Sunday Service - 1/22/2012 - Sam Wells

A service of worship in Duke University Chapel. The Reverend Dr Samuel Wells delivers a sermon entitled "I'm a Prophet, Get Me Out of Here."

Opening excerpt from the sermon: (25:24)

"I was on a Christian radio show a week or two ago and the presenter was asking me about one of my books. He said, "I guess you found yourself asking these questions and having these wonderings, and you thought, 'I'll go look at the Bible and see what God wants to say about these things.'" I wasn't looking to be argumentative, but I replied, "In fact, it was the other way around. I was reading the Bible and it made me ask all these questions and have all these wonderings." I quickly realized that was the wrong answer, and before I knew it I wasn't talking to the presenter but to the producer and she was thanking me for being on the show and I was off air and gone.
There's a way of talking about the Bible that turns it into a self-help manual, that's full of good advice about how to navigate all of life's problems. That approach was clearly what my radio interviewer was looking for. But that approach ends up looking silly when confronted by a story like the Book of Jonah. The Book of Jonah pushes us into a lot of questions and a lot of wonderings. You can't quickly turn it into a moral fable. It makes us laugh and it makes us cry. Somewhere along the way it makes us Christians.
Today I want explore how. I'm going to tell the story of Jonah four times, once for the bare bones of the narrative, a second time to see what the story means to Jews, a third time to see what this strange story meant to the early church, and a fourth time to see what it might mean to Christians today. So here we go with the bare bones."

Closing excerpt from the sermon: (43:50)

"And here's the personal example. The story of Jonah is pushing us to identify who we're in the business of worshiping, serving, following, and loving: some faceless, arbitrary, coldhearted and distant God, or the LORD, made known in Jesus Christ. Which is it? Which was it, when you got out of bed this morning? Which is it, right this second now? Which will it be, when you face the week tomorrow morning? I'm going to ask you one question. I wonder, when you look back on your life, do you feel, like Jonah, that at a certain stage, maybe more than once, you've been in the belly of a whale, and somehow, astonishingly, the LORD has given you another chance when it looked like you were swallowed up and gone? And now, like Jonah, do you have the choice between whether to continue to see God as faceless, arbitrary, coldhearted and distant, and resent the LORD's mercy to those as undeserving as you, or whether to worship, serve, follow, and love the LORD, the one who repays evil with good, mistrust with mercy, and fear with joy? Is this the moment when you say, "At last I've found out what my story means and what I'm here for. God made and preserved me for this one thing: that my life should be a blessing."
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Bulletin: http://bit.ly/x7nnMZ
Sermon: http://bit.ly/wHGTpW

Category:

Education

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