Canticle of the Turning

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Mark 1:14-15

I Cor 7: 29-31

Turn it around, flip it upside-down. How about a U-Turn?  Redirect the course.  Change.  Or in Biblical language, repent.   It’s not my favorite word, and the notions of sandwich board doomsday sayers who pop up from time to time make me cringe.  Repent is one of those words that needs redeeming.  The lectionary readings for this day share a prophetic voice speaking for God, an invitation for repentance in it’s literal sense, to turn around, change course, redirect attention and life’s energy.  Metanoia, the Greek word for repent, calls for turning in our thoughts, minds, hearts and intension. It is the voice of God calling for change, a canticle of turning.

Jonah, that reluctant prophet, is one of my favorite prophets because he is so human.  He has the audacity to disobey God’s instructions and initially runs away from the task of speaking God’s words of repentance.  Unable to avoid God or the message he trudges into despised Nineveh and gives the message of doom to that great city.  Yes, he is a doomsday prophet.  Not good news for Nineveh.  And then the twist. Despite Jonah’s distain for Nineveh and his appointed task, the people listen and believe.  They believed God, says the text, and repented.  They recognized that they were in need of changing course, that something was amiss: listening, believing, obeying the call to something better, something more. From the least to the greatest, animal and human, all participated in a fast of repentance, of remorse, of a decision to change their ways.  Whether they did actually change their ways we don’t know.  The surprising twist is that God repented also. God changed his mind.  It says it right there in black and white. Maybe the book of Jonah is less about Jonah and Nineveh and more about a God of compassion who is not bent on judgment and condemnation, but a God who also changes course in order for life and grace to abound.  This is exactly what Jonah did not like about God.  He knew God to be merciful.  Jonah had hoped for destruction.  Jonah needed a little repentance of heart himself.

The apostle, Paul, encouraged the early church time and time again to not be conformed to this world.  As a prophetic voice, a mouthpiece for God, Paul urged his hearers to something more, something greater.  Paul, like his fellow apostles, believed that the return of Christ was eminent, the appointed time has grown short…for the present form of this world is passing away, so now is the time to be God-ward, God focused, new life focus, for all things are about to change, so he believed.  His was a message of metamorphosis, metanoia, shifting the focus and energy from being established comfortably to the world’s standards to living into a higher, broader, deeper reality of holy living, now.  Now is the time.  God’s invitational message to repentance through Paul may be a reminder to the church today that now is the time.  Rather than looking to some futuristic heavenly realm when all things will be transformed and made into God’s full intention, NOW, this present moment; now is the time to live into Godliness.  We are invited every moment into the now-opportunity to live into who and what the Holy One would intend for us and for the world.

Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming good news; the time is now, he said, the realm of God, the ways of God’s intent and desire are right here close by you, so wake up, turn around, turn your attention to what God is doing in your midst. (Miriam’s paraphrase)  I imagine the first century Galilee within the Roman Empire was not unlike previous centuries (or the following centuries) of Nineveh, Jericho, Babylon, or Jerusalem when bad news of oppression, of scarcity, of vying for power, economic disparity, and violence seemed to dictate the media.  Jesus, a mouthpiece of God, came preaching “good news” of repentance, of God’s work to change things up.  In the midst of doomsday sayers in his own time, Jesus brought a message of God’s desire to turn things inside out and upside down to bring life.

All of God’s word, written, within the story of the centuries and within our stories, and embedded within the creation is the proclamation of the good news of change, of possibility, of transformation, of beginning again, repentance as a daily practice, conversion or converting what was into what could be.  Now is the time again, says Jonah and Paul and Jesus.

What are we invited to change in this day? in our personal lives? in our shared experience in this world?  Now is the time to listen to God’s calling for good news of transforming grace, for all things are changing.  Do we have the ability to hear the voice of God calling, inviting us into greater life?  Can we be like Nineveh or the first disciples and heed to voice of God inviting transformed living?

16^th century mystic, Teresa of Avila writes:

Let nothing trouble you,

let nothing frighten you.

All things are passing;

God never changes.

Patience obtains all things.

He who possesses God lacks nothing:

God alone suffices.

Of course the Jonah story reminds us that God does change.  Perhaps it is God’s intention toward LIFE, toward mercy and grace and peace that is changeless, and how God empowers that to happen in and through us is what is changeable.  A Christian folk song from the 70s reminds us that God is changing everything, everything, everything, everything.

Mary’s song that we know as the Magnificat, is song of God turning things around (Luke 1:47-55).  Mary celebrates that she is part of the great turn around that God was enacting.  It’s a song of praise, a song of joy, that celebrates the holy reversal of what’s gone haywire.  Rory Cooney’s arrangement of the Magnificat and set to the Celtic tune of Star of the County Down is a wonderful rendition and reminder of God who is turning the world around through us. 

My heart shall sing of the day you bring. 

Let the fires of your justice burn.

Wipe away all tears, for dawn draws near,

and the world is about to turn!

Hear Rory Cooney sing her Canticle of the Turning at

 (www.youtube.com/watch?v=TXyGh1MW2OM) or find a copy and listen or learn the Canticle of the Turning.

May we like Mary, like Nineveh, like the followers of Jesus, participate in the repentance of God and God’s activity in us to bring the world to wholeness.