I love Cape Town

Jonah - apart from being in the belly of a large fish, what else do you know about him? I thought I knew the story well, but this morning we heard a really great sermon on his story, which brought a fresh perspective to the story for me.

All these years, I've merely thought of Jonah as this rebellious guy who eventually succumbs to God's will, and Nineveh is saved as a result. However, maybe it's been a long time since I really read the story (you know how it is with stories you know well... if you re-read them, you often skip over bits because of what you're expecting to read). Yes, that is part of the story, but there's much more to the story of Jonah than just that.

Our preacher this morning was talking about Cape Town, and linking the story of Jonah & Nineveh to our story today, in Cape Town (or whichever city you live in). The reason that Jonah rebelled wasn't because he was afraid of failure, or afraid of being made to look like a fool. Rather, he was rebellious because he was afraid of success. He knew that if he went, the Ninevites would repent, and God would forgive them; that his mission would be a success. He didn't want that to happen because he didn't think the Ninevites deserved that measure of grace. He would rather have died than allow them to repent and receive God's grace. After all, these were heathens, non-Jews, with a history of violence & blood (not to mention other atrocities).

It's interesting that the history of the Bible, and of the whole creation, has been moving towards urbanisation and culminates in a city and with a city. (Let's not get into a debate now about the place of nature in a city - we are going to occupy a new EARTH, which implies places of natural beauty, not just urban environments.) Nineveh represented one of the greatest cities of the day, with a population of 120 000.

Essentially, the message that God told Jonah to take to them is the same message He has been bringing to the world since mankind first rebelled: you are more sinful than you realise, but you are more loved than you can ever imagine, so turn to God.

The challenge to us was this: will we be like Jonah, or Jesus? Are we more interested in keeping our religion 'pure', or in saving lives? Are we more interested in our own comfort zones, or in saving others? Are we willing to die to keep the status quo, or are we willing to die to save lives? Do we run from our cities, or to them?

I have to confess that my answers didn't please me. I don't really want to engage with the marginalised, the poor, the needy, the smelly, the ugly, the disabled, the homeless, the drug-addicted, the immoral, the amoral, the broken. I want to be left alone to just get on with my life in peace and quiet, in comfort and ease. I don't want to have my eyes opened. I don't want to have my heart broken again, or to feel so helpless and hopeless again. I don't want to have my hands and pockets emptied. I don't want to have my diary reorganised and my time reallocated. I've had enough tears to last me several life times, and I've lived through "enough" (isn't that such a relative term?!?!) economic hardship to write books on. I've experienced brokenness and isolation, abandonment and pain, and quite frankly, I don't see why I should put myself (or my family) through any more.

But the gospel of Jesus calls me to more. Very often others say Christians are just people who need a crutch. If only!! If I call myself a Christian, then I am called to pouring out my life, my love, my money and my time to others - and not just others like me, not just others who meet the standards I set for myself. I'm not just called to this self-sacrifice once, or for a season. This is a calling that is a way of life.

You want to know what the problem with God is? It's that he loves us too much to leave us alone. As I've prayed for God to restore my faith, to restore our relationship, to bring me back to a place where I can worship him with passion and abandon (rather than out of a sense of duty or academic recognition that he is worthy of it), to a place where the pain of losing Zoe fades as his goodness shines through that tragedy, he has taken me seriously.

In the first few months after losing Zoe, I couldn't pray. I couldn't worship. All I could do was cry. I was so angry with God that I knew I risked losing everything. I didn't want to be held by him, or have anything to do with him. It was my Christian family who kept me safe. They prayed for me when I couldn't. And their sole prayer was that God would honour his promise and bring me through this storm with my faith intact; that he would hold on to me when I could no longer hold onto him.

When I was eventually able to pray, that was my prayer too. I recognised that only God could save me, only God could bring me out the other side without losing my mind, my faith, my entire reason for being. I recognised that I had no power to hold onto God. I was stuck at the bottom of this hole and could not pull myself out. Everything I believed about God was up for debate, and unless he wanted me to drift away, he would have to do the hard work of bringing me back into the fold. In his gracious mercy, that's what he has done.

I still struggle to worship, but it's getting easier. My heart still wells with tears most Sundays, but alongside that, I can now give thanks (if not effusively, then at least honestly) for other blessings in my life. But God is not satisfied with that. He loves me too much to leave me at this point. While I will probably continue to grieve at some level for the remainder of my life on earth, God wants far more for me than I am currently experiencing. And that 'far more' includes growing me to the point where I can once again offer my life sacrificially in service of and to others.

Ugh! Right now, I could think of nothing worse. But I know that in time, God will change my heart. He will show me ways of being, ways of doing, that will make it possible for me to choose this way of the cross. He will enable me to follow in Jesus' footsteps, and to be involved in helping save the people of this city. The really interesting thing is that I actually look forward to that day. I look forward to the day when my life is wholly outward looking, rather than inward focused. Even though I know what it will mean, part of me also recognises that the best life is the life that is given away, not the life that is jealously guarded.

But I'm not there yet. One thing I have learnt though, is that God only asks me to take one step at a time. He doesn't' expect me to get everything right immediately, or get my life sorted out today. Right now, the step I'm taking is to get involved in church again, meet some new people, and start to build a new community and Christian family around myself. I can't walk this journey alone, and I will need people of faith and wisdom to walk alongside me, to share in the successes, and to gently correct me when I wander off the path. What comes after that, well, I'm sure God will show me when the time is right, and by then, I know it won't seem as big a jump as it does today.

So although my answers displeased me, I also know that I don't have to beat myself up about it. In his time and in his way, God will deal with me, and that's okay with me.