We are so very blessed by the clergy and lay leaders who contributed to the design and construction of our sanctuary. Week by we enter into this holy and very beautiful space to worship and share community in Christ. I brought the kids up to the altar to teach them how our physical focal points of the altar and Jesus reflect our spiritual focus. Let’s start at the front and recognize the design elements that accentuate our worship and fellowship.

We start at our red doors, which are only a few years old but had been anticipated when the church was first built. They are red to remind us that this space is sanctuary because of the blood of Christ. The red carpet, red kneelers and red seat cushions all follow that theme. Next, we look up and admire our beautiful wood ceiling that evokes the underside of a boat, which we use to navigate the waters of chaos, like Noah and like the disciples, facing storms and waves on the Sea of Galilee.

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The book of Jonah is the fourth shortest book in the Bible. Just 48 verses among its four chapters, it nevertheless is easily the most memorable of the twelve minor prophets. His encounter with the whale or “great fish” is probably in just about every children’s Bible and Sunday school curriculum. I expect most of us know it. If you do not, the entire book is only about a page and a half in our pew Bibles, and you just heard about a quarter of it. It doesn’t take long to read, but it may take some time to reflect on his story and what his experience teaches us about God and ourselves.

This morning we heard the final scene. Having repented of trying to flee from God’s command and being spat out of the great fish onto dry land, Jonah does as God instructed. (We assume after a bath and freshening up a bit.) He goes to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, to warn them to repent and turn to God, or God would destroy their city.

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This morning’s gospel is at once extremely helpful and extremely demanding. Peter asks how many times he must forgive, “a member of the Church.” Jesus answers, “not seven times, but seventy times seven.” That doesn’t mean 490 times. It is an old Biblical metaphor used in Genesis to describe unlimited vengeance. Jesus uses it to emphasize unlimited forgiveness. This standard is absolute. And, like everything else Jesus says and does, this has everything to do with the Kingdom of God.

Then Jesus describes forgiveness with this parable. The slave has racked up an impossible debt, roughly 160,000 years’ worth of wages. (That’s a long time; 160,000 years ago, humans were using stone tools and fire, and when they had neanderthals in the neighborhood it wasn’t a metaphor.)

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