Episode 591: - Even the Cows - Voices in my Head (the Rick Lee James Podcast)

Welcome back to Voices in My Head. As always, I'm your host, Rick Lee James. I'm so glad you're here with us today. Today is coming from Springfield Regional Medical Center, Mercy Health, and I am delivering a message and leading some music today. So what you're going to hear first is just a little bit of music as we start our day together. So welcome back to Voices in My Head.

Whatever it takes to get me you. Tear off the roof, throw me down. Whatever it takes to give me you. Tear off the roof, throw me down. Whatever it takes to give me you. Give me you. Roll every stone, push through the ground. God wants you to break through. Tear off the roof, throw me down, whatever it takes to give me you. Roll every stone, push through the ground. God wants you to break through. Break through.

Amen. Well, we welcome all of you to our chapel service today here at the hospital. For those of you who may be watching from your room on Channel 58, we welcome you. Come on in. We are glad to have you here with us today. I'm Chaplain Rick, and I am one of the full-time chaplains here at the hospital, and you might have seen me in one of your rooms at one time or another. But we have some really great chaplains here at this hospital who are happy to come by to visit with you, to journey with you, and to pray with you and be there as present as we can through whatever situation you find yourself in. You all matter, and we're glad to be here with you. So today I have a brief message I want to bring to you. There's a story that I read once online about a pastor who had installed new light sensors in his church entryway. And one afternoon he was walking back and forth by the sensors and he couldn't make them come on. They're supposed to be motion detector. And he was waving his hands and he'd jump up and down and he'd walk and he'd go back and forth. And finally, in frustration, he muttered some very unpastorally words in the foyer. And then the lights came on. He said, "I wasn't sure if it was a motion detector or a sin detector," he said in that moment. When he was going through it. But that seems to be the tension that maybe a lot of us feel when we talk about this big word that sometimes sounds scary. It's called repentance. And we're— I'm going to be talking about repentance today from a few different Bible passages. It often sounds like— maybe you've heard the term fire and brimstone messages before, and it's something that actually we have to do in our lives, not so that God will love us again. It's not about groveling. Repentance is not about how bad you've been, but it's more like this. It's going to sound strange, but it's a little more like cows wearing sackcloth. And I know you're all thinking, huh, what does that mean? Well, there's a story in the book of Jonah, the prophet Jonah, which is a short book in the Bible. There's actually a lot of humor in the book of Jonah. I read a book, I believe it was called Let There Be Laughter, and, and it was— it's a theological book about the humor that's intentionally written into the scripture. And in the Jonah book, we find a lot about repentance. Jonah does everything wrong. There's really not one point in the book where the prophet Jonah, this person of God, does anything right except for the point where he repents. And even then it doesn't seem like it takes for Jonah. He runs from God's call, he hides, he gets angry, and he especially gets angry that God seems to love his enemies. And the prophet finally, reluctantly, he delivers at one point a message that appears half-hearted, even after a fish has swallowed him, even after he is vomited up on the shore, which is another kind of humorous thing when you think about it. And he delivers a half-hearted 5-word sermon to the people of Nineveh. And his sermon says something about 40 more days and Nineveh will be overturned. And, and it's more— a few more than 5 words, but the translation sometimes has it as simple as 5 words. It's very short though. 40 more days and Nineveh will be overturned. That's all he says. Nothing about God, nothing about love, nothing even about repentance. But somehow in Jonah, the entire city repents. Even the king and even the animals. Remember I talked about cows in sackcloth? Well, in Jonah chapter 3, verses 7 and 8, it says the king, he sent out a proclamation through Nineveh: By decree of the king and his officials, neither human nor animal, cattle nor flock, will taste anything. No grazing, no drinking water for them. Let humans and animals alike put on mourning clothes, and let them call upon God forcefully. Now think about the humor in that. It's a little bit absurd. It's kind of a punchline to a joke that even the cows, the cattle, would get dressed up in mourning clothes and in ashes and sackcloth. But the thing about it is it shows that even cows are included in the mercy of God. All creatures of our God and King, that God loves all that he has created. And it's the kind of story that maybe we need in the hospital today, a place where people are laid bare, they're humbled. We might find ourselves cracked open by life. And repentance, back to that big word, It turns out it's less about shame and more about grace. The theologian and ethicist Stanley Hauerwas, he once said, "The hardest thing in the world is to tell the truth about yourself and to hear the truth someone else tells you about you." That's why repentance is hard, not because God is harsh, but because the truth is. Repentance happens when we focus and see and hear the truth about ourselves. We'd rather fix things than feel things, but in Jonah's story and in our story, you can't run from what's true. Jonah tried to run from God's calling and ended up in the belly of a fish. The younger son in the parable of the prodigal son, he ran from his family and he ended up eating eating pig food. Both had to stop pretending at some point. And that's what repentance is. It's when we stop pretending, when we face the truth and we change direction. That's what repentance is. As Paul reminds us in Romans chapter 2, verse 4, do you not realize that God's kindness is meant to lead you to repentance? Repentance doesn't begin with guilt. It begins with the kindness of God. It's not condemnation as much as it is clarity about the truth of who we are and who God is. The Greek word for repentance, it's this word— it might sound a little strange, but it's metanoia. It means turning around, going the other direction. It's not punishment, it's a to pivot. It's to change the way you've been doing things, to change your thinking, to change your heart, to change your mind, and to allow God to change those things about you. Psalm 51 says, created me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation. Repentance isn't about being scolded, it's about being restored. In both Jonah and in Luke's parable of the prodigal son, something amazing happens. The truth becomes liberating. Jonah says, "I knew you were a God of grace and mercy, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love." And Jonah wasn't afraid of failure. That's not why he didn't want to go to Nineveh. He was afraid God would actually forgive his enemies. And in Jesus' story, the prodigal son prepares a speech of shame in advance before he heads back to his father. He's going through this speech of how unworthy he is to be back with the father, but the father doesn't even let him deliver the speech because the father runs to the son in a most undignified way. In the scripture, it talks about him tucking his robe, literally. It's a passage one of my teachers in college said God, or the the father in the story representing God, he runs with his fanny waving in the breeze behind him because he's tucked his robe up, becoming completely undignified to run to his son on the road that he misses so much. And he doesn't scold his son, he throws a feast, he puts a robe around him, he welcomes him back. My late friend, Dr. Walter Brueggemann, he said, "The repentance of the son is swallowed by the joy of the father." the Father. So may we laugh at cows in sackcloth today. Maybe that's the point. Maybe we're supposed to approach repentance with some joy in our hearts, even with some laughter. What an amazing God that would cause us not to repent so that we can be sad and mournful, but to cause us to repent to bring us joy and laughter once again. Jonah was angry that God forgave the people he didn't think deserved it, though. And the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son, he became unangry that his brother got a party. But God still shows up, and not just for the repentant, but for the bitter and stubborn ones too. That's the gospel. God runs down the road to meet us. God provides shade for a sulking prophet named Jonah. God welcomes even the cynical, the reluctant, and the ridiculous—even us. Yes, even the cows. Dr. William Willimon tells a story about a college student who wandered into a chapel after years away from the church. She didn't even know how to pray, but she said, "I just feel like someone was waiting for me in that silence, and I didn't feel judged. I felt welcome." I think that's repentance. It's not a transaction, it's not a checklist, it's just turning around and realizing someone was already running towards you. Her life changed not because she fixed everything, but because she started living like someone who was already loved. She started volunteering then in a free clinic, welcoming others in the way that she had been welcomed. So let me ask all of us here today: Is there something you've been running from? Is there a truth that you've been avoiding? Is there someone maybe you've refused to forgive? And what would it take for you today to just let God love you? Maybe the first step is that word I'm talking about today, repentance. In Jonah, again, repentance didn't look like shame. It looked like cows in sackcloth. In Luke, it didn't look like perfection. It looked like a father running to hug his broken son. And maybe here in this chapel and in your rooms, for those of you that might be watching today, maybe today it looks like you just turning towards grace and just letting God love you. You don't have to be perfect. You just have to open your heart. Allow God to love you today. Well, we're gonna have a closing song today, and as we think about this closing song, it's one I wrote called "Love Our Enemies," and it's based off the teachings of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount. As we looked at Jonah today, Jonah didn't want to preach to Nineveh because he didn't want them to be forgiven. The older brother in the Prodigal Son story, he didn't want a party thrown for his brother because he didn't want his brother to be welcomed home. But the gospel tells us something we often resist. It tells us the truth about ourselves, that we are in need of grace just as much as the people we judge and condemn. God loves our enemies too. Doesn't just tolerate them, loves them. Feeds them, clothes them, forgives them, and even runs down the road to meet them too. And if that's what God does, then repentance is not just about us turning towards God, it's also about turning towards God by turning towards others too, and letting God's love go to them through us. It's about turning with God towards those we would rather keep at arm's length, So this final song for us is a prayer for us to grow into that kind of love called "Love Our Enemies." Give us love, our enemies.

Lord, deliver us from hatred, prejudice, and cruelty. Lord, remove discrimination. That truth may set us free. So Lord, in the name of creation, every life is healed today. In the holy name of Jesus, fill this blood, Rick Lee James. Jesus is our true example, showing us the face of God. He was born and he chose to die for sins, loving mankind, sharing his love. Lord and Maker of creation, every life is dear to thee. In the holy name of Jesus, you must love our enemy. Let our souls be turned by shares, and our hearts be turned to love. Let our hearts be turned with love. Let our hearts be turned with love.

Thank you all for joining us today, whether in the chapel or in your rooms on Channel 58. Just a reminder that our chaplains are here to be with you. We're grateful that you are in a place today, and we hope you are too, where God is talked about, where your problems can be discussed, um, where connections can be made. And we want to be there with you in your time of suffering. We want to be there for your family. Please feel free to invite one of the chaplains to your room if you have any concerns at all. Your nurses know how to reach us, and we are glad to be with you. Let's close in prayer together today. Lord, thank you for loving us so well. Thank you not only for calling us to repentance, but thank you for calling our enemies to repentance too. Will you transform our hearts today to be like you, that we will love those that we sometimes have difficulty loving, that you will open our hearts to grace. Thank you for the kindness that leads us to repentance. May this hospital today be a place of healing and help. May it especially be a place of your peace, where every heart will feel you speaking to them that all shall be well. All shall be well. And all manner of things shall all be well. In your name we pray today. Amen.