Sunday Homily 1-25-09, 3rd Ordinary Time
Readings: Jonah 3, 1-5 & 10; Psalm 25; 1 Corinthians 7, 29-31; Mark 1, 14-20
Jonah: This little book of 4 chapters is a gem and tells a delightful short story.
Background: Jonah has been asked by Yahweh to go to Nineveh in Assyria to tell the people & leaders that they are evil and will be punished shortly by Yahweh. Trouble is, Nineveh is the enemy, like me going to Houston or Philadelphia. So he runs away, catches a boat headed for Spain, is blamed by the sailors for causing a big storm on the sea, and is dumped overboard. The whale swallows him and for three days Jonah is constrained to reflect on what he is doing. When, after 3 days, the whale dumps him on shore, Jonah is more willing to listen. We arrive at this point and I will have all of chapter 3 read.
Author: For centuries, while people took this story as factual, Jonah was considered author of his own story. Once seen as a fable or allegory, the story obviously has some unknown ancient as the author.
Date of composition: no one really knows, but educated guesses put it ca. 800 BCE.
The Call, again
You hear the story about the young boy returning home one afternoon? He lived in a rural area and was taking a short cut through a field he knew of. Suddenly a coyote started following him. He ran. The coyote ran faster. The boy knew the coyote was going to catch him before he got home and was going to eat him.
So he stopped. He turned to face the coyote, and said, "I know you will catch me and eat me. But before you do so, please sing me a song in your beautiful voice." The coyote agreed and began to howl his song to the boy.
At home the boy's beloved dog heard the coyote's howl, knew his master was in danger, raced to the sound, and scared away the coyote. Moral of the story: in times of danger, use your head.
Ever hear this story? It is one of Aesop's fables.
I tell this story about the boy and the coyote to exemplify what the story of Jonah & the whale is. A fable. It has a moral. What is it?
Before answering, let me highlight something. Jonah & the whale has humor all through it. Even after the episode we read today, Jonah's behavior continues to be amusing. Jonah goes to Nineveh to tell them to repent or the Lord would punish them. Lo and behold, they repent, and quickly. Is Jonah delighted and congratulating them? On the contrary, he throws a snit and in a huff goes outside of the town and sits under a small tree. He and Yahweh converse. Yahweh asks Jonah what right has Jonah to be mad at Yahweh for showing mercy to the people of Nineveh.
The moral of the story: listen to God's call in your heart if you want to be happy, despite the amusing ending.
For contemporary example, here's a story that relates to Tuesday's marvelous event. I have a friend who went to U.T. in the early 60's. He came up from Plainview. This was in the middle of the civil rights activity and he and his buddy decided to join the campus NAACP, an organization I, too, worked with from '65-'68, even living one summer with a hero black lady friend of mine in south Dallas. Dead now unfortunately, her name was Wanita Kraft.
The goal of the university chapter of the NAACP that year was the integration of the Texas and the University theaters on "The Drag," Guadalupe Street across from the University. The university chapter was fairly large and they had volunteers who would parade in circles in front of each theater every evening. My friend and his buddy would get assigned about once a week. Before they went they changed into old clothes that they would not miss if they got torn up or bloody.
Torn up and bloody they did. People would come by not just to yell and curse them. They would not just throw trash, tomatoes, eggs, and beer bottles. They would come out of their cars and trucks, come up to them, and flail away. The policy of the group was non-violence, following the example of Martin Luther King who followed Ghandi among others. So what do you think they did? Punch them out? Knock them down? They would drop to the ground and cover their heads. My friend says that was the hardest thing. To accept getting kicked, punched, spit on, and trashed while not responding.
Eventually the punchers would tire and drive away. Then a rescue team of some girls would emerge to help them up, clean their wounds, and take to the hospital those hurt more seriously.
Wonder what happened? One year of nightly demonstrations and the theaters integrated. My friend remembers the night they lined up to buy tickets, one white, one black. Like I did, my friend had a lot of tears watching the inauguration Tuesday morning.
Jonah had the call, the four had the call, my friend had the call.
What is your call?
AUDIO: http://mysite.verizon.net/reso7rjy/sitebuildercontent/sitebuilderfiles/2009-01-25.mp3
Some of my references:
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Aesop's Fables: The Boy & the Wolf
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The Carmelite web site
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The Dominican web site (Spanish only)
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St. Raymond Catholic Parish, Dublin, CA web site
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Bishop John Shelby Spong, various works and articles in Mirabile Dictu, edited by David Gawlik
Picture 1: Mass with Sabrina & Anthony
Picture 2: Communion distributors–Gerri, Ron, Jan, Patricia, John, Beth & Rob
Picture 3: Communion–Ron & Marilyn Ackerman, Nina Waldron, Jerry Weiss
Picture 4: Carl reading Jonah