Before we begin this morning, I want to make sure you receive my personal invitation for 2 things to read in coming weeks.

First, next Sunday start a 12 week sermon series called “Honest Faith: Reading the Psalms.” With one week off, we will preach through 12 Psalms from the amazing book that many have called “the prayer book of Israel.” This will take us from January 11- Palm Sunday, April 5.

Now, the invitation is this: there are 150 Psalms. We will only preach on 12 of them. I want to invite all of us, as a community, to read our way through the entire book. There are 85 days in that time span. That means if you read 2 Psalms per day, starting January 11, you would easily finish in time. One in the morning, one in the evening. To make it even easier, we’ll start next Sunday by reading Psalm 1, and we’ll be off and running!

Second, on February 15 we will have the privilege of having Dr. Mark Labberton preach at Bethany in the morning services. Mark is the pastor of 1 st Pres Berkley, a wonderful person and author of an intriguing book called “The Dangerous Act of Worship.” I want to invite you to pick up and read the book. It’s fairly short, and on Feb 8, the Sunday before Mark comes, we’ll have a “Read Good Books” conversation on it, so you’ll really be ready.

Well. Being a person who loves to read, one of my favorite quotes that I’ve mentioned before is one from the American novelist John Gardner:

“Every story has one of two plots: either a stranger comes to town, or someone goes on a journey.”

The very first Sunday of a brand new year, with 2009 stretched out in front of us, seems like an appropriate time to consider what “journey” might be about for us as well.

This morning it’s “journey” that two very different stories from scripture focus us on: the Epiphany story of the journey of the magi (Matthew 2:1-12) that Todd read earlier, and the Old Testament story of Jonah. We’ll read just a bit from the beginning of that story, before Jonah is ever swallowed by the whale, and then walk through more of it later. Please stand with me if you are able.

Reading: Jonah 1:1-3.

I’ve always been intrigued that there are at least 2 pulpits in Europe that were built in the shape of the large fish from the Jonah story. The preacher enters them by coming up through the fish, and then addresses the congregation from out of the mouth, with large teeth just up above him! It seems like it should be a good reminder to preachers to take what they do seriously!

But I get ahead of myself. This morning I want you to imagine you have two large and very old photographs in your hand. Two pictures.

The first picture (Matthew reading) is mostly just a bigcloud of dust. If we look carefully, we may see that the dust comes from a group of men traveling, perhaps there are three of them, leaving their home in what is modern day Iraq and heading towards Israel.

Imagine them leaving on camels, if it’s helpful.The dust is kicked up as they leave on a journey. Most likely, they were leaving a lot behind. They had been educated, they had acquired expertise and learning, they were respected people in their culture. Perhaps they had families, certainly friendships, no doubt livelihoods. They may have owned property, had bank accounts. All good things. But now these magi were leaving all these good things behind.

And why? Because as they studied and calculated and peered into the heavens, they felt they received a communication, a revelation. They saw a star that marked a birth. A child’s birth, a particular child, Jesus, something unique and particular that God was doing. And so they were leaving those good things behind, and moving out into the great unknown on a journey.

Soren Kierkegaard once marveled that we can easily ignore the great story of Christ, saying that for us “the power that moved heaven and earth leaves us completely unmoved,” while the magi had “only a rumor to go by…But it moved them to make that long journey.”

We can simplify this story quite a bit. Just listen to the verbs: they heard (saw), left, followed, came, believed, worshipped. Quite a journey.

I’m spending a lot of time with younger people who are exploring calls to full-time ministry right now, both Bethany folks, and through the Seattle Presbytery’s Committee on Preparation for Ministry. It’s actually the most hopeful thing I can find in our denomination- the quality of these young people, who love Jesus and are interested in ministry in whatever form that might take.

Lately I’ve noticed a pretty strong pattern with some of these folks...and it concerns me, honestly. There is a strong resistance to journey- either internally or geographically. The internal resistance sounds like this: “I could never do this kind of ministry, I could never work with youth, or with adults, or be a pastor, or preach or teach or whatever…those are not my gifts.” The geographic reluctance sounds like this: “I want to totally trust God, and look for God’s call in my life…as long as it’s within 5 miles of my house. I don’t want to leave my community behind, God wouldn’t call me to do that, etc.”

You may have experienced similar things that have nothing to do with ordained ministry. Maybe it’s in being open to a relationship, or taking on something that isn’t in what you’ve identified as your package of gifts, or refusing to prayerfully consider a move, or going back to school, or whatever it is.

I’m ending up in a lot of conversations that ask; “what does it really look like to be called?” Well, sometimes it means going to a new place, geographically or otherwise. Sometimes it means doing a new thing, growing into it, doing something that just needs to be done. Sometimes it means leaving some things behind. Even some very good things…and just setting out on a journey that you don’t totally know what it will look like in the end.

These magi are men who started the journey. I’m not sure they were worried about whether they were passionate about what they were doing, or whether it fit their gift inventory. The way I think of them is as simply people who are moving towards God. They don’t know totally where it’s going, in fact maybe not much at all. They can’t see the end.

I have this little phrase that I’m probably in danger of wearing out, but I like to hold in front of me the question: are we moving the right direction? As people, as parents, as leaders, as a pastor, planning a worship service, whatever…I’m less concerned that we “arrive” at some point. And more concerned with whether we are headed the right direction. Are we becoming the kind of people God wants us to be? Moving the right direction is what these magi were doing on their journey: moving towards God. That’s the first picture: a cloud of dust.

Now, the second picture…is also a cloud of dust. It’s an older picture than the one of the magis. This dust comes from the feet of this rebellious prophet Jonah. In exactly the reverse situation as the magi, Jonah is already in Israel, and God wants him to go up to the east, to modern day Iraq, to the capital city of Ninevah.

Jonah is a prophet who receives the Word of the Lord to go up and reach out to this foreign city with an acknowledged international reputation for being both arrogant and wicked. And instead of going up, Jonah goes down, literally and figuratively. Down to Joppa on the coast of Israel, down onto the ship, down into the hold of the ship, and eventually of course down into the sea where he is swallowed by the world’s most famous big fish.

But Jonah doesn’t just go down. He also goes sideways. God says go north and east to Ninevah, 500 air miles from Israel. Instead, Jonah buys a ticket to go due west, across the entire Mediterranean to Tarshish, Spain, a journey that would often take a merchant ship an entire year. He is, as one Bible scholar says, separating himself from God both vertically (down into the sea) and horizontally (Tarshish). Jonah is also on a journey. But Jonah is moving away from God.

So Jonah goes down to the coast, to Joppa, running away from God. When he gets to there, guess what? There’s a boat available! And guess where it’s going? West! It seems to be a pattern, doesn’t it, that when we want to move away from God, when we want to run, the means to do so are always there? If you are tempted to talk negatively about people, someone will give you an opening you could drive a truck through. If you are tempted to lust, a crummy movie or TV show or internet site will always be available. If you want to run from God, you can always do it. Jonah did it.

However, God doesn’t return the favor. Jonah may have run from God, but God doesn’t run from Jonah. In fact, he goes after him. The Word of the Lord didn’t come from God to Jonah for nothing. And God had something he wanted to do- reach people. Draw them in. Unbelievers in Ninevah. And he wanted to use Jonah. And he will.

But my goodness, it could have been easier for Jonah. God keeps providing things for him, trying to encourage him to journey towards him. A storm - and Jonah is dumped overboard the ship. A fish, which swallows him.

Inside for 3 entire days, Jonah incidentally begins praying the PSALMS, that we’ll be reading next week. He’s finally spit onto a beach and given a second chance to take God’s word to Ninevah, which he finally does.

Still, Jonah does only the bare minimum, because he (rightly) understands the Assyrians of Ninevah to be the mortal enemies of his country- they will take over Israel within a few years of this story.

But despite his running, his hiding, his grudging attitude, Jonah’s simple evangelism pays huge dividends- the whole city bows before a God they hadn’t even believed in before, repents and begins to live rightly. And it makes Jonah even madder. It’s just what he didn’t want to happen. Jonah wanted God’s grace for himself when he was in the belly of the whale, but he’d rather have justice for his enemies. Jonah is still running. Maybe not geographically, but personally.

And still God won’t leave Jonah alone. He “provides” other things to nudge Jonah- a shade tree, a hot wind. Why? Because he isn’t satisfied with a reluctant servant. What he wants is Jonah’s heart. He wants Jonah moving towards him. Yet even at the end of the book of Jonah, it seems this hasn’t happened.

So two pictures, two journeys in progress: the magi moving towards God, Jonah moving away from God. And for me, as we stare into a brand new year, the question is pretty simple- what’s it going to be? What will your journey this year look like? Will you move towards God? Or away from Him? If we move towards God, we can expect a few things to happen, a couple markers to watch for:

1. People are going to notice.

Carl Grove, one of our mission partners through Wycliffe in Nepal sent me an article from the London Times from Dec 27- it was entitled “As an atheist, I truly believe Africa needs God.”

The author was Matthew Parris, a confirmed atheist who had grown up in Malawi. He had gone back to visit his old country after many years, and found, much to his chagrin, that the people who are making a difference…are the Christians.

He wasn’t talking just about relief and medical projects (though that as well). He was talking about what he saw in people. “In Africa Christianity changes people’s hearts. The rebirth is real. The change is good.”

Remember, this is a confirmed atheist. He first started observing such a thing when he drove across the continent as a young man in his 20’s with four student friends. Even then there was a fair amount of lawlessness and danger in the sub-Sahara, and it was important to find somewhere safe at nightfall. Often near a Christian mission. “Whenever we entered a territory worked by missionaries, we had to acknowledge that something changed in the faces of the people we passed and spoke to: something in their eyes, the way they approached you direct, without looking down or away. They had not become more deferential towards strangers- in some ways less so- but more open.”

That seems right to me. That if we are moving towards God, it will be visible and noticeable in character, in integrity, in openness.

2. It will mean good things for others, not just ourselves.

The second marker I think we can look for is that if we are moving toward God…it will mean good things for others, not just ourselves.

Much of modern American Christianity has to do with us. Feelings, programs, books, classes, movements. Moving towards God could be taken to mean “growing in my interior spiritual life.” And that’s a good thing, and we of course live out of that. But the world is a pretty hard place right now- in Seattle, and all over- wars, shootings, invasions, violence. The economic picture around the world is tough and getting tougher. If we are people whose hearts have been captured by God, who are moving towards him- it is impossible for me to think that we will not be called to be more generous, to invest directly in people, to involve ourselves in standing against injustice around the world.

I don’t know what that will look like for you in 2009. Maybe it will be helping to make a mortgage payment for someone in trouble. Maybe it will mean paying for someone else’s child to get a college education. Maybe it will mean walking more closely as a friend with someone who has always been an acquaintance. Maybe it will mean moving, or being a much more involved partner with someone in international ministry. Whatever the form, I can’t help but think that as we move towards God- it will mean good things for people around us.

Jonah went on a journey- away from God. The magi went on a journey- towards God. It’s a brand new year. We’re standing at the front end, peering into the unknown. And Jesus asks us, as he did his very first disciples- will you come with me? Will you journey with me?

Let us pray.