Dropped Calls

A sermon preached by Rev. Theresa S. Thames at Foundry UMC, March 22, 2015, the fifth Sunday in Lent.

Text: Jonah 1:1-17; 2:1, 10

It’s October 2002, to be more exact, it’s Halloween and I’m standing in the middle of Harvard Square. I’m at Harvard because I’m doing the divinity school tour. This week Harvard; in two weeks Duke. I have a big decision to make, but at this moment I’m waiting on a really important phone call. Mind you, this is 2002 when a cell phone only did one thing - make phone calls. There were no texts, no music, no pictures, and definitely no video. It’s October in Boston and I’m freezing, but I’m outside because every time I enter a building, I get spotty reception. The voice on the other end sounds muddled, static begins, and then the call drops.

 

A “dropped call” is the common term for a wireless mobile phone call that is terminated unexpectedly before the speaking parties have finished their conversation and before one of them have hung up. There are several reasons given for having a dropped call:

• Moving out of range into what is known as a “dead zone”
• When wireless signals are unavailable, interrupted, jammed, too much traffic
• Faulty transceiver inside the phone its self
• Phone simply loses battery power

 

All of us have experienced dropped calls. When we have moved out of range and have entered situations and seasons in life that have felt like “dead zones.” Those places when our very souls feel empty. The dropped calls of life are when we are not able to connect. When we are unavailable to those we love, to God, and even ourselves. Those moments when we have been told that we are the problem, that the very essence of who we are is damaged, broken, faulty, no good. Dropped calls. Or when we have simply loss power - the power to hope, to dream, to get up and try again. Like I said, we have all experienced dropped calls.

The Jonah story is one that is very familiar in Christian circles and even in secular children books. Jonah is a faithful prophet of the Lord, until the Lord decides to send Jonah to the worst place imaginable, Nineveh. Now, Jonah gets a lot of flak, but what few people realize is that Jonah is the only prophet that is actually sent to the place that he is prophesying against. All the other prophets sent messages and warnings via letters, but not Jonah. And since Jonah ain’t no fool, when God sends him to Nineveh and he finds the next ship smoking headed in the exact opposite direction, Tarshish.

Many of us know the story, but Jonah gets on the ship headed to Tarshish, again the opposite direction from Nineveh, and they are sailing along, Jonah is so thankful to skip town that he falls asleep in the bottom of the ship, but then a storm begins. The captain and the crew figure out that Jonah is the problem, they throw him overboard, the sea calms and Jonah is swallowed by a big fish and camps out in the belly of the fish for 3 days.

 

It’s easy to make fun of and judge Jonah for his foolishness in thinking that he can escape God’s plan, but we are a lot like Jonah. We have each found ourselves in situations in life facing what seems like the impossible. We each have encountered something or someone that has made us run in the opposite direction of our truth, our calling, our purpose, our higher selves.

 

It is not that Jonah didn’t have faith. Jonah had a relationship with God, knew God and spoke of God’s power with certainty.  When asked by the captain and crew who he was, he didn’t lie nor hide. He said, “I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”[1] Like us, Jonah knew and could proclaim and even believed for others, but in this moment in life, he could not believe and proclaim for himself.  It was all so muddled, unclear. He was living in the tension of faithfully following God and the fear of the unknown.

In his book “The Promise of Paradox” in the chapter entitled “The Belly of Paradox” Parker Palmer writes,

There is a way beyond choosing either this pole or that. Let us call it “living the contradictions.” Here we refuse to flee from tension but allow that tension to occupy the center of our lives. And why would anyone walk this difficult path? Because by doing so we may receive one of the greatest gifts of the spiritual life- the transformation of contradiction into paradox. The poles of either/or, the choices we thought we had to make, may become signs of a larger truth than we had even dreamed. And in that truth, our lives may become larger than we had even imagined possible![2]

Many people consider the big fish to be a punishment from God, but I see this fish as God’s grace. The grace of God that comes in the midst of our storms and saves us from ourselves. This grace that gives us shelter, a time-out, some space for clarity. Being in the belly of a big fish for 3 days and 3 nights gave Jonah a chance to connect with the God in which we each live, move, and have our being. Being in belly separated Jonah from all other distractions so that he could connect to his primary connection.

 

After a day of lectures, meetings, and campus tours at Harvard I’m tired and anxious. I’m still waiting on that phone call. It is now a little after 2am and I’m standing outside in the freezing cold, the call has come. My mama is on the other end in tears and I can hear my sister Portia. There are a lot of voices, a few muffled sounds, a big gasp, and then I hear the sound of a baby crying. He has arrived. The moment felt like an AT&T commercial. I was over 1000 miles away, yet I was able to connect to the birth of a child that would change my life.

 

It’s now November 2011 and it’s 4:30AM and my cellphone is ringing. It’s my birthday, so an early morning call from a friend to wish me a happy year would not be a surprise, but I knew that this call would be different. See, the months leading up to this moment had been hard. I had been living in the midst of a difficult divorce which felt like a horrible storm. In the midst of that storm came the unexpected storm of my sister’s battle with meningitis. I knew in my gut that this call was not a happy birthday greeting, and I was right. The call was to let me know that my sister was gone.

 

My new favorite singing group is Johnnyswim. In their song, “Take the World” they sing a beautiful bridge that simply says, “Ain’t it just like love to find us. Ain’t it just like love.”[3]

 

Facing the hard stuff, hard decisions, living in the tensions of life is like living in the belly of a big fish. I know that place. Oh do I know that place far too well. The places in our lives that is jumbled, when things are unclear and the signal is weak. The place of loss, grief, sadness, depression, despair, the place of lost connections and dropped calls.

Yet, my Sisters and Brothers have hope! If you find yourself in the midst of a Dead Zone and with a bad connection and experiencing dropped calls, know that God is faithful. When I was in the midst of my storm I could not imagine that I would come through whole and with joy. I could not imagine the love that would enter my life and fill my soul. I tell you that God’s faithfulness is true.

 

Just when all seems lost, God’s grace sweeps in and swallows us whole and spits us out on the other side whole. Hold on. “Oh, ain’t it just like love to find us. Ain’t it just like love.” Ain’t it just like God’s love, grace, and faithfulness to find us. Ain’t it just like love.

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[1] Jonah 1:9

[2] Parker J. Palmer, The Promise of Paradox: a Celebration of Contradictions in the Christian Life (San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2008), 27.

[3] Johnnyswim.com