What To Do When You Don't Know What to do - When You’re Struggling Part 3 by Pastor Gabrielle Martone at Pearl River United Methodist Church on Sunday 3 May 2020
Jump to
Scripture of the Day
Sermon
Jonah 1:1-3 NRSV
Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
So what do you do when God is calling you to do something you absolutely do not want to do? What do you do when you know that God is leading you to the exact place that you really don't want to be? With the kids during the children's moment, we talked about throwing temper tantrums when life doesn't happen to go the way we want it to, or when our parents ask us to do something that we don't particularly want to do. And while adults have different kinds of temper tantrums, we still have them. We still have this thing inside of us that says we know what's best and we'll do what's best, and if somebody tries to tell us that there's another way to do it or that we're supposed to be doing something else, we throw a temper tantrum. We're done. We don't care. We don't want to do the things that we know that we are supposed to do. We don't want to do the things where God is calling us to be because at the end of the day, we want to live our own lives.
And Jonah is such an extraordinary chapter in the Bible because Jonah is unlike any other prophet before or after him. Jonah is called to go to the city of Nineveh and he really, really runs away, and most other prophets when they eventually do the thing that God has called them to do, they say, "Well, I understand why I had to do this now," and their hearts are changed. Jonah, if you read the whole book, which is only four chapters long, so not that long of a book, you learn that at the end of it, Jonah is still bitter. Even though Nineveh is saved, Jonah goes, "But if you were going to do that all along God, why did I need to be a part of this?"
And I think that that really becomes the question in all of this life, but at the end of the day, God is going to do what God is going to do, why does he need me to follow? Particularly if God is going to do what he is going to do, why do I have to go places I don't particularly want to? In the itinerant system, that is the system by which a bishop makes appointments and sends pastors to where they are going to go next. We are constantly being sent to places that we may not want to go or we are not ready for, or places that we would prefer not to be.
So the first time that I moved appointments, I was at the end of my second year of seminary when I got the phone call that I was leaving and as much as I didn't want to leave my first congregation, I was going to be full-time and I remember how concerned my beloved congregants were that I was going to be taking on this new task, this new full-time school, full-time two church appointments and I was unsure on how I was way to navigate that. And I didn't want to leave. I loved my congregation, I loved and I was so comfortable in the role I had there as their pastor. Then flash forward two more years and as sad as I was to leave my first congregation, I really came to love my two point charge and they taught me so much about being a pastor, about what it meant to be part of the community and how to navigate through the gift of being in a place that offers you so much potential.
And then I got the phone call I was moving again and I didn't want to go to South Jersey. I had no desire. In fact, I had specifically said, "I really don't want to be an associate pastor and I really don't want to move to South Jersey." Because South Jersey was going to be so far for my family and my friends and I just knew my skill sets well enough to know that I don't do well when somebody is an authority over me. You all know this already. I went to South Jersey kicking and screaming in a lot of ways. And the 14 months that I spent down there were really difficult for countless reasons. It was really hard to be away from my family and my friends. It was really hard to figure out my position and where that fit in with my calling. It was really hard to adjust to living by the beach, because I just wanted to be at the beach all the time.
But those 14 months were also some of the most transformative months of my life. Those months taught me so much more than any other congregation or appointment ever had. That taught me about being a leader and being a pastor. And I made lots of mistakes and there are lots of really incredible memories that I carry with me. Those 14 months changed who I was as a person. They changed who I was as a pastor. There are 14 months that have shaped and formed me into the pastor that I am now in the same way that when my appointment changes next, whenever that may be because nobody knows, I will leave with sadness and with trepidation, but knowing fully wholly that this place has changed me.
I think that there's a beautiful part about God who enters into our lives when we think we're doing really well and when life is really comfortable for us and God pulls us out of that place and calls us to do something different. And in that teaches us more about ourselves and about God's calling on our own lives than about anything else. It's my firm belief that Jonah was called to Nineveh not to save the people of Nineveh, but in many ways to save Jonah. And while Jonah ends the book very bitter and angry and confused. I think if we were to revisit Jonah a year or two later, we would see the transformation within him.
What do you do when you know what you are being called to do is the right thing, but it's not something you want? I think about this a lot as we look at social distancing and reopening states, and the impact of the coronavirus overall. What does it mean for us to be led to stay home and to stay socially distant, and to do it for as long as possible so that we can preserve as much life as possible when we don't want to? This week we canceled our Redbird 2020 trip and I will tell you that it was one of the most heartbreaking decisions I've ever been a part of. Now that may selfish and it may sound wrapped up in the things that are most important to me, but for 15 years I have never gone a summer without being part of that mission.
And I think maybe in July we'll be in a really different place up here. I hope in July we'll be in a really different place up here. But the reality is that we don't know what the world is going to look like or what our impact of coming from the New York and New Jersey area will be like as we travel to Southeastern Kentucky where there is already issues with transportation, where there are already issues with people getting the medical help that they need. Where a population that we serve is rift with immunocompromised and those who are elderly and those who have underlying health conditions. And so we made the decision to stay home. And for once or for always, we took to heart that it's not about us.
It is a difficult and a hard and a painful thing to do what we know is right when it goes against what we want, right? Ask any teenage boy who loves playing video games or any 33-year-old man who loves to play video games, when you know you have something else to do, whether it's cleaning the dishes or organizing your shoes or vacuuming the kitchen. The thing that you want to do becomes incredibly more alluring and desiring than ever before and it's very easy for us to get into this trap of only doing what we want when we want, even though we know there's something else we should be doing.
Jonah knew that in the core of who he was, that's why he ran. Jonah knew that as much as he didn't want to, God was calling him to be elsewhere. Jonah knew deep inside of himself that the right thing was to follow God, but he was so afraid of what it would be like that he got on a ship and sailed in the other direction. How many times in your life have you had the gnawing sense that you should be doing something else, but that movement was too scary, too hard, too out of your way, to inconvenient, so you ran in the other direction? How many times have you known exactly what it is that God has called you to do and you have gone kicking and screaming in every other direction?
And how many times has not following God failed you? Not following God has failed me personally a hundred thousand times over. Not following God, not leaning into what I know God is calling me to lean... Not leaning into where I know God is leading me has cost me friendships. It has cost me enjoyment. It has cost me greatly. And I have sat in the belly of that whale time and time and time again because again, I know what's right, right? I know what's best for myself. I am the one who tells God what we're going to do, even though I know it is exactly the opposite of what God would have me do. And I lose, and at the end of the day I never get what I want because instead what I find in God is more life, more blessings, more hope than I ever thought imaginable.
Friends, we live in a time and a place that is so wrapped up in us doing what we want. We live in a culture that says, "It is all about you." But God says to us, "There is so much more." That the world is not about doing what you want and getting what you want, and being instantly gratified every time you desire something. Life is not about us telling God the plan. Indeed, what it is about is God's graciousness, God's promises, God's steadfast love. There is more. And what we find when we stop running away, when we stop kicking and screaming, when we stop throwing tantrums because we don't get what we want is new life. We receive life eternal and not life on our terms, which will always fail, but life that leads to joy and peace, and hope and true love.
So whatever it is that God has placed on your heart that you know you're supposed to be doing, that you know is the right path, may you listen to that. And because I know you won't, because we never do. As you run away and find yourself pondering life in the belly of the whale, may you remember that God is so good. God never gives up on us. God never runs away from us. And that what is on the other side is more abundant, more beautiful, more incredible than you and I could ever have imagined. If I had listened... If I hadn't listened, if I had stayed in the belly of the whale, you wouldn't be here and I wouldn't get to know all of you. And I wouldn't have found happiness and joy, and peace and hope, and steadfast love in the way that I have.
May you too find that on the other side of the running away and the whale waiting, and the running away from God and being spit back up on dry land. In preaching through Nineveh, may you find yourself changed. May you find yourself stronger in your ability to say yes to God. May you find hope in knowing that God never fails, God never gives up. And there is nowhere we can go, no distance we can run, no whale we can hide in where God is not already, today and every day. Amen.
