Today's sermon was on Jonah 1:1-17. The story of a man called by God but unwilling to speak up against the wickedness of the world. Jonah fled from his calling. You know the story. The sailors cast lots to figure out who was to blame for the storm, and found out that Jonah was fleeing from God. They tried to row to land but the storm got worse. They finally threw Jonah overboard and the storm subsided.
Now, I don't have anything in particular against literal interpretation of the Bible. In fact I believe it is inspired and inerrant. But one of the really neat things about the scriptures is that they are true on many levels, both literal and metaphorical. This story may be literally true, but it also stands as a metaphor for a situation that people find themselves in too often.
Running from God's calling to be holy (that is, unique, different) and to speak out against the evil in the world. When we do this (and we all do), we find that things get stormy. When we try to ride out the storm under our own power we find the chaos gets worse. When we commit ourselves to the company of people who are fleeing from God's call we find that the chaos becomes unbearable. There is no peace until we let go of them and let them fall.
Interestingly, that is what we are doing in Aikido - using physical conflict as a vehicle to explore this principle that sometimes people who are on the wrong path require more strength than you have to use to support them.
0 comments:
Post a Comment