Jonah 3: 1-5, 10 and Mark 1: 14-20

I had an unusually full week last week. I’m sure it wasn’t busier than your week, but all of a sudden, on top of the usual stuff of work and familial responsibilities, I had a slew of deadlines, and I’d started a course and the work was way more than I expected. And a big town event that I’d been helping plan for months was about to take place. And on top of that there were some fun, social things that I had foolishly agreed to months ago, but now they seemed like a burden and a waste of time. Why did I say I would go to the Symphony?

You know those times when you’re going full tilt, and you just can’t accommodate people–you can’t do what they ask you to do, whether it’s pleasurable or serious. Everyday I had to say no to somebody: no, I couldn’t go to the movies, no, I couldn’t go for a walk, no, I couldn’t write a reference–how about next week?, no, I couldn’t attend the meeting that all committee chairs are required to go to.

There were phone calls that I didn’t answer and messages on my answering machine that I didn’t get back to.

Which is why, when I read the story of Jonah, the man who famously got a call from God and said no, I thought: I don’t blame you, Jonah. Sometimes you just can’t do it all. Continue reading

We’ve been waiting for Hurricane Irene all week.  Everyone from the mayor to the weather forecasters has told us to be safe, to stay home.  Governor Patrick said, “Everyone should stay off the roads and indoors.” Bishop Payne urged us to consider canceling worship services.  We were told to get the flashlights ready, turn off the appliances, secure the gutters.  High winds and heavy rain and flooding can be very dangerous, even life-threatening.  The basic message is: Hunker down.  Avoid getting caught in the storm.  Protect yourself.

We here are evidence that not everyone takes these warnings to heart.  But of course Irene hasn’t hit us with full force.  Imagine if we did get the hurricane-force winds that were originally forecast—that shingles were flying off houses, that trees were downed across roads everywhere.  Imagine that we look out our windows and see destruction, and more destruction to come.  Imagine that a young woman is in a small sturdy house on the water, on the South Shore, where she and her family have responsibly gathered candles, flashlights, canned goods, gallons of water.  Imagine she sees through the pounding rain a boat out on the water.  Did the boat get loose from its mooring? Is that a person in the boat? Are they being swamped by the waves? She goes to call 911 but the phone is dead.  I have to go out there, she says to no one in particular.  Her husband shouts, “Don’t go. It’s crazy! You’ll be killed.” He grabs her arm: “There’s no reason to risk your own life. You have a family to think of!” But she slips out of his grasp, and grabs a jacket and heads out into the hurricane. Who was right, the woman or her husband?

I think now of one of our Lutheran saints, a German man, a Lutheran pastor named Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who entered a storm of international proportions because he felt he was needed.

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