No one knows exactly what to make of the prophet Jonah. When I was a little kid I thought Jonah was a historical story - that Jonah tried to run away from God and was then eaten by a big fish, where he stayed for three days and three nights. You may have gotten the same idea. The problem is that people don't revisit Jonah from an adult perspective. While some do insist that Jonah is history, most do not. Commentators as far back as 1000 years question its historicity. Martin Luther didn't think it was a true story but rather something else. The question is, what else?
Is Jonah a satire, or maybe folklore, or midrash, or maybe something else? No matter which approach you take you'll run into problems. I personally find that I get the most from Jonah when I treat it as a satire. It plays on exaggeration and silliness. That is the approach we will take in today's sermon. However, I want to note that Jonah does wor on many levels. I always encourage people to read the Bible, and read it over and over again. Approach Jonah from many perspectives on your own. You'll find it worth it!
Jonah is the story of a reluctant prophet. Or maybe I should say it is the story of a stubborn prophet and an even more stubborn God! No matter what Jonah tries he loses,… and God wins!
The story starts off with God calling Jonah to go to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians are enemies of the Jews. If you were here last week when we looked at Nahum you have a pretty good sense of what the Jews wanted to see happen to Nineveh. Jonah does not want God to be merciful to his enemies. So in verse 2 God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh. In verse 3 we learn that heads towards Tarshish instead. Tarshish is not only the exact opposite direction it is about as far in the opposite direction you could go. Tarshish is in modern day Spain; the edge of the known world in Jonah’s day!
Don’t get the idea that Jonah thinks he can actually escape God’s presence when we read, “But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.” No, Jonah’s just decided that he’s going to make it impossible for God to carry our God’s plans through him.
But of course God can be just as stubborn as Jonah!
As soon as Jonah tries to get away God upends his plans. It’s in verse 4 (just four verses into the story!) that God sends a storm against the ship. It threatens to break up. The sailors cry to their gods with no avail. They throw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. This could also be an act of trying to appease their sea gods by dumping the cargo as an offering.
Whatever the case, Jonah is below deck and asleep through the calamity! The captain implores Jonah to get up and call on his god.
Does Jonah obey? Nope. He’d rather let the ship sink and its whole crew die along with him than to obey God.
The sailors cast lots to determine who’s at fault for the storm. While we consider dice to be random in those days that is not what they believed. When they wanted to know something from the gods they would throw dice or do some act of randomness, which was seen as a way to let the supernatural forces intervene with an answer. In other words, the gods would make the dice come up with the answer. The lot falls on Jonah. They examine him and discover that he is a Hebrew fleeing the God of the Hebrews.
The sailors are scared but they are unwilling to do what Jonah says; which is to throw him overboard.
Notice how absolutely stubborn Jonah is about not going to Nineveh. He’s saying he’d rather die than to bring God’s message to the enemies. Jonah is absolutely determined that God’s plans for mercy to Nineveh will be thwarted.
Reluctantly though, the sailors chuck Jonah overboard. It’s an interesting aside that these sailors decide to worship the Hebrew God after they chuck Jonah overboard. Notice that Jonah is spreading the word of God whether he wants to or not!
So, it looks like Jonah is going to drown. God is going to have to come up with someone else to take a message to Nineveh. But God is not about to quit! Jonah’s going to Nineveh! God provides a large fish to swallow up Jonah. Jonah spends three days and three nights in the belly of the fish. Scholars debate as to whether the time period has any symbolic meaning. Who knows, but it apparently gives Jonah some time to reflect.
Jonah 2 is quite a pietistic prayer. Like other parts of Jonah, there are many possible ways to interpret it. One way I like to take it – and I’m sure it is a very valid way to take it – is to see it as a prayer of someone in crisis.
How many times have you cried out to God in a time of crisis? Your faith becomes sharp and central to your life. The situation is out of your control and you turn to the only place that you can. Maybe you make promises to God. Then what happens when the crisis is over? What happens when life goes back to normal? What happens when you feel like things are back under your control? What happens to your piety? It slips. You feel like you don’t need God and you go back to your routines.
The story is spoofing that tendency among us. What happens when the crisis is past? Does Jonah become a pious and faith-filled man? Does Jonah’s faith improve? Nope. Not one bit.
I love the way the story says the great fish “spews” or “vomits” Jonah up upon the dry land. Apparently Jonah gave the fish a tummy ache! Now just picture Jonah – he’s spent three days being digested in a fish and now he, and all the contents of the fish’s stomach, have been spewed up on the land. I think a shower is in order!
God’s word comes to Jonah a second time. Go to Nineveh!
In Jonah’s greatest act of obedience in the entire story he give in and goes to Nineveh! But is he going to embrace the task God has set for him? Is he going to put his heart into it?
Nineveh is described in highly exaggerated terms. It is said to be exceedingly large – a three days’ walk across! No city in the ancient world was so big. As the story goes on we realize that everything about the Ninevites will be very exaggerated.
Does Jonah go to the city center, or to the king, or to a religious leader, or to any official with his message from God? Nope. And given what we know of Jonah thus far that shouldn’t surprise us!
Jonah goes one day in. I imagine him in a non-descript ordinary residential street. There are a few people milling around but that’s it. It’s not a public square or market. It’s no place significant. It is as if Jonah is saying to God, “Fine, I’m here. I’ll do what you said,” but we know he’s going to passive-aggressively undermine God at every chance he gets. Jonah’s entire prophetic message to the Ninevites is one single sentence, which he also says one and only one time. “Forty days mor, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
That’s it. That’s all he says. He does not list their sins. He does not say what they’ve done wrong. He does not say how they’ve upset God. He does not say how the predicted destruction would happen. He does not say what they must do or change to prevent the destruction.
Contrast him with the prophets we’ve met thus far in this summer series. The other prophets give warnings repeatedly. They give threats. They give promises. They beg people. Do the people ever change? And consider this, most of the prophets direct their messages to the Jews. These are insiders. These are people who have grown up knowing about God’s will and power. They have every reason to know and to respond. But do they change? In all of the prophets that we have read have there been any hints at all that the people listened to the messengers God sent them and then repented and changed their ways? No. In every case the prophets could yell themselves hoarse and nothing would happen.
How about the Ninevites? How about these foreigners who have no knowledge or respect for the God of the Hebrews. Are they even all that smart? The very last verse of Jonah says that the Ninevites are so hopelessly ignorant that they can’t tell left from right. That’s not a statement about dyslexia. That’s a slam against them. The Ninevites don’t have the intellectual capacity to know the difference between left and right. It’s a racial insult!
How do these hopelessly inept foreigners respond to a prophet of God when that prophet walks to a non-descript street in their capital and says one simple line one time? “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”
They immediately respond! Their response is absolute. Somehow the king finds out about this obscure message given on a side street and he calls for city-wide repentance. Every person covers him or herself in sackcloth and ashes. But human repentance isn’t enough. No, the king commands that the animals also be covered in sackcloth. Imagine fitting out the cows, the sheep, the dogs, the cats, and even the chickens of the city for sackcloth!
The Ninevites, despite the dig of their hopeless ineptness, completely and totally change their ways instantaneously!!!
Jonah is not pleased. Like a whiney child he says to God that he knew this would happen. He wanted to see revenge upon his enemies. Instead his enemies have not only received God’s mercy but proven to be more faithful than his own people.
Stubborn Jonah sulks and then goes out to wait and watch. Surely destruction will come. This repentance cannot really be happening.
God asks Jonah if it is right for him to be so angry. And remember that earlier in the story Jonah showed that he would rather die than bear God’s message to Nineveh? Now Jonah says he wants to die.
God is now kind to Jonah. Despite Jonah’s childish temper tantrum God provides a bush to give him shade. Jonah is happy. He can now sulk and hope for revenge in comfort. But then God appoints a worm to attack the bush and it dies. Jonah cries out that it’s unfair. Again, there’s a temper tantrum that he wants to die.
Jonah, God’s chosen messenger, does not want mercy. He doesn’t want God’s mercy for his enemies, and he doesn’t even want God’s mercy for himself!
Jonah is as stubborn as you can get. God is even more stubborn!
Sometimes we fear that we may not be able to carry out God’s will. Or we fear that we may not know what it is, and thus waste time in fruitless or irrelevant activities. Jonah is a satire, yes, but it carries a solid message. God is going to get done what God wants to get done whether you like it or not. You can try to thwart God at every turn. But God is in charge.
And so laugh at Jonah. But also learn from him. Take delight in his stubbornness. But take even more delight in God’s stubbornness. It is a stubbornness that will not let go of you and will never ever give up on you. That is true mercy. That is true grace!
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