Grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. The Word of the Lord which engages us this morning comes from our Old Testament lesson (Jonah 3).

Nineveh was the Sin Capitol of the world at that time. The most powerful city-state in the region, its armies were out conquering lands far and wide, brutally laying waste to other countries for the sake of power and riches. Jonah didn't want to go to Nineveh, not because he was afraid for his own life, but because he knew that his Lord Yahweh was a forgiving, soft-hearted deity. He knew Him as "a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love" (Jonah 4:2, Exodus 34: 6 and throughout the Old Testament). Jonah wanted justice, he didn't want God to relent in punishing the Ninevites. He thought "the wicked don't deserve the Gospel." But the Lord Yahweh persists. Jonah tries to escape, flees by boat in the opposite direction. You know the rest of story. Jonah is cast into the sea and swallowed by a huge fish for 3 days. He is then spewed out of the fish's mouth onto dry land and thinks "I guess there is no fighting God on this one."

He goes to Nineveh and preaches what may have been the shortest, least eloquent sermon on record. "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown." Yet this simple sermon of Law and Gospel (Law "Nineveh will be overthrown"; Gospel "But you've got 40 days to change your mind about your wickedness") turned the Ninevites from their wickedness. Their king and his people sat in ashes and put on sackcloth to visibly show each other and God that they were turning from their ways. They zealously sought ways to show their repentance. A mother calling to her son shouted, "Johnny, tell your sister to get in the house out of the rain." "I can't Mom," came the reply. "And just why can't you?" demanded his mother. "Because we are playing Noah's Ark Mom, and she's one of the sinners." We like to make the distinction between the sinners on the outside of the ark and the saints on the inside, and it is a legitimate distinction. But in so doing, we tend to cover up the reality that the saints inside are still sinners. Sinners saved by grace, but nevertheless, sinners. Noah was still a sinner, both in the Ark and after it had landed. Failure to be aware of this reality led the Pharisees of Christ's day, and self-righteous saints all through history, to feel that the message of repentance does not apply to them. We in the church can fall into the trap of thinking that repentance is only relevant to those sinners outside the ark. (modified from Glenn Pease, "Changing Your Mind").

As I said earlier, Jesus' words here in Mark 1: 15 "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" can sound to our English-speaking like repentance and belief are one-time events. But the way Mark wrote this in Greek does not imply one-time events. The way Mark wrote this implies a continuation of the practices, an exercise of the habit. The way Mark wrote this could also be translated "Repent and keep on repenting, and trust and keep on trusting the Good News that the King has come to conquer sin, death and the devil."

Billy Graham once said, "I have been shocked to find that the theme (of repentance) proclaimed so emphatically by the prophets and apostles is scarcely mentioned by contemporary preachers." We Lutherans are often criticized by other Christians, sometimes even by Lutherans, for starting so many of our services with the "Confession of sin" and emphasizing the need for weekly and daily repentance. But we emphasize repentance and confession of sins, not because of human traditions or because we enjoy beating ourselves up spiritually and mentally. No, we emphasize repentance because it is Biblical. We emphasize turning from our sinful ways, admitting our own helplessness, and turning to Jesus Christ as the only way, truth and life.

A traveler engaged a guide to take him across a desert area. When the two men arrived at the edge of the desert, the traveler, looking ahead, saw before him trackless sands without a single footprint, path, or marker of any kind. Turning to his guide, he asked in a tone of surprise, "Where is the road?" With a reproving glance, the guide replied, "I am the road." Thomas said to Jesus, "Lord, we do not know where you are going; how can we know the way?" Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life; No one comes to the Father, but by me." John 14:5-6 RSV (traveler story from e-sermons.com). Jesus and Jesus alone, true God and true Man mysteriously one Person, came to call us to turn and to trust in Him and His suffering and death and resurrection. Jesus called Jonah and the Ninevites and Peter and Andrew and James and John and you and me to live a life of following Him, of being one of His loyal fans.

A man in one church recalled how during football season he and his son watched football on television the whole weekend. On Saturdays it was college football, on Sundays professional football, and then to cap it off professional football on Monday evenings. This same father was uncomfortable with his son going away for a weekend religious retreat, fearing his son might turn into a religious fanatic! His pastor asked him if he thought being a sports fan was okay for his son. Of course, he replied. But when the pastor pointed out that "fan" is the shortened form of "fanatic," he was taken aback. His long-neglected wife, a football widow of the first rank, wondered aloud why it was perfectly acceptable to be a football fanatic and not a religious fanatic. "Because," replied her husband without thinking, "unlike a religious fanatic, a football fanatic can be perfectly harmless." "Yes," said the long-unnoticed football widow, "I can vouch for that!" (modified from Maurice A. Fetty, A God for This World, 1999, CSS Publishing Company). We who are Christians too often seek to look just like everybody else, to not stand out too much, to not be too fanatical, not too zealous. We can be eternally thankful that Jesus was zealous enough for us to lay down his life on the cross. He so fanatically loved us that He gave up his heavenly splendor to take on our sin.

Our Lord Jesus called His first 4 disciples in our Gospel lesson. He called them to a life of following Him and listening to Him, first for 3 years, then for the rest of their lives. Some He calls to leave their earthly vocations and enter into full-time service to Him. Others He calls to a life of service and praise to Him while they remain in their earthly callings. But to all of us, Paul reminds the Corinthians, that "the time is short� this world in its present form is passing away." We are not to be so "engrossed in the things of this world" that we fail to focus on the main thing in this life, repentance and trust in our Lord Jesus Christ.

He calls us to a life of reaching out to the lost in our world zealously, faithfully being fishers of men who love to share this gracious message of repentance and Good News with others. I recently read about some pelicans in California. If you've ever seen pelicans in action, you know they're great fishermen, or fisher-birds, I guess. These pelicans were hanging out near a fleet of fishing boats. The fishermen on the boats would pull into the little harbor, and clean the fish right on the spot, throwing the heads and the rest into the water. The pelicans picked up on this, and began eating the leftovers without having to go out fishing. And if you're a pelican, that's good, easy eating. So for weeks, they just sat by the harbor and waited for the fishing boats to come in. After a while, the fishermen found out they could sell the fish waste, and so they stopped chucking it into the water. The pelicans were caught unprepared. They continued to sit and wait for the fishing boats to come in and throw free food in the water. And they grew thinner and thinner and seemed able to do nothing about their situation. Wildlife officials came to check out what was going on, and concluded that the pelicans had forgotten how to fish. So what they did was to bring pelicans in from another area to join the flock and teach the starving birds how to fish again. (Modified from the Reverend Dr. Gary Nicolosi)

We Christians can be like those pelicans, gobbling down the free food that God always provides for us in His Word, but forgetting to be fishermen. How can we be good, faithful fishermen? By continuing to do many of things we are already doing: Having dinners like the LLL did here last night where visitors can feel at ease to come and get to know us and our ministry here.

Encouraging others to come to church, explaining to them the reasons that we confess our sins and receive God's forgiveness at each service. Encouraging others to come and learn God's Word with us in smaller groups, in adult and youth catechism classes, Bible studies, Sunday School. The more we become engrossed in these activities, without neglecting our family and civic and professional duties, the more the world will see Jesus in us. We too often are like Jonah. We receive the call but then run away. But our Lord is a gracious God, continuing to call us to a life of service and praise to Him.

And the peace of God, which passes all understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus (Philippians 4: 7)