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January 19, 2003
"Our Call "
 Edie Rasell

Jonah 3:1-5, 10  
Mark 1:14-20 

I serve in the national setting of the UCC in Justice and Witness Ministries as Minister for Labor Relations and Community Economic Development. You support the work of the larger church – the Potomac Association, Central Atlantic Conference, and national UCC – through your contributions to Our Church’s Wider Mission. You support Justice and Witness Ministries in particular through the Neighbors in Need offering. I thank you for this support – know that your dollars are being used to make our nation and the world a better place.

For its size, 1.5 million members, we have quite a large staff devoted to justice issues – about 35 people. My position – focused on work place issues and community economic development is fairly unique among denomination, even those much larger than we are.

My job entails writing short educational pieces, doing workshops and presentation on my issues, working in coalitions with other national and local groups on particular issues, and encouraging clergy and lay people to get involved in justice issues. I also work with particular congregations on community economic development ministries or labor struggles.

I know that CCC has been very involved in justice issues and continues to be today. The youth are particularly active. I know that you care about justice issues and with your new space, are really equipped to do this work.

I want to reflect for a few minutes on the morning’s lectionary passages.

In the first two chapters, God calls to Jonah but Jonah does not want to do what God asks and he flees. He boards a boat that quickly encounters a storm and, to save the boat and its crew, Jonah is thrown overboard. He is next swallowed by a whale and, after three days in its belly, is thrown up on land. Chapter 3 begins as Jonah, lying on the beach, hears God’s voice again. God asks Jonah to go to Nineveh and proclaim God’s message of repentance. Jonah finally goes, the people in the city and the King repent, and the city is saved.

All we know about Jonah is this mission. This mission was the most important aspect of Jonah’s life. God calls people to mission (as Jesus called the disciples) and calls churches to mission. Mission is the primary activity of the church.

It is God’s mission, not the church’s mission. Like Jonah, the church is God’s agent in mission. The church carries out and implements God’s mission.

Since it is God’s mission, it will reflect the nature of God. Our view of mission will reflect our view of God.

Our God is healing and nurturing, as Jesus was.

Our God is inclusive – all are one in God.

Our God is a God of justice – the first shall be last, the powerful are brought down from their thrones, the proud are scattered, the lowly are lifted up, the hungry are filled with good things while the rich are sent away empty. As the prophet Micah declared: "What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:8).

Our God is a God of transformation – lives are changed, the broken is made whole.

The mission/justice work God calls us to do will embody the healing, nurturing, inclusive, work of doing justice and seeking transformation.

So What is the Role of the Church in both the local and national settings?

The church must:

nurture, heal, and serve people both within and outside its walls – help them through the rough places, equip them for justice work;

discern the will of God – what work of justice is God calling us to do? and

anticipate transformation of ourselves and the world.

Justice work is not just one option for the church. It must be the central focus. We are about living into the reign of God – not the reign of the U.S. or the reign of the Fortune 500 companies.

Like Jonah, we must Turn Around.
Listen to God, not the loud voices of the crowd.
Listen to God, not the ad agencies.
Listen to God, not President Bush or the Secretary of Defense.

If we nurture, heal, and serve each other, and if we listen carefully to God’s call, then the world and we ourselves will be transformed.

Paul said: the Spirit "at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask for or imagine" (Ephesians 3:20).

This is our promise. This is our hope. Out of this assurance we respond to God’s call to justice work.

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