REFLECTION FOR OPEN PRAIRIE UCC – SUNDAY, AUGUST 12th, 2018
Whenever I hear about Jonah, a picture pops into my mind of Jonah being swallowed by a whale (the bible calls it a big fish, but I learned it as a whale).
Jonah is one of the top ten bible stories I learned in Sunday School, probably because of the striking image of being swallowed up by a sea creature and then living to tell about it,
but what does it mean?
It seems like all of the bible stories I learned when I was young ended up being some kind of mental picture to me, so when I hear someone mention Noah’s Ark, immediately a picture pops into my mind of a big boat with two giraffes and two elephants and a rainbow across the sky. But if I think about it for a moment, I remember the meaning. It’s about a man who had enough faith to prepare for a catastrophe.
If someone mentions the Garden of Eden, I immediately see a picture in my mind of Adam and Eve, a tree, an apple, and a snake. But if I think about it for a moment, a meaning comes to me. I remember that God allows us to have free will, but our choices have consequences.
If someone mentions Jonah, I think of a man being swallowed by a whale, or a big fish. But when I think about it?
…nothing!
It has no meaning to me at all!
I really had no idea what the story was about until just recently. I was listening to a podcast called “Exploring My Strange Bible”, and Tim Mackie started talking about Jonah in a way I’ve never heard before, and that’s why I wanted to write about it.
I’m sharing what I learned from him.
The story opens with the word of Yahweh coming to Jonah, saying “Get up, go to Ninevah and cry out against it, because her evil has come before me”. But Jonah caught a boat to Tarshish to get away from Yahweh.
That is a CRAZY way to start a story, especially about a man of faith, but let me just stop right here and give you a little background behind the two characters and the two places, to set the stage:
- YAHWEH is the Hebrew name for the Creator God, the Most High God over everything else. It’s important to distinguish that, because later on in the story there are pagans praying to OTHER Gods.
- JONAH is one of the twelve minor prophets in the Old Testament. They are called minor, not because their prophecies are less important, but because these twelve books are much shorter than some of the major prophets like Daniel or Isaiah.
- NINEVAH was EAST of where Jonah was, and was the capital city of the Assyrians. At the time they were evil and brutal. They did terrible things to their enemies, so Jonah was being asked to deliver a message to the scariest place he could imagine.
- TARSHISH was WEST of where Jonah was, as far west as you could go. Tarshish was what we call Spain (or at least a place in Spain), and in that time, it was as far as you could go in that direction. Literally the end of the world.
So, God is asking Jonah, a man of faith, to go East and tell the Assyrians that they are on the wrong track and that he’s not happy about it, and Jonah immediately catches a boat going West, in the opposite direction.
No Way.
He says he would rather DIE.
(btw, this story is a series of extremes; everything that happens seems opposite or backwards or unexpected in some way)
So Jonah boards a ship heading West, and God causes a great storm, so bad that the ship is ready to break apart, and the sailors are afraid. Back then the sea was a place where you were virtually helpless. They called it The Abyss, the embodiment of chaos. So each of them begins praying to his God, but nothing helps, and the storm gets even worse. Pagans had quite a variety of beliefs, and sailors working on a ship probably came from all kinds of different places, so they were hoping that at least ONE of them would be praying to the right God for help.
But nothing is working…
Meanwhile, Jonah is down in the belly of the ship, fast asleep! When they go down to wake him, they ask lots of different questions, hoping that he will be able to help. Maybe he knows a different God, right?
He answers, “My God is the God of heaven, and land, and THE SEA.
The sea?
Your god is the god of THE SEA?
They became “exceedingly afraid”, asking him,
“WHAT HAVE YOU DONE?”
Then they ask him,
“What should WE do?”
You know, there’s a similar incident in the New Testament…
Jesus was asleep in a boat with his disciples on the Sea of Galilee, and the storm was raging, and they were afraid. When they woke him up in a panic, he said, “Peace, Be Still”, and the sea became calm. Maybe Jonah has a chance to be faithful here (and he does show faith), but his solution to the problem is unexpected. He tells them that if they throw him overboard the sea will quiet down. They begin to worry about shedding innocent blood, praying to Yahweh. The pagans are showing faith as well. And as soon as they throw him overboard, the sea “ceased from its raging” and the pagans made vows and offered sacrifices to Yahweh.
So the end result is that the man of faith has basically committed suicide rather than follow the will of God, and pagans have had a spiritual experience and align themselves to Yahweh.
They pray to Yahweh now.
But Jonah is overboard, and this is the part of the story that people are most familiar with, where Jonah is swallowed by a big fish, and from the depths of the sea, in the darkest abyss imaginable, in the midst of chaos, he prays to Yahweh.
Yahweh accepts his prayer, and the fish spits him up onto dry land, but Yahweh doesn’t let him off the hook. He immediately commands him to
“Get up, Go to Ninevah and cry out against it.”
So, renewed and filled with purpose, he arrives in Ninevah, and delivers his sermon to the city.
I just read it today in the scripture reading.
Do you remember it?
I read the WHOLE SPEECH to you.
So, in case you missed the shortest sermon EVER in the history of preaching, here it is again, in its entirety:
“Forty. More. Days. And. Ninevah. Shall. Be. Overturned.“
Eight words!
In the original Hebrew it’s only FIVE words.
And here’s the shocking result that no one would have expected –
IT WORKED!
Upon hearing his five words of preaching, the city turned over a new leaf.
As the change was sweeping through the city, the King heard about it and proclaimed a fast, and declared that even the animals would repent.
(I mentioned that this story is all about extremes, right?)
So even the cows repent…
Jonah 3:10 And God saw their deeds—that they turned from their evil ways
So you can probably imagine that Jonah is feeling pretty pleased with his performance right about now, right?
He just helped 120,000 people find their way into God’s Kingdom.
He’s gotta be floating on air, right?
NOPE…
He’s furious!
Let’s try to put ourselves in his shoes for a moment.
Jonah would have been familiar with scripture, at least the first five books of the bible called the Torah. So when God told him, “their evil has come before me”, he would have immediately thought of an earlier time when the same situation had come up. In the book of Genesis, the same accusation was made against Sodom and Gomorrah, and those two cities were completely destroyed.
So Jonah would have been thinking that Ninevah was about to be destroyed. In fact, several English translations use the word “destroyed” in Jonah’s speech, saying Forty More Days and Ninevah Shall Be Destroyed. But that takes away a wonderful twist in the story.
If Jonah had prophesied that Ninevah was going to be destroyed, his prophecy would not have come true. Ninevah wasn’t destroyed. But in a twist that no one could have predicted, Ninevah WAS overturned!
They turned from their evil ways and began to worship Yahweh.
Within Forty Days Ninevah was Overturned.
But Jonah is in shock.
He can’t believe that he has been used to bring his enemies into the kingdom of God.
So he goes out into the desert and camps there, facing Ninevah. It’s like he’s waiting the full forty days, hoping that the conversion would fade before the time is up and Ninevah will finally be destroyed. He WANTS Ninevah to be destroyed. So he’s out in the desert, waiting to see what will happen, and in the meantime, he’s so mad at God he wants to die. (extreme?)
Jonah 4:4 And Yahweh said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
If you know the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, you might remember that Abraham had questioned God. He wondered how God could destroy a whole city if there were good people living in it. Abraham negotiated with God, and the end result was that Lot’s family was rescued because they were good.
We are supposed to be learning some spiritual principles in these stories, and I think we’re supposed to learn that we’re not going to be judged as a city, or as a country, or as a society. Scripture teaches that each person is going to be judged based on one thing, whether that individual chose to turn over a new leaf and give up their evil ways.
Whether they were personally OVERTURNED.
So back to the story – Jonah is miserable out in the desert. And God, to illustrate His care and love for His creation, creates a plant that grows overnight and shades Jonah from the harsh sun, and Jonah is extremely happy.
The next day God creates a worm that destroys the plant, the sun beats down on Jonah and he is so miserable that he literally ASKS to die.
(from one extreme to the other)
Anyway, when Abraham was negotiating for INDIVIDUAL JUDGEMENT at Sodom and Gomorrah instead of Mass Destruction, he was acting as a rescuer. God is also a rescuer. He loves His creation. He loves the plant he created (so did Jonah), but He also loves the 120,000 people he created in Ninevah.
But in this story, Jonah wants to act as an agent of destruction.
He’s rooting for the worm.
The other spiritual principle that we need to be learning here is that in many different ways, in many stories and parables, scripture teaches us that the Kingdom is open to anyone that chooses it. That was a real stumbling block to some of the Jewish people. They thought THEY were God’s people, and they had a real difficulty accepting it when Jesus opened the door to everyone else. Maybe they should have learned something from the book of Jonah. People who repent of their evil ways are grafted into the family tree. Perfectly acceptable to God.
He WANTS us.
ALL of us!
…and the story ends. Right there.
…with Jonah sitting in the desert, wanting to die.
God says to Jonah, “You are troubled about the plant, which you did not work for or cause to grow. Shouldn’t I be worried about the 120,000 people who don’t know their right hand from their left?
And the story just ends.
No resolution.
It’s similar to the story of the Prodigal Son.
When the Prodigal Son comes back home and his father accepts him and welcomes him and throws a party for him, the older brother is angry. He doesn’t even want to go in to the party.
The story just ends.
We never find out if the older brother accepts his father’s grace and mercy.
We never find out if the older brother makes it to the party.
We never find out if Jonah makes it to the party.
Because it isn’t really about them.
It’s about US.
Since those stories don’t have an ending, it leaves us thinking about how it SHOULD end. How would WE handle the same situation?
What if you find out that certain politicians you don’t like are invited to the party?
Or drug addicts?
Or, radical Islam?
Or convicted Felons?
Or someone that has abused you, or taken advantage of you?
Can we accept it, If God invites people to the party that we don’t like?
I started this by sharing how I remember Bible Stories as mental pictures.
I’m pretty sure I will always think about a Whale whenever I hear about Jonah, but I hope I can start associating that picture with a meaning.
What if God shows His love to people that I think don’t deserve it?
God LOVES his creation and WANTS to rescue it.
Am I rooting for THAT?
Or am I rooting for THE WORM?
(thank you)
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