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Green Blades Preaching Roundtable

17th Sunday after Pentecost

Year A
September 24, 2023
Luke Pederson

Matthew 20:1-16
Philippians 1:21-30
Psalm 145:1-8
Jonah 3:1—4:11

Wildfires in Maui and Canada. Drought in the Midwest. Heavy rains and flooding in Vermont. Record ocean temperatures. The year 2023 is not over, yet we have already seen the effects of extreme weather exacerbated by rising global temperatures. Indeed, it seems that warnings over the past decades by scientists who have monitored the change in the average global temperature, and who have studied ice cores from the ice caps in Greenland and Antarctica, analyzing the bubbles of ancient air to compare its composition, its percentage of Carbon Dioxide to the present day, are manifesting before our eyes. It is a difficult and uncomfortable truth to face; that our actions have and are altering the climate on a global scale, and that in order to mitigate and reverse the damage, it is imperative that we collectively make significant changes to our lifestyles. The latter can be especially difficult as it means self-examination, repentance-Metanoia, change of heart-and discerning what comforts and luxuries we enjoy, especially in a first-world nation, that come at the expense of our brothers and sisters next door and around the world.

 

The book of Jonah may be only four chapters, but I think it speaks to us in a profound way as many of us can relate to moments where we felt the prophet’s apprehension at being called to speak truth to power, to be called out of the comfort zone, and perhaps being utterly confounded at God’s mercy and compassion. In fact, Jonah is one of my favorite books in the Old Testament as one can feel Jonah’s emotions of fear and anxiety; the desire to run away when called to go to the last place you’d ever want to go, and his anger and disappointment when God’s way is mercy and compassion on those we consider to be enemies, and holding that in tension with knowing that God is “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” (Jonah 4:2). Jonah had experienced God’s mercy and deliverance as God sent a large fish (or a whale?) that rescued Jonah from the stormy sea, after Jonah’s attempt to run from God’s call and the storm at sea that followed, that kept Jonah inside its belly for three days before spitting, or more like vomiting, him back on the beach. When God said to Jonah, “And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”, did Jonah remember the animal sent by God that rescued him?

 

In the Book of Jonah, we may see an echo of the creation story in Genesis chapter 1; the chaos of the waters and the darkness-darkness covered the deep- like the storm Jonah faced. The great fish recalling the fifth day-“Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the dome of the sky”

 

And God saw that it was good.

 

 With every act of creation God saw that it was good, indeed very good as God surveyed God’s wondrous creation upon completion. In the reading from Jonah, as well as the Gospel reading, Matthew 20:1-16, we see God’s overflowing compassion and generosity for all life. In Jesus’ parable of the workers in the vineyard, we see God’s care and provision for all, that all are equally deserving of life. Does this invite us to ponder if the care of our Earth, and the plants and animals have been “last”; have they been a secondary concern or ignored all together in the quest for prosperity? How often have the animals been forgotten victims of war? How are the animals suffering from the effects of climate change-from Polar Bears losing hunting grounds due to lack of polar ice, to Moose suffering from loss of habitat as the boral forest retreats north and burning in more frequent fires, and their health suffering from ticks that thrive in warmer summers, to warming streams in the Driftless region, upsetting the delicate balance that the cold-water loving Brook Trout need to survive. As God loves the sparrows of the air, providing all that they need to live and not forgetting one, just as every hair on our heads is known and counted by God (Matthew 10:29-30), may we remember that we are connected with all life on Earth. May we be agents of God’s generosity on Earth, and responsible stewards of the Earth.

 

Luke Pederson
Luke Pederson
SAM Trinity of Norden and Good Shepherd
Northwest Synod of Wisconsin
TEEM Journey Together Wartburg Seminary

Luke Pederson is a Synodically Authorized Minister serving the congregations of Trinity of Norden and Good Shepherd in Mondovi, WI, located on the ancestral homelands of the Dakota people. He is a student at Wartburg Seminary in the TEEM Journey Together program and is the chair for the Northwest Synod of Wisconsin’s Creation Care Team.

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