Atonement

The Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost (Year C, Proper 20^[1])
September 23, 2007

The Reverend Paul R. Abernathy, Rector

During this mid-Pentecost season, our worship leaders, Terry Adhlock, Raiford Gaffney, and Nat White, ask that we Christians look at our Jewish roots, particularly through the lens of the holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, observed this month by our Jewish brothers and sisters.

In my homily of last Sunday, I focused on Rosh Hashanah, literally head (or beginning) of the year and its theme of the renewal of our relationships with God and others. Today, Yom Kippur, literally Day of Atonement, and its theme, our at-one-ment or reconciliation with God and others.

As I said last Sunday, I believe that renewal is an essential element of relationship. So, too, I say today, is atonement. For inherent in all of our relationships, unavoidably present in every encounter with another – whether a divine or human other – there is not only the potentiality, but the eventuality of confrontation and conflict, rift and rupture, discomfort and estrangement. Why? Because, as individuals, each of us has a self – that comes outfitted and fully equipped with thoughts and feelings, needs and desires – and a will through which we choose to act on our thoughts and feelings, seeking to fulfill our needs and desires.

And however it is you understand the idea of God, the traditional view is that an omniscient, all knowing God has a will for us that is far more wonderful than we, in our sinfulness, either can imagine or deserve. So, the psalmist infers, saying, “Have mercy on me, O God, in your compassion blot out all my offenses…Create in me a clean heart…renew a right spirit within me.” Yet, God also being omnipotent, all powerful, perhaps ironically, doesn’t force us to accept the divine will, doesn’t drag us kicking and screaming into the kingdom, but rather, desires that we discern and decide to choose it for ourselves.

However, in order for this to work – and this is an intrinsic difficulty – it requires a unity, an at-one-ment of two wills. And sometimes God and I or you and I simply aren’t on the same page. We don’t see reality in the same way.

This was the problem encountered by Jonah and God. Let’s review the story.

God calls Jonah to go to Ninevah, a great and wicked city, to proclaim imminent destruction. But Jonah runs the other way. Not because he is afraid, but because he disagrees with God. Knowing God to be merciful, Jonah, who wants those terrible Ninevites to suffer, fears that if he tells them what’s coming, they just might repent and be spared. Jonah gets into a boat and sails the other way. But God tracks him down, sends a storm, which frightens the captain who asks Jonah if he is responsible. Jonah answers honestly, “Yes,” and suggests that he be thrown overboard to quiet the storm. He is and it is. God then sends a great fish to swallow Jonah, leading Jonah to pray for deliverance, to which God answers, basically saying, “While I have your attention, now will you go to Ninevah?” (This is where we are in today’s text.) Jonah agrees. The people hear the word and repent. God recants, rescinding the decision to destroy Ninevah, leading an angry Jonah to say, “See, I knew you would do that!”

As with last Sunday’s passage from Exodus, once again, we read a biblical story that is rampantly, ragingly anthropomorphic. The divine-human encounter is depicted in decidedly natural terms, which perhaps makes it not only laughably comical, but also easily dismissible.

However, I believe that something worthy of our serious note may be found here. Something about the nature of atonement.

It seems at first glance that God and Jonah can’t be at-one, for they share no similar frame of mind and heart. They don’t possess a like will or purpose. They don’t see reality the same way.

But actually, on second glance, I think they do. Both God and Jonah understand that mercy, that one’s desire to withhold a punishment another, by whatever judgment, may rightly deserve, can grant one time and psychic space to give voice to a word of discontent. One mercifully can choose to refuse to retaliate against another and rather give air to one’s displeasure with another. And that word, when by another heard, can lead to change. A change that can yield the fruit of atonement. Both God and Jonah understand this. The difference being that God yearned to exercise, to do mercy and Jonah, believing that wickedness was irredeemable, deserving only punishment, longed for strict retribution.

This fundamental disunion, this dis-at-one-ment between God and Jonah highlights, among many things, the absurdity of limiting mercy. What has vengeance – whether wielded by an individual, a community, or a nation – ever wrought but more vengeance? It also highlights the absurdity of believing that things, verily, people – you, me, those with whom we disagree – indeed, even God can’t change.

[1] The appointed Hebrew scripture (Amos 8.4-7) and psalm (113) have been changed by the worship task force to Jonah 3.1-10 and Psalm 51.1-17, respectively, to highlight our focus as Christians on our Jewish roots, specifically Yom Kippur, which began at sundown on Thursday, September 20.