Go to Nineveh
I Corinthians 13 (read by me) and Jonah 1 (read by liturgist)
August 17, 2025 (Include healing service)
Fifty years ago, my girlfriend and I started dating and memorized a chapter from the Bible. Forty-eight years ago, that same girlfriend and I recited that chapter again – this time from on top of a small waterfall on the night I asked her to marry me. A year later, we had that Scripture read at our wedding. Over the years that Scripture has been central to how Lori and I have tried to live our lives.
At the end of my 42 years of ministry, it summarizes what I believe and what I’ve tried to accomplish in ministry. It’s often called the Love Chapter. It’s First Corinthians 13. Paul says this:
What if I could speak all languages of humans and even of angels? If I did not love others, I would be nothing more than a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. What if I could prophesy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge? And what if I had faith that moved mountains? I would be nothing, unless I loved others.What if I gave away all that I owned and let myself be burned alive? I would gain nothing, unless I loved others.Love is patient and kind, never jealous, boastful, proud, or rude. Love isn’t selfish or quick tempered. It doesn’t keep a record of wrongs that others do.Love rejoices in the truth, but not in evil.Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting.Love never fails! Everyone who prophesies will stop, and unknown languages will no longer be spoken. All that we know will be forgotten. We don’t know everything, and our prophecies are not complete.But what is perfect will someday appear, and what isn’t perfect will then disappear.When we were children, we thought and reasoned as children do. But when we grew up, we quit our childish ways.Now all we can see of God is like a cloudy picture in a mirror. Later we will see God face to face. We don’t know everything, but then we will, just as God completely understands us. For now there are faith, hope, and love. But of these three, the greatest is love.
It all started for me when I was a fifth grader. One of the questions that adults always ask kids is: What are you going to be when you grow up?
I had a hard time deciding. I would often dream about giving speeches. But I loved school and studying and learning. So when people asked me… “Michael, what do you want to be when you grow up?” I would answer this way:
“During the week – Monday through Friday, I want to be a scientist. Then on Saturdays I want to be a politician and run for office. Finally on Sundays, I want to preach and pastor a church.”
I thought that pastors only worked one day a week.
Looking back, I can see that was my first call to ministry.
Jonah received his first call to ministry with these words from God: “Go to the great city of Nineveh. Preach to them.”
Jonah’s response: “Are you kidding? Nineveh? That’s the capital of our hated enemy. It’s the last place in the world you’ll find me. Why Nineveh? I know you don’t care about anyone there, Lord.”
God said again, “Go to Nineveh. Preach to them.”
Today, it would be like God calling someone to go to North Korea or Iran or Russia.
Nineveh was located far to the east of Israel. Jonah started walking… But instead of walking east, he walked west to the Mediterranean Sea. He got to the seaport of Joppa where he boarded a ship heading further west toward Spain. Spain was the farthest point of land from Nineveh in the known world.
Jonah turned his heart away from God and God’s call on his life.
I too turned my heart away from God and God’s call on my life during my Junior High years. I became a skeptic. I doubted whether God was even real. I knew that other things I used to believe in were not true – Santa and the Easter Bunny. Anyways, I was going to be a scientist. A scientist won’t believe anything unless there is proof. And I could see no proof for God.
The Junior High years were some of my most difficult years – they were times of searching and loss.
Jonah’s experience at sea proved to be the lowest point of his life. It was a horrific storm. The waves were crashing upon the ship, threatening to break it to pieces. The other sailors were afraid for their lives. They assumed that someone must have sinned so bad that caused God to do this to them. So they interrogated everyone. Finally, they got to Jonah.
Soon the sailors found out Jonah was running from God. They didn’t want to hurt Jonah, but decided the best thing for everyone was to throw Jonah overboard into the raging sea.
As Jonah is being tossed overboard, he assumes that his life is over. There is no way he can survive those murderous waves.
Instead, God rescued Jonah by sending a big fish to swallow him.
I was rescued at a Youth Retreat when I was in 10th Grade. It was a three day weekend in October of 1973. The Associate Pastor of the United Methodist Church I attended led our youth group on a bike trip to our Church Camp near Warsaw, Indiana. That Sunday night we attended a charismatic worship service. I had never been to anything like it in my life – and have never been to anything like it since.
People stood up in the service and told how God had healed them. It was amazing. Then later in the service, some of the people spoke in tongues – just like the speaking in tongues that Paul talked about in I Corinthians. For me, it was a sign from God that God was real.
I remember laying in my bunk bed after everyone went to bed that night telling God, “I believe in you. I truly believe in you. And I’ll follow you wherever you want me to go. And I’ll do whatever you want me to do.”
During the next couple months God whispered to me that they wanted me to go into the ministry. I said, ‘Yes, Lord I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if you lead me.” I chose a college where I could get a Religion degree. Later I went off to seminary for more training.
Jonah found himself spit out of the whale and laying on the shore. Once again God called Jonah: “Go to Nineveh.”
“Lord, are you sure you want me to go to those foreigners? They’re not one of us. They’re outsiders.”
God says, “Go to Nineveh.”
This time Jonah says, “Here I am Lord. I’ve heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if you lead me.”
Over the years, I’ve heard God calling me to go to Nineveh.
This has meant going to those who are considered outsiders.
During the early years of my ministry this meant going to youth and adults who were outside the church. I felt a special calling to reach the unchurched, to go to those people who had drifted away from God and His church. We called this work different names. Some called it evangelism. Others referred to it as church growth. In Hammond, we called ourselves the Outreach Committee.
What a privilege to see many people come back to God and God’s church during those years at Grandview, Missouri; Hammond, Indiana; South Bend, Indiana and Casco Township near South Haven, Michigan.
During my time at Pentwater, I took a three-month Sabbatical. I was feeling a calling to go to a different kind of Nineveh. I wasn’t sure where this would be – but I sensed that the outsiders God wanted me to reach were the poor. I traveled throughout the country that fall trying to discover the specific place where God wanted us to live with the poor.
The last week of my Sabbatical I visited the Red Bird Missionary Conference in southeastern Kentucky. I met with the Conference superintendent who talked about an opening at the church on the campus of Henderson Settlement.
After my return to Michigan, Lori and I met with a Clearness Committee that helped us discern that the Hope Church in Frakes, Kentucky would be our new Nineveh.
What a privilege to be in ministry with the people of Appalachia through the Hope Church and the Henderson Settlement and the Frakes community.
God called me to another group of Ninevites eleven years ago. They had been treated as outsiders by the United Methodist denomination I was a part of. It started when our daughter Sarah told me that she and Ali were planning on getting married. It forced me to consider whether I should or should not officiate at their wedding.
It led me to recognize what the church and specifically the United Methodist Church was doing to LGBTQ persons. Even though it was against the rules of the denomination and I could have my ministerial credentials removed, I chose to sign the marriage license of an LGBTQ couple and told my District Superintendent. Charges were filed against me, but I was not removed from ministry.
The next summer, I sensed that I was called by God to officiate at another wedding – the wedding of a friend of mine, a nearby pastor. This led me deeper into the work of advocacy for LGBTQ persons and the work of trying to bring change to that whole denomination. Once again, charges were filed, but I was not taken to trial or removed from ministry.
I slept outside that year for 175 nights to symbolize what the United Methodist Church was doing to LGBTQ persons – by pushing them out into the cold. This ended at the United Methodist General Conference which made a baby step forward in bringing change and justice and inclusion for LGBTQ persons.
Looking back over the 42 years, I can see that my whole ministry was one of reaching out to include the outsider – inviting them into God’s kingdom.
Now, I’m off to a different mission field. The mission field of grandparenting. Our daughter Sarah needs my wife and me to assist them with the grandchildren for a year while Sarah starts her new micro Montessori School and Ali continues to teach High School Math. We will be moving to Baltimore for a year to do this. What a joy and a challenge – as all mission opportunities are.
The end of the book of Jonah finds Jonah upset with God. He’s upset because God forgave the Ninevites. He’s angry because God’s love was extended to include the outsider. He didn’t think this was right or fair. He tells God this.
As I look back on my ministry, I have to admit that too often I’ve been like Jonah. Too often I’ve resisted God’s call on my life to welcome the outsider. Too often I’ve been silent as God wanted me to preach about inclusion. Too often I’ve chosen the comfortable, the safe, and the popular. Too often I’ve avoided saying things that needed to be said – out of fear.
I have always been a people pleaser. I like it when people say good things about me. Therefore, more often than not, I’ve headed on the ship to Spain instead of going to Nineveh.
The last verse of the book of Jonah has God saying to Jonah: “Don’t you think I should be concerned about that big city?” The story does not really have an ending. We don’t know how Jonah will respond to God’s love for the outsider.
Basically, the book leaves us all with this one question: “Will we love the outsider like God loves the outsider?”
Jonah’s story and the story of my ministry can only end with one phrase. It’s a phrase I picked up when I was down in Kentucky. I used it often down there. I brought it back up here because it fits in so many times and places. It’s the phrase the Washington Post writer used in concluding the article she wrote about Sarah and I and the Tent Witness nine years ago.
The phrase is this: God, help us.
That’s my prayer. God, help us.
The last twenty five years of my ministry I’ve often concluded our service with a different type of worship experience. It’s a Healing Service. I invite those who would like to receive any type of healing or pray for someone they know for any type of healing to raise their hand. I’ll ask people what or who they want to pray for. Then I’ll anoint their forehead with oil and pray for their specific need.
A song that is very meaningful to me is called: You are Mine. It was especially meaningful to me on November 30th 2015. It was the first day of my Tent Witness. I was traveling to Marquette, Michigan to pitch my tent on the lawn of the First UMC. It was the office of the man who was appointed as consul for the church in my case. He was like the prosecuting attorney who would be working to remove me from ministry.
As I was driving north, I thought: “This is the craziest thing I have ever done in my life.” I had never engaged in any type of protest before, let alone pitch a tent in front of someone’s office. I was scared to death I would be arrested and thrown in jail. I was more afraid than at any time in my life.
While driving there, I sang the refrain of this song over and over: “Do not be afraid, I am with you. I have called you each by name. Come and follow me, I will bring you home, I love you and you are mine.”
The words of that song encouraged me when I needed it most.
We will be singing that song during the Healing Service.
