Monday, October 8, 2007

ten::eight

(a homily)

When I'm found out, when I'm caught in the middle of saying some questionable things, for instance, my throat instantaneously becomes parched. It's as if my pride absorbs all of the moisture in my mouth. "Did I really say that? Really?" And then, like Jonah, the turbulent sea seems inviting. Like the scholar of the Law, a trite statement seems appropriate. Anything to escape investigation.

And so we operate. We probably all have our ways of justifying ourselves. The people we see in our scripture readings this morning did. Accountability for our words and introspective contemplation are not virtues expounded upon in the culture's currents. And so we would like to jump ship when we're forced to face ourselves. And, perhaps, this is what we should do, with some guidance of course. I suggest this out of consideration of today's "psalm," which doesn't come out of the psalter but is Jonah's prayer in the belly of the fish. Going overboard, he recognized his folly and cried out to God. Jonah, upon fainting, remembered the Lord. In the end he had to face himself. And God rescued him from his attempt to escape the truth.

So many of our problems arise out of an unwillingness to be truthful. However, we are here, in the midst of this liturgy, among brothers and sisters, to learn to be truthful. We are here because we are aware of our great need to be rescued from the pit. In faith, not out of a desire to escape, we throw ourselves overboard into the sea of grace. In those waters we are refreshed and once back on the shore we are directed to a table with bread to nourish us and wine to wet our mouths once parched by a fear of ourselves. But the bread and the wine renew us. They bring us into union with God and with each other. And we are made to go out in the likeness of Christ in the merciful fellowship of the Holy Spirit to love God and to love our neighbor.

(Jonah 1:1-2:1-12, 11, Jonah 2:3-5, 8, Luke 10:25-37)

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