** Audio take a minute or two to load, please press play and be patient **
SUNDAY 24 SEPTEMBER 2017
The Old Testament is full of people - real people; whose lives are messy, their families dysfunctional and their obedience not always full or immediate, yet God used them. Our study of their lives is to bring perspective, hope and instruction to ours - to recognise that at times we are tempted to sanitise or selectively interact with their stories and in that way make them heroes. The reality is that their stories are powerful because they are human like us and face the same temptations and frailty that we do - yet God used them.
The story of Jonah is an upside down story...
It invites us into what is called non-dual thinking. Or more simply, to ask some questions about the ways that we have judged people.
See in the book of Jonah, the categories are all scrambled.
The “Righteous Israelite” is defiant and lazy and angry.
The “Evil heathens” are open to Gods message.
The upside down-ness doesn't stop there, at the end of the story Jonah goes to Nineveh, and he sees this miraculous change of heart, and he's so angry about it that he wants to die.