Jonah: A Lesson in going beyond
Preacher: Phil Swain Reading: Jonah 1:1-17, 3:1-10
This Sunday is our third of our “Tapestry of Thanksgiving” series where we bring together various threads of Biblical Text; our stories; and how God is moving through our church … to see the picture that God is revealing. Our Old Testament thread this week is the story of Jonah … the prophet who really struggled to move beyond and share God’s message of repentance and compassion with his enemies.
We will also be sharing our third and last story of Thanksgiving – celebrating how God is moving beyond the boundaries of our church in our local community and across the world. As we weave these different narratives together, we pray that we will be encouraged that God is indeed moving and that God might be calling us to go beyond and be part of this amazing mission too.
It has not been the easiest week to write a sermon on Jonah. Similar to what Kevin wrote about in the weekly email, I found the world events of this week, especially the result and aftermath of the US election, difficult to understand. It seems that those who push division, hate, and exclusion around the world seem to be winning, and my heart goes out to the minorities for whom this sort of talk and approach deeply impacts. And as I sat with the heaviness of all this, the text I was given to preach on was … Jonah and the big fish. Hmmm. Well we have been saying that God can bring together different threads to help us see a bigger picture … lets see if we can tease out some threads from this reading that might be helpful to us wherever we find ourselves today.
The danger of a story like Jonah is that we know the Sunday School version of it so well that we sometimes tune out and not look at what the Biblical version is actually saying. I want to share with you some of what I have learnt from Jonah this week – including a surprise thread that blew my mind. Are you open to this…
Let’s start by working through chapter 1 and the biggest lesson that I got from Jonah this week. Jonah 1:1
The word of the Lord came to Jonah: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
Sometimes context really makes a difference in understanding a bible passage – and here is a great example. To us, Nineveh is just a big city that seemed to be wicked. To Jonah, Nineveh is very different. To Jonah … Ninevah is the enemy.
Ninevah is the capital city of the Assyrian empire. While there is some debate when the story of Jonah is set, most scholars would say it is the era after the kingdoms have split and before the fall of Northern Kingdom. And can you remember which nation defeated the northern kingdom? The Assyrians… and the capital city of Assyria is Ninevah. So … God comes to Jonah and says, “Go to the people who hate you, and whom you hate and give them this message. God to the people who want to kill you and preach to them”. That is a tough gig.
For Jonah … this was a very clear “them” and “us” situation.
| Jonah/US | Ninevah/THEM |
| Goodies | Baddies |
| God’s family | Evil one |
| Blessed | Cursed |
But we can’t criticise Jonah too much because the world has always and still thinks this way. We like to define boundaries so that we can work out clearly who is one of us and who is not. Who we have to be nice to and who we don’t. Trump’s “They’re eating the dogs” comments is about dividing people into them and us – and vilifying the ‘them’.
We wouldn’t do that in the church, would we? Anyone who grew up in the church between the 1950’s and 1990’s would have experienced this defining of the boundary between the world and the church. I am not being critical – it was just the era that it was … but I certainly had the experience of people in the church explaining to me who were part of God’s family and who wasn’t. What things were part of the church and what wasn’t.
Does this “them and us” picture help to understand Jonah’s hesitation when God says, “go to them”. Go to your enemy’s capital city. Leave this place where you are an “us” and go to a place where you will be a “them” – and speak. No wonder he ran the other way.
Let’s keep working through Jonah but I encourage you to keep using this perspective of the “us” & “them” as this was one of the key lesson that God was teaching Jonah.
So – God says, go to your enemies – and Jonah instead heads towards the other side of the Mediterranean Sea … Tarshish. But as we know from Sunday school, he doesn’t get there because God sends a huge storm and he gets shallowed by a big fish.
However … lets pause and ponder the sailors on the boat. From Jonah’s perspective, are the sailors one of “us”, ie, the people of God … or one of them, “the pagans from other countries”. In the storm the sailors cried out to their own god. It’s a them … well at least initially, because by the end of chapter 1 the sailors are praying to the Lord, greatly fearing the Lord and making sacrifices and vows to the Lord … which would make the them one of us?
But this is the way that God works. God asks Jonah to help the Ninevites to understand who God is … but Jonah instead hops on a boat to run away and in the process indirectly helps the sailors understand who God is. Last week I finished my sermon with the statement – God is always at work. Today we need to add … God is always at work … everywhere. Even in the places where we can’t even imagine God is … like on a boat in the middle of storm with ‘them’ … God is at work.
So, where were we in the story of Jonah? End of chapter 1, Jonah gets thrown overboard and shallowed by a big fish. Chapter 2 is Jonah’s prayer while inside the fish … you can read that in your own time, but Chapter 2 ends with Jonah being vomited up on dry land. Jonah chapter 3 begins almost the same way as chapter 1.
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
This time Jonah obeys and heads to Ninevah. He walks around the city proclaiming … “You have forty days until Ninevah will be overthrown”. Weird sort of way to share the good news of God. No call to repent. No encouragement to change their way of living. No explanation about the character of God … rather just … the end is nigh.
The crazy part is it works. The people of Ninevah repented. Like everyone repented, from the king right down to … the animals, repented. It was a total 180 degrees turn around. Sack cloths and everything. Even the animals wore sack cloths.
The king encourages everyone to urgently call upon God – not their gods, but Jonah’s God. The king also calls on people to give up their evil ways and violence.
Chapter 3 ends with God seeing all this, seeing the repentance of the Ninevites and relenting. God did not bring on the destruction that was promised by Jonah. And that is the end of our reading – a great story of how if we repent and turn back to God; if we call out to God then God will show mercy. As it says in Acts 2:21 … everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.
This is a key message that we all need to be reminded of regularly. It does not matter who you are, or what you have done or where you are in your relationship with God … if we turn to God, cry out to God, God is always ready to forgive and to show love, help and mercy. It was true to those in Ninevah and it is true for us too.
Chapter 3 has a great outcome … but the story of Jonah is not finished. I am not sure why the Narrative Lectionary didn’t include chapter 4 as well because it is a critical chapter of Jonah. I would love to quickly tell you the story of chapter 4 … and I still have my surprise thread to share as well.
So … Jonah proclaims God’s message and everything worked out for the people of Ninevah. You would think that Jonah would be thrilled … but listen to the beginning of chapter 4.
But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
Why is Jonah angry? Maybe, because he felt that his message was undermined by the change in events. He preached that destruction was definitely coming and it didn’t. Or maybe Jonah just really wanted God to crush Jonah’s enemies. He wanted to people of Ninevah to suffer because he didn’t like them and is angry that this didn’t happen. Either way, it is clear that Jonah is angry … to which God simply asks Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
The chapter goes on with Jonah going outside the city up onto a hill and sitting down to watch what might happen to Ninevah. (I think he is still hoping for destruction to still come). We read that God provided a leafy plant to grow and cover Jonah from the sun … of which Jonah was very happy. But then a worm comes and eat the plant and Jonah is angry again. And this is where the book ends … with Jonah angry and God asking why it is wrong for God to be concerned for the people of Ninevah … and the animals.
I think this chapter is actually about Grace (and a thread connecting the story of Jonah with the good news that we find in Jesus). It is about grace … and how grace can be both a blessing but it can also seem unfair to others.
In this chapter Jonah is a recipient of God’s grace – the plant that God grew to give him shade from the sun. Jonah did nothing to make that happened … it was simply given out of God’s love and concern for Jonah. It was a gift of Grace – for which Jonah was very happy. But when Nineveh was the recipient of God’s grace – when God showed them mercy and did not send the promised punishment – Jonah is angry. It seems striking that Jonah is happy when God shows grace to him … but angry if God shows grace to them. We should always be thankful for grace, wherever God shows it.
But is Jonah just stating the reality that Grace is not fair? The older brother in the lost son parable was angry because the prodigal son was shown more grace than he was. Yes … grace is not always fair, nor is it given equally. Remember the parable of the workers in the vineyard. The people who worked all day received their wage … it was generous and fair … but were angry because the workers who worked less were shown grace. Grace is not always fair or proportionate.
We said earlier we gave thanks for the God is at work beyond our church. We acknowledged that God is always at work – everyone. But there is a danger that sometimes we get possessive of God’s love and grace and blessings. We are the children of God, we are the church! We are the ones who love God, who serve God, who give much of our time and energy to God’s work … it only seems fair that the bigger share of God’s blessings should go to US … not THEM. It is only right that we get more of God’s grace … not THEM.
Two problems with that sort of thinking. Firstly, it comes from an assumption that God has a limited supply of love and grace and blessings … and if God shares it with THEM … then there is less for US. That is just not true. God’s grace is never ending. There is more than enough love and grace for everyone. In Ephesians 3:18 Paul prays the Ephesian church and all God’s people might grasp just how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ (Eph 3:18) because if they do they will never doubt if there is enough love for everyone!
The other problem is it assumes that God sees the world as US and THEM … and I just don’t think that is true either. We like to see boundaries between the church and the world, between the people of God and the rest … but I don’t think God see boundaries at all. God is all about inclusion and God is at work everywhere and with all people. This is the heart of the story of Jonah. Whether it is the people of Ninevah or the sailor in the middle of the sea – God is just as interested in their lives and just was keen for them to experience God’s love for them as God is for us. That is the point … with God there is no THEM OR US … God loves ALL.
And this leads us to the surprise thread that was revealed to me this week – as a way to bring this home.
For Jonah … this journey of insight and learning about how God is at work and loves all people … where did it all start? Which town did this journey for Jonah start in? (Hint: Jonah 1:3)
He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship …
Do you know that there is another reference to Joppa in the bible? Actually there is a few, but there is another big story which also begins in Joppa? Anyone know? (Hint: Acts 10:5)
Joppa is where Peter has the vision of the animals being lowered down in a sheet from heaven and the message that God does not show favouritism. It was from Joppa that Peter went to Cornelus the gentile and shared the good news of Jesus and baptised him. It was from Joppa that the early church realised that the Good News of Jesus was not just for the Jewish people but for ALL people. It was with Peter in Joppa where God made it clear that there is no them and us, but God’s love and grace is for all.
As we move forward as a community, may we not be limited by any perceived boundaries of us and them. Lets see that God is already at work … here at TUC and beyond … God is already at work with all people. All we are called to do is to see where God is working and join in. Let us be like Jonah and be part of the sharing this good news with others … and celebrate and give thanks when we see grace or love or mercy being poured out on others.
Amen.