books destroyed. A mosque in Yuba City, CA was burned down before it was ever completed. In Flint, MI at another mosque, vandals slashed every single tire on the cars in the parking lot while the faithful were at prayer. In Kansas City, the faithful came to their Hindu temple only to find a side of beef hanging near the altar, and the word "Leave" painted in blood on the walls. February 24th of this year: 60 Shiite pilgrims died on their way to Karbala for the crime of being Shiite. The list, of course, goes on and on.
So what's the common thread between these stories? Maybe it's not evident to you, but hopefully it will be by the end of this sermon. Let's go back to that story of the tightrope walker--the Great Blondin. I wonder, for the purpose of this morning and this sermon, if we might elevate that story to a higher status, maybe even the status of a sort of divine myth that is an analog to what it is that we're doing here, in church; a story that corresponds to our own tradition, to the Christian tradition. Let's think of it that way, as a parable, that has sort of come from the heavens to instruct us this morning. And maybe let's think of that figure, the Great Blondin, as a figure--a stand-in even--for the person who has called us together: even Jesus the Christ. Let's think of the great tightrope walker in that way. And maybe we might imagine that the great tightrope walker, as the incarnation of God, is the only one who's been to the other side of the chasm, and as God, knows that it's the other side, beyond the Falls, that is the destiny of every human person. Knows that that is what we're meant to experience, life on the other side of the chasm. But also, in this strange parable, imagine that the only way to get there is through him--by getting in the wheelbarrow.
And so if we imagine this story as a parable for us in that way, there are several things we might be able to say. One thing we might say is this: that to get to the other side of the chasm, if that is the purpose of human life, we really need to believe that the tightrope walker is capable of getting us there. And belief is not some theoretical proposition; it's not some philosophy that our minds assent to. Believing is what gets you in the wheelbarrow, right? To believe is a very concrete act. It's what places your body in the hands of the tightrope walker. And the only way you're going to get to the other side is to believe.
Now maybe you know where I'm going with this story. There are some, and I'll include myself in this, who believe that if the tradition that has called us together is to do what it's designed to do--that is to transform human lives--the only way it's capable of doing that is by people really believing the truth claims it places upon us. We need say yes to the question the great tightrope walker asks us: "Do you believe I can carry a man over there?"
There are many who may believe that Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life, as he claims in John 14. And I think that this is a wonderful story to speak about what Jesus is implying in that statement. You know, if Jesus said, "I am the way, the truth, and the life. The only way you're going to get to the other side is via me...is by getting in this wheelbarrow." Then we might understand what Jesus means by that phrase. And so, some might say that this is the only way we can see at this point to get to the other side--through Jesus. Because we if we don't really believe the claims to truth implied in our tradition, in our faith, then our tradition is in danger of being merely a philosophy. It has good moral lessons to teach us; Jesus is a wonderful moral master who can inspire us; but there's very little the tradition can do to actually transform our lives. It may allow us to say interesting things about the relative tightness of the rope; the composition and age of the rocks it's attached to; the depth of the chasm; the personality of the tightrope walker. At worst we may co-opt that story for our own purposes, and politics, and ideology. But that kind of religion's never going to get us across the chasm.
So that's one thing we can say about that story. It requires us to believe if we're to get anywhere. And if we stretch this metaphor maybe almost to its breaking point, we might ask other questions--other problems might surface through this story. Like, we might ask the question, Why are we the only ones in the audience? The ones who receive this invitation to get in the wheelbarrow and cross to the other side? What about the people who stayed home that day? Or what about the people making alternate claims about how to get across the chasm? Or the people who deny there's a chasm to begin with? What do we do about them? And as we use this story as an analog to our religious tradition, maybe this is the most important problem that we can talk about: how do we prevent what we believe, what we passionately believe as people of faith, from elevating us above others, and using our story to do violence? Whether that's physical violence; or whether that's simply bigotry, and sexism, and racism.
I think that may be the most important problem that we face as human beings in this beginning of the 21st century. How do we prevent using religion--what's meant to transform human lives--from being an excuse to kill each other?
Most scholars think the story of Jonah comes to be after the exile, the Babylonian exile, when the people are coming back to Jerusalem to rebuild it, and Ezra and Nehemiah are saying the reason we got clobbered, why the Babylonians sacked us, is because we got messed up with foreigners. And so what Ezra says to the Israelite men is, "If you've married a foreign wife, you need to divorce her and send her away. We need to be pure. Because God's covenant is with us, not with them." And then here's this story--Jonah. The anti-prophet. And did you notice that the heroes in this story are the foreigners? Not Jonah, not the pious Israelite. The heroes in this story are the people like the members of the crew. Did you get that? They did everything that they could to prevent throwing him overboard. In a midrash that I heard recently, the rabbis told a story outside the story. That the people in the crew, the non-Israelites, were so concerned about killing an innocent person that they took Jonah and they just stuck his feet in the waters, and the waters calmed down for awhile. And then they took him out, thinking that maybe that would be enough. And then the storm, once again, started raging. And then they put him down to his hips, and they thought maybe that would work, and they took him out. And then, you know, the storm raged again. Everything they could do to prevent throwing him overboard. They are portrayed as paragons of moral righteousness as opposed to Jonah, bitter that foreigners were not getting wiped out by an angry God. And, the heroes in this story are also the Ninevites, who repent after hearing Jonah's very begrudging proclamation.
Now Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. And it's hard for us to imagine just how hated those people would have been for the Israelites. Think Al Qaeda. Think Al Qaeda as not just a small band of fanatics, but Al Qaeda having been the dominant power in the world at that time. Think IranÖthat's what we're talking about here. Think Jerry Falwell being sent to Iran, and Jerry Falwell getting ticked off because they get the message, and God doesn't kill them! God doesn't destroy them. If you understand that, then you understand the story of Jonah. You see, the idea, the very radical idea going on here in Jonah, is that God is not just concerned about us, the people who happen to believe in the story. God is concerned about the Ninevites. Can we imagine that God cares about Al Qaeda, and Iran? Because really, this is what this book is asking us to do. This book is asking us to take God outside the box that we have placed God in. The box that says God only cares about people who are believers, and who know the story.
But there is, I think, and important distinction here, that we should be wary of. It doesn't mean that we go outside the tradition in which we're standing. We still believe in the story. It doesn't mean that all clams to the truth are equal--that everybody who is claiming truth is necessarily equal in this understanding of truth. But it's saying that our own faith stance requires us to see that God doesn't just care about us, but cares about the people outside our box. And though we believe our story to be true, we must be able to listen to other stories, and to see if perhaps we might also hear the ring of truth, as we understand it, in their stories as well. We might consider that God chooses not only work exclusively through us, the church; but that God might work through the most unlikely of people--at least to us. People like the Ninevites.
This past week, I participated in a conference on Scriptural Reasoning, which was completely new to me before I was somehow invited to participate with this group. Scriptural Reasoning is a means by which Christians, Jews, and Muslims--or groups from any faith--come together to read scripture, to read the scripture of each tradition together. And it doesn't require that you step outside your faith tradition and assent to some amalgamated lowest common denominator to talk--it requires that you stand in your faith tradition. Requires that you really believe as a Christian, or a Jew, or a Muslim--because that is the most fruitful beginning point for conversation. It was most amazing to learn how a Muslim reads his scriptures, the Koran; or a Jew reads her scriptures, the Hebrew Scriptures. And after that conversation, one aspect of this process is to treat each scripture as one's own--even those from the other traditions. And it was for me a very transformative process, through which I felt the Holy Spirit moving among us. And I hope I continue to have a chance to do that practice with other Muslims and Jews into the future--perhaps we can do so together.
If we are to survive as a human species in the 21st century, I think those kind of conversations are more important than ever. To be able to hear the story of the other, without ceasing to really believe in the story that's been revealed to us. So my encouragement, or my challenge, is not to lose your faith when you talk to other people who might be different. But just to talk to other people who are different. If you know a Muslim, strike up a friendship, and ask them about their faith tradition. Someone who's Jewish or Hindu--talk to them. Have a cup of coffee. Try to understand how their faith tradition works, and don't be shy to find a loving way to share your own. That may just be the most important conversation we can have at this stage of our history, if we are to repair the world, and prevent our religious traditions from being a means to further tear it apart.
And so in the name of Jonah, and in the name of Jesus, may it be so. Amen.
July 20, 2008
The Reverend Jeffrey A. Vamos
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