Voyage To The Bunny Planet Epiphany 3B

Come To The Bunny Planet       Epiphany 3B

We have before us four texts that one way or another seek to address what ought to be the primary focus of any and all faith communities: What ought we be doing in the present time? And, being from the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, more specifically: What does God call us to be and to do? How might we respond to God’s call? 

In the first instance, we have Jonah.[i] For reasons not explained, Jonah has been chosen by the Hebrew God to take a message to a mighty gentile city, Ninevah. God is angry with their wickedness. Jonah knows this is not good news and takes off in the opposite direction to get away from God and the mission. I get it. And I suppose all of us at one time or another have tried to ignore what the Lord God of Israel tells us to do. We are meant to identify with Jonah, who learns, thanks to landing in the belly of a very large fish, there is no escaping what the Lord calls us to do. Like Jonah, I tried myself to head off in several different directions. Alas, here I am.  

Jonah is not told what to say, so he improvises, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”  Astonishingly, the Ninevites repent of their evil ways. They fast and cover themselves with sackcloth and ashes. Even the king! That is, they take God more seriously than Jonah does. The lesson here: act more like the evil, gentile Ninevites than Jonah! But that’s not all! God is so moved by the Ninevites that God repents from overthrowing the city. Because, as Jonah later notes, our God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounds in steadfast love and compassion, and relents from punishment. 

Paul, as the first ever recorded church consultant, has been petitioned by some folks in Corinth on just what they ought to and ought not to be doing as a community of Christ. We are given only a few verses which in our world nearly 2,000 years later seems like somewhat bizarre advice: The appointed time is short. If you are married, don’t act like it, and if you’re not, don’t bother to get married; if you are mourning, don’t mourn; if you’re rejoicing, don’t rejoice; quit buying more and more stuff; forget about what’s going on in the world. The key to his advice, however, is that things are about to change. “The present form of the world is passing away.” Oh, that that would be true and come sooner than later! And yet, history tells us that this is true, just not on our preferred timetable. What Paul is really saying, had we more of the letter, is that we must focus on what God in Christ calls us to do, not what we think we want or need to do. [ii] 

His insistence that buying more and more stuff may be good for the economy, but distracts us from being the community of God’s love and compassion that God in Christ call us to be. Besides, we begin to lose our very identity as Christ’s own forever when we begin to believe that all this stuff, the cars we drive, the clothes we wear, the investments we make, somehow become who we are. We identify with and accumulate so much stuff that many, if not most of us, have to rent the aptly named Self-Storage lockers to store all of our excess Self! 

Then along comes Jesus. After accepting the baptism of John, and skipping over his time in the wilderness, Jesus emerges proclaiming John’s message of repentance, but with a significant addition: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent, and believe in the good news.” Like Paul, Jesus proclaims that the present form of the world is passing away, and the way God creates the world to work will soon come to pass. Next, he calls a bunch of fishermen to follow him. And surprisingly, they drop their nets, leave their work behind, leave their families behind, and given no idea whatsoever lies ahead, they follow him. So unlike Jonah! One of them is actually named Simon the son of Jonah! Personally, I think that’s meant to make us laugh – a family of fishermen whose father is named after the guy who became fish-food! [iii] 

Like Jonah, like Andrew, Simon, John and James, no one is asked for a resume, given a test, or in anyway examined to see if they are qualified to do God’s work. Because everyone is. And some go another way. And some of us follow. It’s said that Jesus finds ways to qualify us. I don’t know if that’s true, but I do know that God’s kingdom is near. We see signs every day. It is at hand. I think when our youngest daughter, Cerny, was born, someone dropped off a book by Rosemary Wells, author of such other children’s classics such as Max’s First Word and Max’s Disappearing Bag. The book is called First Tomato, the first of a series called Voyage to the Bunny Planet, and goes like this: 

Claire ate only three spoons of cornflakes for breakfast (the rest she spilled on the floor). On the way to school her shoes filled up with snow. By eleven in the morning, math had been going on for two hours. Lunch was Claire’s least favorite – baloney sandwiches. At playtime Claire was the only girl not able to do a cartwheel. Once again, the bus was late. Claire needs a visit to the Bunny Planet. 

Far beyond the moon and stars, twenty light-years south of Mars, spins the gentle Bunny Planet, and the Bunny Queen is Janet! Janet says to Claire, “Come in. Here’s the day that should have been.” I hear my mother calling when the summer wind blows. “Go out to the garden in your old, old clothes. Pick me some runner beans and sugar snap peas. Find a ripe tomato and bring it to me, please.” A ruby red tomato is hanging on the vine. If my mother didn’t want it, the tomato would be mine. It smells of rain and steamy earth and hot June sun. In the whole tomato garden, it's the only ripe one. I close my eyes and breathe in its fat red smell. I wish that I could eat it now and never, never tell. But I save it for my mother without another look. I wash the beans and shell the peas and watch my mother cook. 

I hear my mother calling when the summer winds blow. “I’ve made you First Tomato Soup because I love you so.” Claire’s big warm school bus comes at last. Out her window Claire sees the Bunny Planet near the evening star in the snowy sky. “It was there all along, says Claire. 

The kingdom of God is at hand. You can reach out and touch it. Take one step forward with Christ and you are in it! It’s been here all along, like the Bunny Planet. Like Claire we think we want the First Tomato. But God our Mother knows just what we need: God’s Love and Compassion. First Tomato Soup. God’s kingdom is all about what we need, not what we want. 

The story Mark is telling says that Jesus calls us with no qualification but that we follow him. He is calling us right now to take one step at a time forward with him. He has prepared a meal for us. He sets it before us every week so we will remember him. And remember to follow him. He wants to share the Love and Compassion of God his Father with all who listen and respond to the Good News. It is a chance to heal those who are broken, and to heal a broken world. With the Psalmist we pray, “Be silent, my soul, for God; for my hope is from him” [iv] Can we hear him? Do we follow? Dare we take one step into God’s kingdom, leaving the rest behind? 

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[i] Jonah 3:1-5, 10

[ii] 1 Corinthians 7:29-31

[iii] Mark 1:14-20

[iv] Psalm 62:6-14 

Gustav Holst, composer of the music for the hymn “In the bleak midwinter…” and The Planets, once said, “Music, being identical with heaven, isn't a thing of momentary thrills, or even hourly ones. It's a condition of eternity.”