Charles Dickens wrote a book comparing and contrasting the cities of Paris and London in the years prior to the French Revolution. Many of us read “A Tale of Two Cities” in either high school or college. Today’s lectionary selections from the Hebrew scripture and Gospel could be subtitled “A Tale of Two Calls” as they offer us a contrast of God’s call to action in our lives.

The first reading is from the very short Book of Jonah – one of the minor prophets. Jonah is only mentioned one other time outside of the book bearing his name in the Book of 2nd Kings. He lived during the reign of King Jeroboam II who reigned over the northern Kingdom of Israel from 789-748 BCE – just before the Assyrians invaded in 721 BCE and wiped Israel off the map. It was said of King Jeroboam II “He restored the border of Israel from Lebo-hamath as far as the Sea of the Arabah, according to the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, which he spoke by his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet, who was from Gath-hepher.”

So this places Jonah as a prophet just prior to the Assyrian invasion. In those days there were really two kinds of prophets – the court prophets, or advisors, to the king and … well … the other guys who generally offered the alternative narrative, so to speak. The “other guys” were people like Hosea and Amos – and they were very critical of the kings and the economic oppression they were inflicting on the people. They said unpopular things which, in essence, said, “Hey, look to the north! The Assyrians are getting powerful! This will be big trouble for you if you keep your foot on the neck of the poor because when the Assyrians invade, who do you think the poor will side with? Not you!!” (OK … I’ve just summarized the basic message, but you get the idea). This was not a popular narrative and the court prophets, who generally were the “yes men” of the king, kept saying everything was just fine because we are God’s people and God will protect us. Some scholars believe Jonah belonged to this group of court prophets and have proposed that the Book of Jonah is actually a satirical jab at the court prophets themselves. I find this an intriguing idea and treating it as satire makes a lot of sense.

First, it gets us past that whole literal thing about his being three days in the belly of the whale (or big fish, which is a better translation). We can take that as metaphor instead of wondering how he could survive the stomach acid of the fish. It also sets the stage better for Jonah’s response to his call. Here’s the Sparknotes version:

God tells Jonah, “Go to Nineveh and tell those people I’m not happy with what’s going on there.” Nineveh is the capital city of … the Assyrian Empire (the empire which is rapidly coming to power in Jonah’s lifetime). Jonah essentially says, “Aw hell no! I’m going to Tarshish.” He books a passage on the next boat out and, while at sea, a great storm comes up. Jonah knows it’s because he bailed on God and throws himself overboard to save the rest of the people (a somewhat noble act given his overall cranky attitude). Big fish swallows Jonah and he spends three days there. In that time he offers up a lament which, quite frankly, is rather narcissistic. It’s all about Jonah and what a bummer it is that his life has come to this. Fish spits Jonah out and God says, “Go to Nineveh and do what I told you to do.” As a side note, Jonah has acquired some cred in this fish episode – the people of Nineveh worship a fish headed god called Dagon and anybody who survived an encounter with Dagon had to be taken seriously. Nineveh is a three day’s journey across, so he sets out, walks for one day which probably just got him inside the city gates … and he says, “God’s gonna get you if you don’t repent.” Then he turns around and leaves. Yeah, he did what God told him to do …by doing the bare minimum! Then he goes up on a cliff to sit down and watch the hellfire and brimstone rain down on Nineveh – because surely God was going to smite them. A plant springs up and gives him shade, for which he’s thankful. Then a worm comes and kills the plant. Jonah grieves over the plant and is kind of ticked off that the Ninevites get off the hook. God says, “Are you kidding me?! You cry over a plant but have no feelings for all of those people?! Seriously?!” … The End. (I told you that’s the Sparknotes version).

So Jonah is one cranky, selfish guy who only reluctantly does what God tells him to do. Contrast that with the reading from Mark about the call of the first disciples. Jesus begins his ministry by preaching repentance and believing in the good news. He sees Simon and Andrew and says, “Follow me and I’ll make you fish for people.” Intrigued, they drop everything and follow Jesus. James and John do the same. Mark gives us a hint about the ages of the disciples in this. The average life span in the Roman Empire was 40 years. James and John are in the boat with their father Zebedee. If Zebedee is still able to work, he’s likely in his 30’s … which would make James and John likely in their late teens. We often see Jesus and the disciples pictured in art as being roughly the same age but this narrative hints at an age difference. So what made them drop everything and follow immediately and willingly? Maybe the hint of an adventure – if you think about it, what future did these guys have? Fishing today, fishing tomorrow, fishing next week … pretty monotonous, isn’t it? And fishermen really weren’t highly regarded by anyone. So suddenly this guy comes along and invites you to follow … well … what have you got to lose, right?

The calls of Jonah, the reluctant follower, and the disciples as willing followers gives us two responses and, frankly, I find I’m usually some mixture of the two. Sometimes I am quick to say “yes” and other times I try to head for Tarshish. For me, ordination to the priesthood was my personal Nineveh. I didn’t spend 3 days in fish guts … more like 26 years of trying to find a way out. But here I am … and Nineveh isn’t so bad after all.

God’s call to each of us demands a response. Each of us in baptism becomes a minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. How we respond to that is the question. The good news is God uses our response, whether willing or reluctant, to work out the plan of salvation. God can use Jonah’s reluctant crankiness as much as he could the willingness of Simon, Andrew, James and John. None of them knew what they were going to get into by following their call. None of us knows exactly where God’s call will take us either. But God is faithful and never leaves us to face this adventure alone.

This year Epiphany fell on Tuesday, although our lectionary gave us a “preview of coming attractions” by touching on the visit of the Magi last Sunday. This Sunday we observe the Baptism of Jesus and the one year anniversary of “Baptizma-palooza” here at Grace where we baptized seven people this time last year. We don’t have any baptisms this morning but, as you can see, the holy water is on the altar and you all are sitting in the splash zone!

Anglicans still celebrate what is known as Epiphanytide. That was dropped from the Roman Catholic calendar during Vatican II and they call this “ordinary time.” Personally, I’m glad we didn’t drop the concept of Epiphanytide. Epiphany is also known as “the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles” and our readings have to do with how Jesus was revealed as Christ to more than just the Jews – he is the Christ for the whole world. The focus of this time of Epiphanytide is focused on the question, “Who is Jesus the Christ to us?” In Lent, we will turn the question around to ask, “Who am I to Jesus the Christ?” It’s like these two seasons are two sides of the same coin. Borrowing from our Orthodox friends, there are three key stories of the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles: the visit of the Magi which we heard last week, the baptism of Jesus who came from Nazareth in Galilee, and the miracle at the wedding feast in Cana of Galilee (which we only hear in Year C of our lectionary). The baptism of Jesus and the wedding miracle mention Galilee. This region in Jesus’ day was called Galilee of the Gentiles and it was where the known Jewish world ended and the alien world of the Gentiles, the “Others,” began. It is a reminder that if we think the Jesus story is only for a small group, we are thinking far too small!

We hear that John is baptizing people in the Jordan River in repentance for sin and the people came confessing their sins. In essence, John was repurposing the mikvah ritual bath of purity and extending it to mean more than bodily cleansing – it was now even more of a spiritual cleansing. This raises a very thorny theological question. If Jesus, as scripture says, was “tempted in every way we are yet did not sin” (Hebrews 4:15), then why did Jesus come to John for a baptism of repentance for sin? Yeah … the “sinless one to Jordan came” … but why? Honestly, this is a mystery we can never know. Some have suggested he did it in solidarity with us as humans. Perhaps. But maybe he felt moved to do this for some other reason … maybe it was part of his discernment process. We do know he was driven into the wilderness for a time of testing immediately following his baptism and we hear there was a voice proclaiming him the Beloved Son. Thus begins the earthly ministry of Jesus to both Jews and Gentiles.
We continue this ritual of baptism in the Church and speak of it as the means by which we enter the life of Grace and by which we renounce the power of Sin. In the early Church, people took this whole washing away your sins literally and would wait until the very end of their lives to get baptized. The rationale was that if I was on my death bed and taking my last few breaths, you could baptize me because there was no way I could possibly sin after that! Thankfully, we don’t wait that long anymore. But, we do recognize that baptism doesn’t magically shield us from sinning. We will sin after our baptism because the power of Sin (capital “S”) is something which “clings closely” (Hebrews 12:1) and will cause our stumbling over and over again. The promise of baptism is that we will never sin it is that Sin doesn’t get the last word.

And this week, that is powerful news. It’s been a hard week for the Episcopal Church, for the Diocese of Maryland, for all of us. On Tuesday, on the Feast of Epiphany, Bishop Sutton and the diocesan staff met with all of us clergy to discuss the terrible tragedy of Tom Palermo’s death and the involvement of our bishop suffragan, Heather Cook, in that collision. I cannot call it an accident. An accident is unintentional and I have trouble speaking of drinking and driving as “accidental.” Drunk driving happens when people make choices to drink and drive regardless of whether they are addicted or not and people make bad choices all the time … but they are not accidents. On Friday, Heather Cook was charged with manslaughter, driving under the influence and texting while driving. Heather’s blood alcohol level at the time of the collision was .22 indicating severe intoxication. Her blood alcohol level at her first arrest for driving under the influence was .27. To give you some perspective, if those of us who are not alcoholic had that level of alcohol in our system, we would be unconscious and possibly dead. This high level of alcohol in Heather’s system speaks to years of heavy drinking to build up a tolerance to the drug. She is alcoholic. She has a disease. But, she also had choices about whether or not to face and treat her disease. We must have compassion on the illness, but we can ask hard questions about why she chose not to treat it.

Like many of you, I have lots of anger, hurt, embarrassment, shame, and frustration. This horrible situation has raised many questions about how she could have been elected bishop and why weren’t the tough questions asked about her sobriety and what kind of program of recovery she was working. These are questions we need to ask because not only did Heather fail us in concealing her alcoholism, we failed her by not asking the hard questions and hiding that under the blanket of being “forgiving” and “pastoral.” There is nothing pastoral about not holding people accountable. There is nothing pastoral about setting Heather up to fail because we wanted to be “nice.”

Yes, the power of Sin has reared its head in this issue. It sucked us all in. Heather’s baptism didn’t prevent her from drinking and driving and it didn’t prevent the death of Tom Palermo because of her choices. But what Heather’s baptism did do, and what ours does for us, is mark us as Christ’s own forever so that Sin will never, ever get the last word. God always gets the last word. Think about it – scripture even tells us that Sin isn’t the last word. Remember that young Pharisee named Saul? The one who was an accessory to the murder of Stephen? Yes, he was an accessory to murder! And yet, Sin didn’t get the last word … he became Paul and spread the message of the crucified and risen Christ to the whole known Roman world. What about Peter, the one who when the chips were down denied Jesus three times? Sin didn’t get the last word … and Jesus returned to him after the resurrection asking “do you love me?” And Thomas who said he would “never believe” in the resurrected Christ? Sin that cause his unbelief didn’t get the last word there either … Jesus returned and Thomas proclaimed him “My Lord and my God!” Even before Christ came, Sin didn’t get the last word … Moses who murdered an Egyptian went on to liberate God’s people from slavery. Over and over the scripture tells us that Sin isn’t the last word and God isn’t finished yet! And if that is true for Paul and Peter and Thomas, and Moses, then it is true for Heather Cook … and you … and me.

Today is one of those days when our Episcopal readings do not follow the Revised Common Lectionary. We get three different options of gospel texts, so it’s “preacher’s choice” day. We are approaching Epiphany, which takes place on Tuesday this year and two of our readings are about the arrival of the Magi seeking the Christ child. The one we’ve just heard is what happened after the Magi visited Mary, Joseph and Jesus and returned to their country by another way so as to avoid returning to Herod. The verses omitted from today’s gospel tell of Herod’s rage and his orders to kill all of the male children in Bethlehem under the age of two in order to remove the threat of a rival king. For those of you who were here last Sunday for Lessons and Carols, you heard this reading in its entirety and sang the haunting Coventry Carol: “His men of might, in his own sight, all young children to slay.” This gruesome story is a reminder that Jesus was a threat to earthly powers from the very beginning … and he still is.

The danger of story, especially those from the Bible which become so familiar, is that our minds and hearts tend to reduce them over time. When you hear something over and over, you tend to reduce the narrative and compartmentalize it, often with the effect of neatly categorizing the settings and characters into flattened images that do not convey the complexity of the human beings as they really were. It’s easy for us to reduce people into the categories of either being a hero or villain. When we do that, we can then divorce ourselves from identifying with the elements of the story and refuse to acknowledge parts of our own character – especially the parts we don’t want to own. After all, who wants to be like King Herod – a despotic, ruthless person who would do anything including kill to protect himself? Surely none of us are like that, are we?

Herod the Great was born in 73 BCE and died in 4 BCE. He was the son of an Idumean father and an Arab mother – he was decidedly not Jewish. Through a series of intrigues involving Julius Caesar, Marc Antony & Cleopatra, and Octavian he became a puppet king of the Judean district encompassing most of modern Israel, the West Bank and the Golan Heights. While Herod was powerful in some ways, he was also very vulnerable. He had a number of enemies including most of the Jewish religious establishment who rejected him even though he married the daughter of the former high priest John Hyrcanus. He lived in the precarious world of Roman politics where choosing sides in conflicts could cause you to wind up dead overnight. In many respects, Herod was a man who lived in fear which drove him to do whatever it took to protect himself – including ordering the death of his father-in-law John Hyrcanus, his wife Mariamme I (daughter of John Hyrcanus) and two of his sons. So when Magi arrive and inquire about a new king, Matthew tells us that Herod was terrified and all Jerusalem with him. In the absence of information, fear sets in and sets the stage for an explosion of rage.

This rival born in Bethlehem who would later claim his kingdom is not of this world challenges Herod and Rome itself – and it is still a challenge to us when we are tempted to protect ourselves at all costs. While we may not personally commit mass murder, there are times when our anger and rage born of fear or confusion can combine with that of others in mass violence. Just before the holidays arrived, our government released more detailed information about the torture and atrocities committed by our own troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. The report was damning and shed light on far more than waterboarding done in the name of truth, justice and the American way. Because of our fear of terrorism, our government and military carried out terrible atrocities against the Iraqi and Afghani people. We want to think we are not like Herod … but this evidence says we are not so different after all.

And it even comes more close to us than that. Although I have been away on vacation, I could not escape the horrible news of the death of Baltimore cyclist Tom Palermo and our own bishop suffragan being the driver of the vehicle that killed him. This news is devastating on so many levels and has stirred many emotions within me from grief, to confusion, to anger. There is a temptation with such strong emotions to rush to some kind of resolution. Often this resolution is born of fear and anxiety and leads us to jump to conclusions based on assumption which is what many have done on social media. The explosion of anger, name calling and figurative demands for our bishop’s blood by those who claimed to be Episcopalians sickened me. All of them justified their vitriol by saying they were “morally outraged” and “demanding justice.” In the absence of information rage exploded and was rationalized and justified … not so unlike Herod after all.

Christ’s birth challenges our own tendencies to want to play judge and jury, to lash out when we hurt or are fearful. He told us to pray for our enemies and even went on to pray for those who turned their violence on him. His example stands as a warning to us when we feel justified in lashing out in the name of moral outrage or demands for justice. The line between moral outrage and self-righteous pontificating is very thin indeed. We are called as people marked by baptism to seek and serve Christ in all persons and love our neighbors as ourselves – even when we don’t want to.

Yes, this sweet little Jesus boy is not so easy to take, is he? He’s still a threat to our egos, our desire to control, and especially to our desire to exercise superiority over others. This Jesus is dangerous even to us. But the danger comes with the hope of transformation for us too. We do not have to remain like Herod – fearful and prone to lashing out. Jesus invites us to be so much more. His death and resurrection provide the pattern for our own – and not just the final physical death, but for all the deaths we will endure in this life … especially the death of our false selves … our egos. Jesus meets us in our fears yet isn’t satisfied to leave us there with them. While the birth of the Prince of Peace did not eradicate sin, and this story reminds us of that truth, he did come so that the power of sin would never get the final word – not for us and not for the children of Bethlehem … or Syria, or Iraq, or Afghanistan. Thanks be to God.