Lent Devotional 2021 - Pittsburg - Flipbook - Page 2
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2021
The Rev. Paul Leone ’90
SCRIPTURE
Jonah 3:1-4:11
1 The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time,
saying, 2 “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and
proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3 So Jonah set out
and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD.
Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’
walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s
walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall
be overthrown!” 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God;
they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on
sackcloth. 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he
rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with
sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he had a proclamation
made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles:
No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste
anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water.
8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth,
and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their
evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who
knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn
from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” 10 When
God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil
ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had
said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
4:1 But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became
angry. 2 He prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD! Is
not this what I said while I was still in my own country?
That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew
that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger,
and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from
punishing. 3 And now, O LORD, please take my life from me,
for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the LORD
said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” 5 Then Jonah went out
of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth
for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see
what would become of the city. 6 The LORD God appointed
a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over
his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very
happy about the bush. 7 But when dawn came up the next
day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that
it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry
east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so
that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is
better for me to die than to live.” 9 But God said to Jonah,
“Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said,
“Yes, angry enough to die.” 10 Then the LORD said, “You
are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor
and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night
and perished in a night. 11 And should I not be concerned
about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than
2 Lent Devotional 2021
a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know
their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”
DEVOTIONAL
“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying,
‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the
message that I tell you.’” I am writing this reflection while
practicing social distancing, wearing a mask in public, and
churches worship virtually in response to a virus that has
literally sickened to death this globe.
Concurrently, a pandemic of another sort has shaken this
country to its core—a disease unveiled by a video of a dying
black man gasping for air. In angry response, a collective
“Jonah” (protestors and demonstrators) has taken to
the streets of Nineveh (think Minneapolis and beyond)
proclaiming a message: “I can’t breathe,” “Get your knee off
our necks,” “No justice, no peace.”
“Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk.
And he cried out, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be
overthrown!’” Day after day the voice of the people in
our city streets has grown larger and louder. The sin and
wickedness they rail against? Racism, discrimination, and
police brutality.
God’s message through Jonah stirred the hearts and minds of
the people of Nineveh. “They proclaimed a fast and everyone,
great and small, put on sackcloth.” Even the King of Nineveh
rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with
sackcloth, and sat in ashes. What is our country doing? Will
God’s message through the collective street voice stir the
hearts and minds of national, state, and local government?
Will our leaders heed the prophetic word “to do justice,
and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”
(Micah 6:8). Will this commitment infiltrate the decisions,
policies, and reform desperately needed?
Further, what are we as individual Christians doing? Today
is Ash Wednesday, the first day of 40 in this season of Lent,
which takes its name from the imposition of ashes on the
foreheads of worshipers as a sign of human sin and mortality.
Are we sincere when we pray, with the psalmist, “Create
in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit
within me” (Ps. 51:10). Do we take seriously both parts of
Jesus’ call to “Repent, and believe in the good news” (Mark
1:15)?
I heard a black man telling his children they are in danger,
not because of anything they have done, but because of the
color of their skin. He said, “The skin is the sin.” Let all of us
remember—we are dust, and to dust we shall return (Gen.
3:19b).