Jonah 3.1-10
The story of Jonah is both one of the most familiar and one of the most obscure stories in the Bible. Practically everyone knows about Jonah being swallowed by a big fish. But do you remember why? Do you know what happened after the fish spit Jonah out? The problem with the story of Jonah is that the glitz and glitter of the fish story overshadows the true message that we need to hear.
To recap the story: “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, ‘Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.’ But Jonah set out to flee … from the presence of the Lord.”
God calls on Jonah to go and preach to the people of Nineveh. There’s only one problem: Jonah doesn’t want to. Jonah decides he’s not going to go to Nineveh. Maybe this is because Jonah is afraid to go to such a wicked place. But I suspect that Jonah has an inkling that if he preaches in Nineveh and the Ninevites turn from their evil ways, God won’t punish them – and Jonah wants the people of Nineveh to be punished!
Isn’t that the way we humans are? We like – we relish – seeing people punished for their misdoings. As you know, I grew up in Fort Smith. At the Fort Smith National Historic Site you can see the courtroom of “Hangin’ Judge” Isaac C. Parker. You can see the jail known as “Hell on the Border.” And you can visit the gallows where 79 men were hung during Judge Parker’s 21 years on the bench.
79 hangings. Sometimes as many as 6 men at one time were hanged on the gallows at Fort Smith. Hanging Day was a holiday; whenever someone was scheduled to be hanged, people would come from miles around to watch the proceedings. Families would bring picnic lunches. There was no television, no internet; this was entertainment – seeing someone receive the ultimate punishment.
Today we’re much more civilized. Instead of watching hangings in person, we can see people very realistically “killed” at the movie theater, or in our own living rooms. We watch TV shows like Judge Judy. Don’t you just love it when Judge Judy jumps down the throat of some punk with an attitude?
The fact is, we love it when the “bad guys” get what’s coming to them, whether it’s a fictionaly TV show like CSI or real life drama like O. J. Simpson or Osama bin Laden. And we really, really don’t like it when the bad guys get away with something, like O. J. Simpson.
I have a confession to make: I used to watch professional wrestling. Back in the days of Fritz von Erich and Skandar Akbar – whom my friends and I called “Indoor Snackbar.” Professional wrestling is, of course, all theater. The good guys play by the rules, and the bad guys cheat and beat up on the good guys – until finally the good guys have had enough, or the bad guys’ plot backfires, and the good guys pull out the victory.
What makes professional wrestling so compelling, however, is the fact that the bad guys manage to get away with so much cheating. The audience can see it all, of course, but the hapless referees are distracted by one bad guy while the other bad guy is beating Kerry von Erich over the head with a metal chair. The audience is outraged.
I’ve noticed, in watching Days of Our Lives with Melissa, that soap operas basically follow the same formula as professional wrestling. The Bradys and the Hortons are decent, law-abiding citizens – for the most part – while the DiMeras are evil personified. Naturally, the DiMeras are constantly taking advantage of loopholes in the law, and the good guys’ own basic decency, to pull fast ones on the Bradys and Hortons. Again, the audience is outraged.
But what keeps us coming back for more is the fact that we know that eventually the good guys are going to win – and even better, we know that the bad guys are going to get their comeuppance. Sooner or later, John and Marlena are going to have the last laugh on Stefano DiMera. Sooner or later, Fritz von Erich is going to catch Skandar Akbar in the “iron claw.” That’s what we live for: to see the bad guys punished.
Days of Our Lives wouldn’t be nearly so interesting if someone came along and convinced Stefano DiMera to repent of his sins, and Stefano became just another decent, law-abiding citizen of the city of Salem. Professional wrestling would quickly lose its audience if all the bad guys – and I don’t even know who they are today, but if all the Skandar Akbars suddenly began to play by the rules.
In order to maintain their popularity, soap operas and wrestling have to have someone who is evil, someone the audience can see being punished. That’s because we humans today, just like Jonah, want to see evil-doers get what’s coming to them. We don’t really want them to repent, and change their evil ways, because if they did they might escape the punishment that we believe they so richly deserve.
Jesus once said to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.” That’s exactly the problem. The human thing is to want to see the guilty punished; the divine thing is to want to see the guilty redeemed. Nineveh was a wicked, evil city; Jonah wanted to see Nineveh destroyed. God wanted to give the people of Nineveh one last chance to be redeemed.
So, back to our story. Jonah runs away. However, God, through a series of events including one whopper of a fish story, convinces Jonah to do what God wants Jonah to do, which is where today’s scripture picks up. God once again directs Jonah to Nineveh, and this time Jonah, however reluctantly, obeys God’s call and goes to Nineveh.
We can see that Jonah’s heart really isn’t in it. Dr. Phyllis Trible, of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, points out something that I had always overlooked. Nineveh, we are told, is a large city, and it takes three days to walk across it. Verse 4 says, “Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk.” And that’s it. Nowhere are we told that Jonah travels any farther into Nineveh. Jonah goes about one-third of the way into the city, and stops.
Also, Jonah’s preaching leaves something to be desired. Notice what Jonah says to the people of Nineveh – at least, to the people of Nineveh who happened to be within earshot at the time: “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown!” Again, that’s it.
Jonah says nothing about repentance, nothing about hope. Jonah never says that the city will be destroyed in 40 days unless they change their evil ways. Jonah doesn’t even indicate that there is a possibility of averting this disaster. According to Jonah, in 40 days the city will be destroyed, period. Which, of course, is exactly what Jonah wants to happen.
This means that, for one thing, it was the people of Nineveh themselves who actually spread the word about what Jonah was telling them. Jonah walked in a little ways, made his proclamation, and apparently turned around and left. It was left to the people to spread the news.
And also, it means that the people had to interpret what Jonah said. The people of Nineveh took Jonah’s words of destruction and interpreted them as words of warning. They then heeded this warning, repented of their sins, and placed their hope in God. All without any help from God’s messenger, Jonah.
You see, the story of Jonah is a lot more complex than just the story of the fish. The lessons of Jonah are lessons that are still relevant, still important, to us today. First of all, we learn that when God really wants us to do something, it’s useless for us to resist. God is nothing if not persistent, and God literally has all the time in the world.
More importantly, we learn that God sometimes calls us to do things that we really don’t want to do. God calls us to move out of our comfort zones. God calls us to work with people we really don’t like very much. Maybe that’s a warning in itself: be careful whom you dislike, because God will put you in ministry with them.
Especially if your dislike is basically irrational, based on the color of one’s skin, or the accent one speaks with, or the country one was born in, or the amount of money in one’s bank account. I mean, Jonah at least had the excuse that the people of Nineveh were evil, but even that didn’t stop God from sending Jonah to minister to them.
And then there’s the lesson for those of us who might actually qualify as being residents of Nineveh – those of us who are in need of redemption. That lesson is that God loves us, and God will send someone for us – someone to remind us of our need for repentance and salvation. However – and this, too, is part of the lesson – the person God sends may not be the most eloquent, may not be the best care-giver, may not be the kindest person we’ve ever met.
Regardless, the message will be delivered. It’s then up to us to act upon that message, to interpret the message and do something about it. Jonah delivered the message, but God didn’t call on Jonah to stick around and make sure that the people of Nineveh listened.
God will send the message to each and every one of us – more than once – but then it’s up to us. We cannot make excuses: “Well, Jonah didn’t come to my part of the city. Jonah never actually said that I need to repent.” Nope. The message is delivered; now it’s our turn to respond.
To finish up the story, Jonah still isn’t happy about Nineveh escaping from God’s wrath. The first verse of chapter 4 says, “But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.” Jonah lets God know about his displeasure. God lets Jonah vent for a while, and then declares that God is concerned with all of God’s creation. And that’s how the story ends. We don’t know if Jonah ever gets over his anger and frustration.
It’s not the neat conclusion that one would expect. It’s as if Stefano DiMera is now all warm and fuzzy, but Roman Brady still wants to toss him in jail. It’s as if Skandar Akbar now strictly follows the rules, but Fritz von Erich still wants to break him in two.
Actually, I suppose the ending of this story really does make sense. The story of Jonah is the story of life, and life is not all one neat package; life is, if fact, downright messy. Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.
Finally, the ultimate lesson of Jonah is that, in order to make it through this mess called life, we have to follow wherever God leads us, no matter where that might be. God may lead us to wear sackcloth and ashes. God may lead us to a wicked, evil place. God may lead us to work with people we really don’t like. Doesn’t matter. We’ve got to go where God tells us to go, and do what God tells us to do. Or we might end up in the belly of a big, stinky fish.
