God was troubled that the people of the great city of Nineveh ‘did not know their right hand from their left’. That they were a people - in other words - losing their way, troubled in their ease, psychically impoverished in their wealth. In our climate confusion and shame over the many inequalities and inequities of our situation, are we all Ninevites now?
If so then the Nineveh story offers a strange kind of hope to us in this week where the world’s leaders meet to discuss action on climate change and we, the people, wait in hope and fear to discern the shape our future might take. For the Nineveh story offers us a glimpse of some unlikely heroes - for it was the actions of the people which effected change in Nineveh; an unexpected and very welcome twist offering hope.
For, as Greta Thunberg recently said, ‘Hope is not passive; hope is not ‘blah-blah-blah’. Hope is telling the truth; hope is taking action; and hope always comes from the people.’
A talk for the Third Sunday before Advent, 7 November 2021, during the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP26) in Glasgow.
Find the text to this and all my talks at bit.ly/johndavies-talks.
