Sermon: "I Worship the LORD"

In the summer of 2013, I went on a trip to study worship and Christianity in the UK. My class was required to create a worship-related project, and mine included two sermons from the book of Jonah. Here is my first sermon, "I Worship the LORD."

Jonah 1-2

There are many ways to worship God, but some ways are better than others.

The book of Jonah begins with God calling the prophet Jonah to cry out against the wicked city of Nineveh. In response, Jonah flees from the presence of God. He goes in the opposite direction, buying a ticket to Tarshish.

But God will not let go of Jonah. God sends a storm that threatens to break up the ship Jonah is on. The sailors do all they can to lighten their load. Jonah, however, is asleep at the bottom of the ship. The sailors cast lots and discover that Jonah is to blame for the storm. They ask him a variety of questions to learn who he is: “What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?”

               

In response, Jonah says, “I am a Hebrew. I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and dry land.”

It is interesting that Jonah answers by saying that he worships God. He could have said, “I am a prophet,” or “I am the son of Amittai,” or “I was born in Israel.” Instead, Jonah defines himself as someone who worships God.

               

What does it mean to worship God? If you break the word apart, worship means “worth-ship,” or something that has worth, or value. We give worth to many things. When we eat lunch with friends, we are saying that they are worth our time. When we go for a walk, we give worth to the experience of walking, turning aside from doing something else, such as reading a book or going on a computer. To worship God, then, is to say that God is worth our time and attention. If you go back far enough into the history of the word “worship,” you come to the word vertere, which means “turn.” God is worth the turn that we make in order to remember and give ourselves to God.

               

This summer, I joined a class trip to Scotland and England. For one week, we stayed at the Iona Abbey on the Isle of Iona, Scotland, where we lived in community with members of the abbey and about thirty other guests who were visiting.

One of the things I learned while on Iona is that the Iona Community considers everything they do—from sharing meals to cleaning up to singing to hiking—to be a form of worship. So they do not call their services “worship services” because that would mean that everything else they do is not worship. Instead, they consider the services “public worship.” This has made me think about everything I do as potentially an act of worship to God.

Writing an essay for class can be an act of worship because through writing, I can delight in God’s gift of words. Walking to class can be an act of worship because I can give thanks for the beauty of the morning light. Listening and sharing in conversations can be an act of worship because it can fulfill the commandment to love our neighbors as we love ourselves. Even a seemingly insignificant part of my life, such as brushing my teeth, can be an act of worship—although some cases take more creativity than others in discovering exactly how they are worship. Any moment can be an opportunity to turn to God.

Jonah makes that turn when he answers the sailors, saying, “I worship the LORD.” This is the turning point of Jonah’s story. So far, he has been running from God and God’s calling. But when he answers the sailors’ questions by saying that he worships God, he reveals that he is now taking God seriously, that he is waking up and remembering who he truly is: someone who worships God. As a result, everything changes.

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It is not only interesting what Jonah says, but when he says it. By saying “I worship the LORD” in the middle of his running from God, Jonah suggests that running from God is one of the ways he worships.

How is running from God an act of worship? We find out later that Jonah does not want to go to Nineveh because he has a hunch that if he preaches to the Ninevites, who are the enemies of Jonah’s people, then God will forgive the Ninevites. And if God forgives them, then perhaps Jonah will have to forgive them too. Jonah’s running expresses not only his hatred for his enemies, but also his knowledge of how great God’s mercy is for all people. Jonah’s running declares the steadfast love and compassion of God. Like a child’s tantrum or prayer, Jonah’s running also expresses desire or fear. And at the very least, running from God shows that God is worth the energy it takes to run!

Like Jonah, some of us may be running from God or God’s call. Sometimes God asks us to do things we do not want to do, so we run. We turn away.

During our week on Iona, one day some of us rode a boat to the island of Staffa. A small group of us climbed along the edge of a cliff into Fingal’s Cave, where I felt a tiny urge to sing. But I dismissed the thought. Then I heard a woman’s voice, followed by another voice in harmony, singing a hymn.

Staffa

The next day, I was reflecting on my time on Iona, and I thought about Fingal’s Cave and how I did not sing, and the question came to me: “Why didn’t you sing?” I did not answer right away, but I later realized that I did not sing because I was afraid of what people might think of me, afraid of standing out.

The question “Why didn’t you sing?” had significance for me not only regarding my decision to not sing in Fingal’s Cave, but for other times when I had an opportunity to sing, to worship God, to follow God’s calling, and I did not obey. I ran.

Perhaps, in some strange way, my running from God was a form of worship. But it was incomplete. If Jonah, or I, or we want to fully worship God, we must eventually stop running and return to God, as Jonah does when he answers the sailors’ questions. In other words, even our running may bring glory to God. But let’s strive for better, more mature forms of worship. We will never know what could have happened had Jonah, had we, said “Yes” the first time.

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Upon hearing about Jonah’s God, who made the sea and land, the sailors are frightened, and they ask what they must do to Jonah in order to stop the storm. Jonah says to throw him overboard. Here Jonah not only says he worships God, but he acts like it. When he offers himself into the sea, Jonah offers his life back to God. The sailors ask God for mercy for what they are about to do. And when they throw Jonah overboard and the storm ceases, the sailors worship God.

What does Jonah gain by saying “Yes” to God, by confessing the truth, by jumping into the sea? At the end of the story, Jonah goes and preaches to the Ninevites, and as he predicted, the Ninevites turn to God and God forgives them. Jonah does not get what he wants. But he does gain firsthand knowledge of the love of God. And until he obeys God, he threatens his own life and the lives of those around him.

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Through a large fish that swallows Jonah, God gives Jonah a second chance. In the belly of the fish, Jonah keeps his word to the sailors: he worships God by singing a psalm of thanksgiving. Here is how he ends his song:

As my life was ebbing away,

I remembered the Lord;

And my prayer came to you,

Into your holy temple.

Those who worship vain idols

Forsake their true loyalty.

But I with the voice of thanksgiving

Will sacrifice to you;

What I have vowed I will pay.

Deliverance belongs to the Lord!

In the belly of the fish, Jonah makes a sacrifice. But this sacrifice is not with an animal, as it would have been at the temple; it is with singing. Before, Jonah worshiped God incompletely by running from God. He worshiped the idol of a life apart from God. Now that Jonah turns toward God, his worship is complete, and he is ready to go to Nineveh.

Through the fish, God gives Jonah a second chance to fulfill his call as a prophet and preach to Nineveh. But not only that: God gives Jonah a second chance to fulfill his deeper call, the call deep within us all, to worship God fully.

This gives me hope that despite our running away from God, God gives us second chances. God does not give up on us.

Perhaps some of us are running from something God has been prompting us to do. Perhaps some of

us are running from God. Keep your eyes out for God’s presence following you even in your running. Keep listening for questions that life may ask you, opportunities to answer truthfully and turn to God. Keep looking for God’s invitations and second chances, and when they come, may you have the courage to respond with “Yes.”

There are many ways to worship God, but some ways are better than others. Jonah’s life expresses many different ways to worship God—running, speaking truthfully, singing—but perhaps the best way he worships is by obeying God. May God give us the ears to hear God’s call and the courage to follow. And wherever God may lead us, whether to a great city or to the bottom of the world, may we, like Jonah, learn to sing.

Sermon on Jonah 3-4: "A Garden in the Wilderness"