June 6, 2021: How Dare You?

Jonah 3:1-4:3
Rev. Rhonda Blevins

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying,  “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

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Today we continue the “Faces of Our Faith” summer series—looking at lesser-known biblical characters or lesser-known aspects of more familiar biblical characters. Jonah isn’t necessarily a lesser-known character, but I want us to explore a lesser-known facet of Jonah’s character today.

When you think of Jonah, what comes to mind first? I would guess that most people think about Jonah being swallowed by a big fish. Most of my life I’ve heard about how Jonah was running away from the call of God which landed him in the belly of a big fish, and the encounter helped set him on course to follow God and preach in the large city of Nineveh in enemy territory. That’s certainly a reasonable interpretation of the big “fish story.”

A lot of people get hung up on whether the story of Jonah in the belly of a big fish—perhaps a whale—is literal or allegorical.

There’s a story about a little girl who heard the story of Jonah at Sunday School, then repeated the story at school on Monday. Her teacher said it was physically impossible for a whale to swallow a human because, she argued, even though a whale is a very large mammal, its throat is very small. The little girl countered, “But how can that be? Jonah was swallowed by a whale!” Irritated, the teacher reiterated that a whale could not swallow a human. “I’m telling you it is physically impossible!” the teacher barked. Undaunted, the little girl said, “Well, when I get to heaven, I will ask Jonah myself.” The teacher replied, “What if Jonah went to hell?” The little girl replied, “Then YOU ask him!”

While I don’t think the writer of the story of Jonah intended for the story to be taken literally (it has all the characteristics of a great fable), the message is the same whether you read the story literally or as holy allegory. The point of the story isn’t about all of that. The point of the story has to do with why Jonah first refused to follow God’s call, which, as it turns out, was a stupid decision.

Have you ever made a stupid decision (or am I the only one)?

My husband and I made a really stupid decision Memorial Day weekend. The Saturday of Memorial Day weekend—a bright, sunny Florida day with highs in the mid-90’s—we decided to take our kids to Sea World. Apparently, every parent everywhere decided to take their kids to Sea World on the same day. We were seven hours in that park—we got to ride two rides and see one show. Six out of the seven hours we were there, we were waiting in line. If you ever hear me talk about planning another theme park trip, please, I beg of you, hold an intervention! The highlight of the trip (which isn’t saying much) for me was the orca show. They are beautiful, amazing creatures, but I don’t think I would enjoy being inside the belly of an orca!

But that’s where Jonah finds himself as he runs from God’s call to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh. Like most Old Testament call stories, we see the prophet at first resisting the call. God tells Jonah to go preach to the people of Nineveh, an enormous city, considered enemy territory by the Israelites. Jonah will have nothing of it, so he boards a ship headed the other direction to get as far away as possible from Nineveh and from God. That doesn’t go very well. When the ship goes out to sea, a huge storm threatens to capsize the ship. The crew casts lots and determines that Jonah is the cause of the storm, that Jonah has angered his God. They throw Jonah overboard, and the sea settles down immediately. Jonah, however, will surely perish in the sea. But a large fish swallows the prophet, and he finds himself in the belly of the sea creature for three days and three nights, where he prays and prays and prays. The fish vomits him up on shore, and God calls Jonah once again to go to Nineveh. Jonah relents, and goes to Nineveh. And with five Hebrew words, Jonah convinces the city of 120,000 people to turn from their wicked ways to God. You might call Jonah the most successful prophet of all time! But to Jonah’s chagrin, God spares the city.

The interesting, and often overlooked, part of the story is how Jonah feels after the most successful sermon ever preached with 120,000 converts because of a 5-word message . . . Jonah is MAD!

“O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 

In other words, “HOW DARE YOU love my enemy, God! HOW DARE YOU show mercy to the people I hate! HOW DARE YOU spare those people from your wrath! I’d rather die than see those people flourish.”

You see, Jonah wasn’t just running from God’s call—Jonah was doing everything in his power to make sure 120,000 of those people (the Ninevites) experienced God’s wrath—in the lucid awareness that this was counter both to God’s nature and desire as a “gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” But Jonah didn’t care about God’s love and mercy. Jonah hated the Ninevites, the enemies of his people. Jonah’s national loyalties superseded his faith commitment.

And that’s the rub, isn’t it?

You see, as people of faith, we have a commitment that supersedes national loyalties. This is countercultural for sure. We can (and should) love our country, but we must bear in mind that our faith commitment makes us one with people in all lands as we recognize that God’s love and mercy extends beyond human-made borders that divide us one from another.

Reverend David Hayward spent 30 years in the church before leaving the ministry to pursue art full time. His drawings are thought-provoking and often profound. One of my favorite drawings is entitled “Drawing and Erasing Lines.” It depicts over a dozen people with giant pencils drawing boxes as far as the eye can see—the boxes they’re drawing are to separate themselves one from another. And in the center of the drawing is Jesus. He, too, is holding a giant pencil, but his is upside down. He is erasing the lines that the humans have drawn (which makes a couple of the humans visibly upset). The caption reads, “I thought they said I already did this at the cross!”

Hayward writes about this image, “The Bible has a strange power. If your mind is divisive and exclusive, it will strengthen that. If your mind is unifying and inclusive, it will strengthen that.” Hayward writes that a Bible verse helped liberate him from divisive and dogmatic thinking:

For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility. —Ephesians 2:14

People who profit from fear and conflict and division don’t like this kind of talk. The peace we promulgate as people of faith runs counter to the business interests of entire sectors of the economy.

To rise above the kind of nationalism that made Jonah run from God’s call requires us to be sharp as a tack with an awareness that transcends the cacophony of voices that want us to be divided and afraid of one another. We must learn to recognize the difference between the voice of God and other voices. Here are some tips on how to discern God’s voice from among the many voices crying for our attention:

• The voice of God will always sound like unity.

• The voice of God will always sound like mercy.

• The voice of God will always sound like love.

And on the flipside, if the voice sounds like division, judgment, and hatred . . . you can be pretty sure that is not the voice of God.

I wish I could tell you that the story of Jonah had a happy ending, that God spared the 120,000 Ninevites AND Jonah finally saw the err of his ways. That’s not how the story of Jonah ends. Yes, God spares the 120,000 Ninevites, but Jonah is angry about that until the very end of the story. It ends abruptly . . . it is possible that Jonah made an about-face at some point after the story concludes. But the story we’re given ends with Jonah still angry about God’s mercy and compassion for those people.

Let us not be like Jonah. Let us make sure that we find our place of compassion for all people, everywhere—even those people—you know, the ones we find it real hard to love.

Today I close with the lyrics from a country music song—and not about dogs or trucks or broken hearts. It’s a song entitled “We Belong to Each Other” by Garth Brooks—it calls for unity and was released just last year:

Ain’t no wall can divide us, no matter how high
Ain’t no storm can untie us, for all it may try
We’re all leaves on the same tree, under one sky
Don’t let nobody tell you otherwise

It’s whispered by the wind to all living things
It’s in every sunrise, it’s what the wild birds sing
It shines in newborn eyes
Faces lined and worn
It’s the tie that binds us all
And it won’t be torn

We belong to each other
We are sister and brother
Born to love one another

We are ancient stars turned flesh and bone
We’re all travelers on a bus ride home
Yeah we laugh and we cry
We rise and we fall
Yeah we fuss and we fight, but through it all

We belong to each other
We are sister and brother
Born to love one another

We’re all leaves on the same tree
Waves in the same sea
You and me, we belong to each other