“Griped at God’s Grace”

Jonah 3:1-10, Mark 1:14-20

January 25, 2009

 

Dave Russell, First Baptist Church of Ames, Iowa USA

 

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Like many of you, I was glued to the television on Tuesday for the inauguration of our first African-American president.  It was a very moving day with so many powerful images.

 

But did you catch what happened the next day?  Because one word was out of order when the oath of office was administered, Chief Justice John Roberts went to the White House and administered the oath again.  This time they were sure to get the words exactly right, just to be sure.  For all the talk of change, there are some things you don’t mess with.  Tradition and precedent must be followed.  Even as we celebrated the historical change that the inauguration represented, there was still this need for the familiarity of protocol and tradition.

 

Well, if you like the familiar and the routine, if you like predictable, then the book of Jonah is not for you.  In Jonah, familiarity is out the window.  A prophet does not behave as we expect.  God does not behave as we expect.  People do not behave as we expect.  Fish in the sea do not behave as we expect.  Things do not happen as one would anticipate.

 

First, if you are in the prophesying business, as Jonah was, why wouldn’t a person want to go and prophesy as God had directed?  Isn’t that why you became a prophet in the first place?  Well, Jonah turns and runs because God isn’t acting the way God is supposed to act.  Or at least, the way Jonah wants and expects God to act. 

 

Nineveh was the capital of Assyria.  The Assyrians were the hated enemies of Israel, and Nineveh had a reputation as a wicked city.  The ruins of Nineveh can be found today near the city of Mosul in Iraq, and it was a very large city.

 

Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh because he didn’t like the people, and he didn’t want them to repent.  It was an assignment he would just as soon turn down.  And so, instead of heading east to Nineveh, he catches a ship and heads to Tarshish, 2000 miles in the opposite direction.  Except that again, things do not go as planned.

 

A terrible storm comes along, the ship is tossed about, and it sure looks like everyone is going to die.  Excess cargo is dumped overboard.  Then the sailors cast lots, as was the custom, to determine who was responsible for this – to determine on whose account the gods were punishing them.  The lot fell to Jonah, and Jonah fesses up. 

 

This is actually kind of funny.  When the sailors ask him who he is and where’s he’s from, he replies, “I am a Hebrew, and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”   I can imagine them thinking, “You’re running from the God who made the earth and the seas, and you think you can escape this God in Tarshish?  What were you thinking?" 

 

Jonah tells them that he was the cause of the storm and that they should throw him overboard.  They don’t really want to do this, but Jonah insists.  So they dump him in the sea, and sure enough, the waters become calm.  And the sailors, who are not Hebrews, who know nothing of Jonah’s God, worship and make vows to God.  We would expect Jonah, the prophet, to do this, but it’s the foreign sailors in this story who worship God.

 

But the Lord sends a big fish that swallows Jonah, and then three days later barfs him up on the beach.  (Like I said, there are a lot of things you wouldn’t expect in this story.)

 

This reminds me of the teacher who was telling her class about whales.  Someone asked, “Can whales swallow people?”  The teacher said, “No, they can’t.”

 

A little girl in the class said, “What about Jonah?”  The teacher explained that the story of Jonah was just that - only a story, and that whales cannot swallow people.  The child said, “When I get to heaven I’m going to ask Jonah if he was swallowed by a whale.”

 

The teacher, unwisely, said, “But what if Jonah didn’t go to heaven?”  The little girl said, “Then you can ask him.”

 

The text really doesn’t say whale, it says a big fish, but at any rate, after Jonah is vomited up on shore, God speaks to Jonah again, with the same message, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.”  And the message was, Nineveh was in big trouble because God had observed its wickedness.

 

So reluctantly, but with the memory of being swallowed by a big fish fresh in his mind, Jonah heads to Nineveh.  There’s nothing like spending three days in the belly of a fish to motivate a reluctant preacher.

 

So Jonah decides to do what God asked.  He goes to Nineveh.  But when he gets there, he delivers a half-hearted sermon.  It’s not even half-hearted—it’s more like 1/64-hearted.  It is a pitiful excuse for a sermon, surely one of the all-time worst sermons ever preached.  “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”  That was the entire sermon, only 5 words in Hebrew.  He didn’t expect any results, and what’s more, he didn’t want any results.  He didn’t want repentance; he wanted to see these people punished.  He wanted death and destruction and suffering.  He wanted Nineveh to get what it deserved.  Technically, he had done what God asked – he had prophesied to Nineveh - even if he really hadn’t followed the spirrit of the request.

 

And so, what happened?  What was the response to one of the world’s worst-ever sermons?  Here’s another surprise: the response to this pathetic sermon is nothing short of amazing.  As far as I can recall, it is the greatest response to a sermon recorded in the Bible.  Everyone believes.  Everyone.  (Now it might be noted that Jonah didn’t bother to tell them to believe anything in particular, or to repent, or that their fate might be avoided, or anything else, but they repent).  Everyone puts on sackcloth and ashes, from the highest to the lowest, from the king all the way down even to the animals.  It was such a spectacular response that even animals repent.  (This is good news for those of you who have cats at home.  It kind of gives you hope.)

 

The response of Nineveh is amazing.  There is true repentance, there is fasting, everyone cries to God and turns away from their evil.  It is an incredible response, and God decides to have mercy and not destroy the city.

 

Now, you would think that Jonah would be feeling pretty good about himself.  It wasn’t a bad day’s work for a prophet.  He had ignited a revival of epic proportions.  He would get inducted into the prophet’s hall of fame.  You would think he would be overjoyed.

 

Well, that’s not what he was feeling at all.  He was sick at his stomach.  And the real reason he didn’t want to go to Nineveh in the first place comes out: he was afraid all along that the people just might repent.  He says, “I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.  I knew you were ready to relent from punishing.”  Jonah knew that God was a loving and forgiving God – and he didn’t like it.

 

Now why wouldn’t Jonah want the Ninevites, these hated enemies, known for their wickedness, to change?  Why wouldn’t he want them to repent and turn from their evil ways?  Perhaps the reason is that if his enemies were capable of this kind of transformation, if there was the potential for good even in the hearts of these Ninevites, then they couldn’t be his enemies anymore.  Which meant that if they changed, in some way he would have to change.  His assumptions and prejudices would have to be rethought.  He would have to let go of some of the animosity and resentment and feeling of superiority in his heart.  And he didn’t want that kind of change.

 

One of the ironies of faith is that while we claim to believe that God can truly change people, and while we claim to believe that transformation is possible, deep down, we’re not so sure about it.  And deep down, maybe we think it’s true, but we don’t really want it to be true.  Jonah didn’t want to go to Nineveh because he was afraid that the people just might repent.  I think we are more like Jonah than we want to admit.  Maybe, deep down, we are afraid that God really can bring about change.

 

Fred Craddock tells the story of a young pastor visiting an old, very sick woman in the hospital.  He asked her, upon leaving, "What would you like me to pray for today?"

 

With her last ounce of energy she replied, “That God will make me well.”

 

The woman was obviously way beyond healing, and the pastor was a bit disconcerted but prayed anyway, “Lord, if it be thy will, we pray that this sick sister might be healed.  On the other hand, if it is not thy will, we pray that she might be given a positive attitude and a willingness to accept her situation.  Amen.”

 

As soon as he had finished his prayer, her eyes opened.  She sat up in bed, threw her feet over the side, stood up, saying, “I’m well.  I really think I’m well.”

 

She bounced out of the room and headed for the nurse’s station shouting, “Look at me! I'm well.”  The young pastor stumbled out of the room, headed out of the hospital into the parking lot.  Before he pulled out his key to unlock his car, he looked up and said, “Don’t you ever do that to me again!”

 

We say we believe that God can bring about change, that God can bring about healing, but we may have a hard time when it actually happens.  It reminds me of the church that decided to start a Sharing Time at the beginning of worship.  The first Sunday, various people shared that their lost cat was found, that a son and daughter-in law found a new house, that the harvest this year was good, that a recent graduate found a good job – just one bit of good news after another.  Finally one person says, “My sister-in-law just found out she has to have triple bypass surgery.”  And the minister said, “Now that's more like it!”

 

Have we become like Jonah?  So accustomed to the routine and so sure of how the world works and how God operates that we really don’t believe what we say about God having love and grace towards everyone?  That we don’t believe Christ really can make all things new?

 

Jonah is a great book, a very interesting book.  Most all of the Old Testament prophets, certainly all who wrote books or had books named for them, are heroes of faith.  Amos says, “Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an everlasting stream.”  Micah says,” What does the Lord require of you, but to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.”  Habbakuk says, “The just shall live by faith.”  And what about Jonah?  Jonah says, “I want to die because those people repented.”  That’s what he says.  And not just that, he sits down and whines and whines.  He sits on the ground for so long that a vine grows up beside him that provides shade, but when the vine withers, he says, “It is better for me to die than live.”

 

What a prophet!  What a man of God!

 

Jonah is a work of satire.  It really is comedy - but it is the kind of comedy that bites because if we are really honest, we are more like Jonah than we want to admit.  We like to think we know what’s what and who’s who, and we’d just as soon hold on to our ideas of who is good and who is bad, who the in crowd is in God’s eyes and who the definite outsiders are.

 

The message of Jonah is challenging, and God’s concern for the people of Nineveh can be hard to take.  God’s love for others means that God doesn’t love us more than others.  We don’t have a special status in God’s kingdom.  That’s the downside to grace.  The transformation happens for us when we realize that we too are beneficiaries of that grace.  The price of entry into the kingdom of God is giving up my citizenship in my own kingdom.

 

Our New Testament scripture is a stark contrast to Jonah.  Jesus calls Simon and Andrew, two brothers.  They are fishermen, and he says, “Come follow me and I will make you fish for people.”  And they follow.  He sees another set of brothers, James and John, in their boat, mending their nets.  Jesus invites them to follow and they too leave their boat and follow Jesus immediately.

 

They follow immediately.  There is no wasted time.  They don’t sleep on it.  They don’t think about it for a few days.  They don’t wait until they can make arrangements.  They don’t ask a bunch of questions.  They drop their nets, they leave their boat, and they go.  They are all in.

 

Most of us find ourselves somewhere between the reluctant prophet and the zippety-do-dah disciples.  We want to follow Jesus, but what if he wants us to go places we’d rather not go?  What if he calls us to serve and care for people we’d rather avoid?  We hear Jesus’ call, and we’d like to respond, but we’d like to finish school first, or get our 401K back in better shape, or finish a couple of projects.  We’re interested, but we’d rather wait for a more convenient time.

 

The message of Jonah is that God’s love extends to all people.  All people - even people we may not like.  The Good News is that the grace God offers to others is also offered to us, and that through God’s grace strangers become friends and enemies become brothers and sisters.  May it be so.  Amen.