The Sign of Jonah

When the crowds were increasing, Jesus said: ‘This generation is alienated from the spirit; it seeks for a sign of the spirit, but no sign will be given to it except the sign of Jonah. For just as Jonah became a sign to the people of Nineveh, so the Son of Man will be to this generation.’
Luke 11:14

Jonah is the one who is reluctant to follow the prompting of his higher self, and turns another way.

His wilfulness leads him to shipwreck, to being cast overboard, to a journey to the depths. There he goes through a kind of initiation in life.

“I called out to the Lord, out of my distress,
    and he answered me…

For you cast me into the deep,
    into the heart of the seas,
    and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
    passed over me…
The waters closed in over me to take my life;
    the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped about my head
    at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
    whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the pit,
    O Lord my God.
When my life was fainting away,
    I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
    into your holy temple.
Jonah 2

‘The sign of Jonah’ – that is not a sign that Jonah performed, but his life. It is the promise that wherever our self-willed choices take us, we will find the possibility of transformation, if we can embrace the experience of initiation by life.

Tom Ravetz

We are looking forward to the weekend conference with Ilse Wellershof-Schuur. Soup and rolls will be provided for Saturday lunch; please bring and share to supplement this.

The concert planned for 9th March has been cancelled.

There will be a Little Ones’ Gathering at 9.15am on Sunday.

We will turn to Psalm 23 for the second time this week. Then there is a gap before our final session of this series, 22nd March, when we will turn to Psalm 19.

Nataliia and Tom will be at the priests’ synod in Stourbridge 4-8 March. There will be no services in Forest Row on Thursday and Friday.

The programme for March – June 2024 is available to pick up in the church.

Please note the date of our Annual Congregational Meeting, which will take place on Sunday, 10th March at 11.30am.

Information

We would like to remind you that the Forward Education initiative are hiring the community room, children’s room and foyer on Mondays, 8am-4pm. This means that they have exclusive use of those spaces and we would ask you please to respect that.