Epiphany 3B - "No Silver Bullets"

 Jonah 3:1–5 & 10

Saint Mark 1:14-20

The idea that there is a “silver bullet” out there that will solve all our problems is a literary device that predates Clayton Moore and the Lone Ranger by centuries.  It is defined as “a remedy which is very effective, almost magical" that “goes back at least to ancient Greece. In Britain, silver bullets {were} a superstitious countercharm figure ..  in folklore beliefs recorded from early 19 century held that a witch could be wounded or revealed  only by a wound from a silver bullet.”1 Werewolves and vampires can also be done in by one.

They are a product of legend and lore, but we still believe in them.

The silver bullet is the fast and easy solution. It resolves the tension. It solves the problem. Sometimes the tension between where I am and where I want to be is difficult to bear. A silver bullet would be a much welcomed relief to the struggle.

Marketers prey on our desire for the silver bullet cure-all solution. You’ve seen the signs on the side of the road: “Make 10k from home in the first month. Call now!” Or the internet marketer claims: “Stop spinning your wheels and live the life you’ll love in 5 days. Sign up now!”.

Man, those sound so good!

They’re calling out to the silver bullet desire that the tension between where you are and where you want to go can be solved quickly and easily (“with just 10 easy payments of $199.99”).2

 There is only one problem with silver bullets ... they don’t exist.  There are no easy solutions.  It today’s Gospel however, it looks like they do.  Jesus make it all look so easy.

His silver bullet seems to be the simple invitation to the boys in the boat to follow him.

As Dr. James D. Howell observed. 

We think the miracles are Jesus’ healings or stilling the storm. Maybe a bigger one is he walks right up to guys at work who’ve never heard of him, and after the briefest exchange, they drop everything, livelihood and family, and traipse off after him to… They don’t have the slightest idea where they’re going, what they’ll be doing, or how it will all come down.3

 Off they go never-the-less, leaving their poor Father in the boat with the hired help.  I always wonder how he felt.  His succession plan for the Zebedee and Sons Fresh Fish business is leaving him “high-and-dry” as they disappear down the path with someone neither he, nor they, had ever heard of before.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t know anybody who is that impulsive. I don’t know anybody who has left their job, their kith and kin, and everything else behind at a mere invitation of a stranger.  A pastor friend of mine says she has to check her calendar to see if she has any time to be spontaneous.  Personally, I ask at least a dozen questions about what is going to be on the menu before I’ll commit to even so much as accepting an invitation to lunch.

So, I honestly don’t get these guys.  In fact, most of the people I meet outside of church circles are more like Jonah than Simon and Andrew, James and John.  They may have received a call to follow or maybe even just “come and see” but their reaction is more like that of Jonah, and they sail off in the exact opposite direction from the way they are being led to go.

I do that too and that is why I find his struggle far more relatable than the disciple’s instant acceptance.

Jonah is celebrated in story and song because he is not your average prophet fearlessly proclaiming the word of the Lord in good times and bad.   Unlike all the others whose stories are exemplars of faith when the call comes to Jonah, he doesn’t just say no, he boards a ship, pays his fare, and sails off to parts unknown.

In an amazing sermon called, “I’m a Prophet, Get Me Out of Here!” Dr. Sam Wells, then of Duke University, summed up the story for us.

God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh to cry out against its wickedness. Jonah’s having none of it. He sets out in the opposite direction, gets on a boat heading across the Mediterranean. The Lord sends a hurricane upon the sea, and the boat is in all kinds of trouble. The sailors try to work out why this calamity has come upon them. 

Eventually Jonah admits that he’s running away from the Lord. Jonah tells the sailors to throw him into the sea – which, reluctantly, they do. Immediately Jonah hits the water, the storm ceases. Jonah’s swallowed by an outsized fish and takes up residence in the fish’s belly. There he thanks God for being given a second chance. 

After three days and nights the fish vomits Jonah up on dry land. 

The Lord hasn’t finished with Jonah. The Lord tells Jonah a second time to go to Nineveh and tell the citizens because God intends to destroy the city.4

 That is where our story picks up today. Jonah is once again sent to Ninevah which was the seat of the Assyrian Empire, the centre of power for one of the mortal enemies of Jonah and Jonah’s people.  Ninevah was “the representation of a culture, a society, and a people striving against the good ways of God and God’s people.”5  It was everything that Jonah had been taught to hate and he was firmly in favour of its total destruction.

Tired of being fish food, this time Jonah goes and only a third of the way on his walk through the city preaches an eight-word sermon: “Forty days more, and Ninevah shall be overthrown!”6 That’s it!  That’s his entire sermon! Eight words! 

Maybe there is a lesson to be learned there for every preacher because those eight words get a tremendous response.  These people whom Jonah despised actually listen to him.  Without so much as firing a “silver bullet” the people repent. 

They repent. This minor prophet preaches a minor sermon in a minor key and all these horrible, evil, worthless, enemy-number-one people immediately respond. They repent. They are willing to turn from who they have been and ... believe what Jonah says, that the direction they are headed leads only to death. But not only do they believe their destruction is on the way, they also believe if they can change course and repudiate their violent ways of living, God will give them a second chance.

So, these no-good, no-account Ninevites declare a fast, put on sackcloth, and dress for full repentance. The king even takes off his royal robe to put on sackcloth and sit in ashes. They even dress the dogs and cats and cows in sackcloth. They have little puppies in sackcloth chasing little kittens in sackcloth chasing little mice in sackcloth all around the ashes. There is not another group of people in scripture who respond so quickly and completely to God’s word as the people of Nineveh. Their entire reality changes because of what God does with a minor prophet who preaches a minor sermon in a minor key.

And guess what else: the Ninevites were right in their assumption that God’s mercy could include even them.5

 That my friends is Jesus’ message.  That mercy and grace includes everybody.  That’s the radical message of the church at its best – Jesus is there for everybody.

It has been this church’s message for almost a century-and-a-half and with hard work and generosity we will be able to carry this good work forward.  

In researching this slightly more than eight word sermon I discovered that in the same year that this church was founded the “nation’s first skyscraper, the 10-story, steel-framed Home Insurance Building, was built in 1884 at LaSalle and Adams streets.” That building was demolished in 1931 but this church still stands.  

It survived a devastating fire in the cold winter of 1899.  It has stood through good and bad economic times.  It has stood through two world wars, two pandemics, the Roaring Twenties, depressions, riots and all manner of civil and political strife.  It has stood when we were flush with cash and it has stood when, as my family used to say, “when we didn’t have two nickels to rub together.”

And it will continue to stand because we believe that there aren’t any “silver bullets” that will come along and save us but because of the day-to-day hard work and generosity of men and women who have heard Jesus say to them, “Follow me.” And have done just that.

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1, “Silver Bullet (n.),” Etymology, accessed January 19, 2024, https://www.etymonline.com/word/silver%20bullet.

2. Dan Cumberland, “Why You Haven’t Found the Silver Bullet,” themeaningmovement.com, June 24, 2014, https://themeaningmovement.com/silver-bullet/.

3. James  C. Howell, “What Can We Say January 21? 3rd after Epiphany,” James Howell’s Weekly Preaching Notions, January 1, 2024, https://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/.

4. Sam Wells, “I’m a Prophet, Get Me Out of Here!” Sermon preached at the Chapel of Duke University, January 22, 2012

5. John C Holbert, “Jonah 3:1-5, 10. Commentary 1: Connecting the Reading with Scripture,” Connections: A Lectionary Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, Year B, 1 (Louisville, KY: Westminister|John Knox Press, 2020): 199–200.

6. Jonah 3:4. (NRSVUE) [NRSVUE= The New Revised Standard Version - Updated Edition]

5.  Shannon Kershner, "God’s Humor.” Sermon preached at the Fourth Presbyterian Church of Chicago. January 25, 2015.