Dianna and I go through a ritual almost every day and it goes something like this: “What do you want for supper Dianna?” “I don’t care, what do you feel like Stan?” “I really don’t know what would be good, do you have a preference?” “No, I don’t care, you pick.” “Do you want to cook something at home or go out?” “I don’t care.” “OK. Well, all we have is Bisquick and beanie weenies, let’s go out.” “Great” she says. “OK, great, where do you want to go?” “I don’t care whatever you want.” “Well I don’t care either, so you say– anything at all.” “Do you want to drive back to town or stay in Maumelle?” “Doesn’t matter, I am up for anything.” “Ok then, how about the Pasta House?” “No, I don’t feel like that.” “Well, how about Senior Tequila?” “No, I really don’t like that as much as some other Mexican places.” “Well, where do you want to go then?” “Hey anywhere, it doesn’t matter.”

We go through this routine and half the time eat somewhere that neither one of us is crazy about. It is a classic case of indecisiveness. Now, we are not indecisive people. Dianna has about 45 employees, all highly educated nursing instructors at the school, and is responsible for 500 student’s welfare. I am also responsible for a few employees and a bunch of volunteers and for many things, including the completions of projects for senior administration. Decision making is what we do. So I have decided that when we are finally off work– boy are we off! I think we have responsibility fatigue (RF I am calling it) and it results in a total mind meltdown on some days. So we do best if someone decides for us and we vegetate in front of the tube, and feed our mind with intellectual pursuits like The Biggest Loser and Dancing with the Stars (it turns out the biggest loser is about the portly, I only watched it because I thought it a contest between the three Heifner brothers).

Indecisiveness. It is a modern malady I think, and Dianna and I are not alone. Well maybe we are. No, we are not. Do you know that research suggests that 65% of all Americans have an attack of indecisiveness in the voting booth? That would explain the last eight years. And we second guess ourselves on multiple choice tests where we would otherwise know the answer, we can’t decide how to spend our limited monies at 50% off sales, and we are overwhelmed at the choices on the cereal aisle at the grocery store. It has been said by scientists who study indecisiveness that the first case was in the Stone Age at the invention of the wheel. After it had been carved out of stone, the Cavemen had to deal with these two decisions: Do we charge extra for installation? And do we take Visa? (Indecisiveness, Wikipedia)

For me, part of the problem of being indecisive boils down to the point that we like to have the ability to change our minds, and some decisions are tough to undo if we decide in a way that we will later regret. I wasn’t sure if I really needed that Gall Bladder removed, but it is kinda hard to put that sucker back in once they suck it through that inch long hole in your belly. So the permanence of some things leads us to being extra indecisive on the front end.

And I think we as homo sapiens are always changing our minds. Dianna and I are particularly spontaneous, and we often don’t plan things, even big things. And that is good and bad at times. But we like flying by the seat of our pants, when it involves our personal time and personal lives, so we change our minds constantly. Some people have a hard time changing their minds, it takes a lot of planning and forethought, they look before they leap, and they think before they speak, they calculate before they spend, and they plan before they act. Some argue ferociously for their position even if they are wrong. Others are more malleable, and it is easy to persuade them or sell something to them. I am a tough sell; although a guy called the other night and wanted a charitable donation for one of those make a dream come true for sick kid’s organizations. I said no, I am tapped out, I give to many charities, I can’t give to you today maybe next time, I just gave my limit to the last guy that called, and finally I just said no. What I didn’t do was decide to hang up the phone, so he said, not even ten bucks to make the wish of a dying child come true? I said sure, send the bill.

So some of us change our minds too easily and others do not change them even if it causes them great consternation. I have chosen the lectionary text from the Old Testament today; from the book of Jonah, and it is a story that is not really about a big fish as much as it is about changing one’s mind. Jonah changes his mind and decides to do what God wants him to do in the first place, and that is to go to Nineveh and preach to those hated Assyrians. The whale changed his mind after probably deciding that eating a prophet is more disagreeable than eating the last place entrée in a chili cook-off, or eating at the cafeteria on a Sunday night right before closing time. The people of Ninevah starting with the King changed their minds about God and repented and a great revival broke out amongst a bunch of pagans and some of the most cruel conquerors history has known. Wow, that is a lot of mind change going on. The lesson is of course that the impossible can happen, unlikely change can miraculously occur when people just do what God leads them to do. It is a question of following God’s will and working God’s plan and not relying on our own conventions. And it is a nice story, and if I had to categorize the genre of the book of Jonah, I would say that it is a comedy, even though I think that we lose some of the humor in the translation or lack of translation to our culture.

But oh yes, lest I forget, there is one more mind that is changed. And that is surprisingly God’s. God changed his mind and decided not to wipe out all those Ninevites after they repented. He let them live and that of course made Jonah mad, but that is another sermon. So, can God change his mind? He evidently did on at least this occasion. Interestingly enough, those who preach you must accept the events in Jonah as historically and literally true often explain away this verse on God changing his mind. So what do you think, can God change God’s mind? It seems to be an important point to the book of Jonah, but what would it mean for us?

There are those who preach something called the Immutability of God. I have discovered that anytime a theology is not in plain English, I am probably not going to agree with it or like it very much. Such theo-jargon serves to only confuse the issue with intellectual hula hoops. But according to theologs, “immutability” means that God cannot change at all or at least change certain aspects about God, (such as God’s essence or attributes, or promises). These qualities cannot change. Jesus Christ (ergo God) is the same, yesterday, today and forever, as the writer to the Hebrews declares. James declares that there is no variableness nor shadow of turning in God, meaning that God is not fickle, God is consistent. What you see is what you get, and in essence God is the most predictable constant in the universe. If one discerns how God acts, then we know that God always acts in the same manner regardless of circumstances. Malachi reinforces this belief when it says, “For I, the Lord, do not change.” That is pretty plain and straightforward, but do you get your theology from Malachi?

There is great comfort in a God who does not change, mainly because everything else in all of creation is in constant change. And that can be very disconcerting for those who like to have things figured out and have their ducks in a row, which is all of us at one time or another when events are important enough. A God that does not change helps provide us a sense of security when we are very unsure of ourselves, of our future, or of the unknowns in our lives. When all else is going to hell in a hand basket in our lives, we take comfort in the one who is on our sided who never, ever, ever changes. God is stability when we are unstable. This belief undergirds all I do in Pastoral Care, when your life goes down the crapper, at least God is still there and still on your side, and buddy you can write that down.

But what if God does change? There are more passages that suggest that he does than otherwise? It is freely admitted, of course, that the Bible contains many anthropomorphic expressions used for God (human characteristics used to describe his essence). Anthropomorphisms such as God being sorry that He had made man on the earth, and being grieved to His heart (Gen. 6:6); that He came down to see whether the race had done according to the outcry which had come to Him or not (Gen. 18:21); that He would destroy Israel or Nineveh, but later did not do so because of prayer and repentance, (Jon. 3:10). There is the point of God repenting in scripture.

So does God change, or are these merely anthropomorphisms used for dramatic effect or for some other literary reason? I do not really know. This passage says in effect that God changed his mind, so I tend to think that he did at least this once. Now there are those who say that God’s actions were predictable based on the people’s repentance, and this is ironically a proof for his immutability in essence. That he had to change his mind to be consistent with his nature of forgiving if we only repent, which of course those pesky Ninevites did.

I have news for you this morning. We certainly believe that we can change God’s mind at least pragmatically. Most people I hear praying are really petitioning God to change his mind and do something they want done. God answers prayer we say, and often what we mean is that God gives us what we want if we ask him to do so. And if we don’t pray then we are victims of life, we are a ship without a rudder because God only intervenes if we ask. We have not because we ask not. I mean who just prays for God’s will be done, because that is going to happen anyway, right? Do we really have to pray that God do what he wants and plans to do? Jesus taught us to pray that way, but his prayer was that God’s will be done on earth as it is in heaven, and that is different because he included people in his equation of getting the work done. We on the other hand believe that God will change direction and act on our behalf if we bow down low enough and humbly ask him for whatever. It is hard to believe that we have that much power over the alpha and omega, that is we ask earnestly enough, or conjure up enough others asking fervently, then God will do something that he would otherwise not be so inclined to do. Then God answers our prayers we say. This is magical thinking, or believing God as a lucky rabbit’s foot. I remember a prayer group in college that I was part of at First Fundamentalist Baptist Church we always had two categories of petitions – needs and wants. We would list our needs, such as an “A” on a Calculus tests, or the courage to witness to that Frat brother, and our wants, such as “My car sucks; I want a new one so I can reliably get to prayer service.” We expected to get our needs because God takes care of that, and shoot every once and a while we might get something we want, if God was in the right mood I guess.

And yet I will keep praying for both needs and wants, I am not going to stop. I heard a man give tell his story this past week in a management meeting at the hospital, who has been at the point of death many times. And after two heart transplants and a rare type of cancer that led to his heart being damaged, he was on his last hope, an artificial heart at the Texas Heart Center. His Doctor their suggested that even though she had given him 30 days to live that there might be a miracle for him and she would pray to that end. This man also had a friend in the Dominican Republic pray for him very specifically. He didn’t pray for a new heart for this guy, but instead prayed for his heart function to up itself from the critical value of 13 to 50, which was where it needed to be. Well you have probably guessed how this story ends. His heart started immediately getting stronger, and now a year and a half later with no explanation his heart function is 56 and holding strong. He had absolutely no chance, no hope, yet he lives. So you tell him that God doesn’t jump through our hoops. In the mean time, I am going to try to hire that guy from the Dominican Republic to be on my staff, and I am going to plead with God to change his mind every chance I get.

But the message of the book of Jonah is deeper than a fickle God who changes his mind quicker than the direction of the wind in West Texas. I do believe that God’s mind can be changed, and even though I don’t believe that God always jumps through our hoops if we use the right formula, God nonetheless changes his mind when we first change ours. And if this view of God is a little too human for you, I suggest you read the Bible a little closer, because the evidence is there. We really are made in the image of God, and even in his wholly otherness he is more human than we would believe. William Carter hits the meaning of the book of Jonah on the head when he writes:

The book of Jonah is a funny book. It is a satire on every exclusive, narrow-minded expression of religion. This is theology as high comedy. But I hope the story disturbs us too. The story of Jonah holds before us a picture of God that is so loving, so patient, so relentlessly gracious that it pushes us to extend our human boundaries of God’s infinite grace. Why is Jonah so angry? The short answer is because God loves too many people. The longer answer, according to Jonah, is that God is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, ready to relent from punishing.” Like Jonah, that’s how we expect God to be toward us. That’s not always how we want God to be toward others. All of this happens in the 10th chapter of Acts. By the 15th chapter the church is having its first major disagreement. All the preachers are called in from the frontier. Everybody is squabbling over one issue, namely, how many outsiders are we going to allow in God’s church? The problem, it seems, is that God keeps inviting everybody. It just goes to show the church doesn’t tell a lot of new stories, rather, we keep telling the same story of a God who loves everybody, who is merciful to everybody, who is kind to everybody, but who is stuck with some reluctant messengers. When are we going to get it straight that the love of God is for all people? That the judgment of God is laid upon every human heart? That the mercy of God can forgive every sin and give second chances to every person? When are we going to get it into our heads and our hearts that the Creator in heaven wants nothing more than to stand face to face with every creature beginning with us, but not ending there. God is willing to love anybody. Even Jonah. Even you and me. The difficulty is not in telling ourselves this is true. The difficulty is believing it’s true for everybody else. (Day One, “When God Repented,” William Carter, JAN 23, 2000).

God changed his mind because the Ninevites changed their minds, and their minds fell in line with God’s mind. When that happened, Jonah’s mind fell out of touch with God’s, and he was miserable for the reason that God had changed: God was not going to destroy his enemies and curse those who cursed him, but instead forgave them and gave them a place of blessing as well. And that is why Jonah didn’t want to go in the first place, he knew God well enough to know that he would change his mind and forgive those that Jonah himself could not forgive.

So who is it today that we cannot forgive? Who is it that we cannot love or for that matter even like? Who earns our hatred, dislike or just plain apathy? There is someone I promise you for each of us. There are those that we secretly hope will get theirs someday, those whom we will lick our chops when the judgment day comes around and God rights all those wrongs. Those we can’t just wait to get their comeuppance. You see in the end, the person who still needed to change his mind was not the godless Ninevites, but the prophet of God Jonah, whose life was filled with hatred and anger, and maybe he was God’s target all along. And while the pagan Ninevites radically changed, and God himself changed, a man who was full of hatred and prejudice did not change, and even after 120,000 Ninevites came to God, he wanted to crawl in a hole and die. Now you tell me who needed to change, who needed forgiveness, who needed God’s extraordinary grace?

In the end we need to examine our own lives and see where we need to change, because we all do somewhere or in something. And when we do, extraordinary things can happen, and who knows—maybe even God Almighty will jump through a hoop or two for us, because there is no end to his love and forgiveness. No matter who you are. No matter where you live. No matter your race or religion. No matter what you have done. And that my friends is Good News! Thanks be to God, Amen.