The words shook the prophet awake—and he fled from God’s word as far as he could in the other direction. Go to the enemy’s great city? Never! So he went down to the port city of Joppa and booked passage on a boat heading toward the eastern limits of the sea.
Jonah went below-decks, lay down, and went to sleep as the ship set sail for deep waters, because sailing was not a favorite thing for Hebrews to do, since the sea symbolized the home of chaos, tempests, undercurrents, and death. Jonah figured he could just wake up when it was all over, and they were on dry land again.
But God was not about to be thwarted. So no sooner had the ship reached deep water but a mighty storm brewed up at God’s command. And the ship started to lie heavy in the waves that swamped over the side. In desperation, the sailors and even the merchants who were passengers started throwing everything overboard that they could, even cargo they hoped to sell; each praying to any small-g god they could think of that might help: storm gods, sea gods, wind gods. Nothing worked.
So, the captain started counting heads and noticed that that wild-haired holy man was missing. As the ship bucked and rolled under his feet, he went into the hold and found Jonah back in a corner, sleeping like a rock despite the turmoil. The captain shook Jonah awake. “Are you drunk? Get up! Pray to your god, whoever he is, that we can be saved, because this ship is coming apart!” The captain’s words made Jonah uneasy, even somewhat guilty. Jonah had a feeling he knew what was going on.
Once Jonah got on deck, he saw that the others were terrified. Nothing was working, and when nothing works, people often fall back on superstition and magic to try to help. So they decided to draw straws to see who was responsible for this terrible storm. Even before Jonah took his turn he knew what he would see when he chose.
Sure enough, when everyone opened their fists, Jonah’s fingers clutched the short straw, and his ship-mates turned on him with faces contorted by fear: “What did you DO to bring this on all of us?” And he told them he had run away rather than obey God’s command. His words turned their hearts to stone. “What can we do?” the other men cried. And the wind howled louder, and the boat sank even lower, and one of the masts broke off with a loud crack and swept over their heads.
Jonah next words astonished them. “Toss me over the side,” Jonah said, resignedly. Now, some considered for a moment—they knew gods who demanded human sacrifice. But most of them were afraid to curse themselves further by putting his blood on their hands. So they hesitated—and a huge wave nearly knocked the boat over. As soon as it righted itself, they moved with one accord, and with a prayer for forgiveness to the prophet’s God, they plopped Jonah over the side.
For three nights and three days, Jonah sat stewing—literally stewing-- in the bouillabaisse of half-digested seafood platters and slime and gastric juices in the belly of that fish. It was dark, cold, smelly, and painful. Jonah was stubborn—three days and nights worth of stubborn—but, eventually, he gave up.
He finally prayed a lament psalm to God, admitting his guilt, as the cold and stench of that fish’s innards pickled his very soul. He threw himself on the mercy of Yahweh, and swore a grudging vow of obedience. And—BAM. Immediately the fish tacked sharply and rose to the surface of the waves, spitting him out onto dry land at God’s silent command.
He arrived days later, covered in crusty dried slime—he wouldn’t give Yahweh or Nineveh the satisfaction of a fresh-smelling prophet. And what a contrast he made: the city itself was dazzling, one of the biggest in the world, so big it took three days to walk across, they say. It was the center of the Assyrian Empire, which owned --and oppressed-- just about everything at one time or another. Including Israel. So Jonah decided he would do as he was told—but he wasn’t going to get spiffed up for the occasion.
So into the city he marched. Looking and smelling like a human garbage dump, he thundered out his eight-word sermon in the streets as the people skidded to a stop at the sight (and probably smell) of him and gaped: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overturned!” he thundered, and man, he couldn’t WAIT to see that happen.
There was a pause. Then bedlam broke out. People were wailing. Children were calling for their mamas. Dogs stopped chasing cats and dropped to a halt before them, and the cats didn’t even slash them. They heard the warning, and they BELIEVED. They tore their clothes. They declared a fast. They prayed to God—yes, even to this God of this pipsqueak people they had crushed to dust long ago.
And, in the center of the pandemonium, there stood Jonah. Here he was, the most successful prophet ever—he’d just set a world record for prophecy that would have made Moses and Elijah WEEP tears of jealousy.
Was Jonah happy? NO HE WAS NOT. He looked around, felt the cool breeze of forgiveness and reconciliation blow through those pagan, enemy streets, and-- he SEETHED. He KNEW IT. He knew God, being God, would have mercy on these jerks—and he wanted to see some smiting instead. He wanted to see the place wiped from the map! Whose God was God, anyway? The Ninevites had made his people’s lives miserable for generations. And now they got off, Scot-free? How were the folks back home going to treat him now that he had saved their enemies???
“Oh my GOD, God!!!” he muttered furiously. “Of COURSE you are a God of mercy, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, and ready to forgive! But this is too much! I’d rather be dead than live to see this! Kill me now!”
And in a silky, what to Jonah was a frustratingly calm voice, Yahweh replied, “You good and angry, Jonah?” And Jonah actually felt something snap in his head.
But nope. That repentance seemed real. So just like when he was in that fish’s belly, Jonah stewed, while the sun beat down and he squinted toward Nineveh’s shiny, palatial walls with revulsion. And God caused a beautiful thick vine to grow up and it lent its shade to shield his head, but Jonah was having none of it. "Nice try, God,” he thought, but part of him had to admit that that shade sure was nice.
The next day, God sent a worm, who ate that plant straight across the stem like a buzzsaw. And just as Jonah was coming to grips with that, a red-hot wind blew out of the desert, hotter than an oven, and Jonah keeled right over in a faint. When he came to, he grabbed the sticky hair on both sides of his head and yanked handfuls out in fury like a deranged Elmer Fudd. “And now the vine? REALLY?? I’d rather be dead than live to see this! Kill me now!” Jonah shrieked at God.
And again came what sounded to Jonah like a silky, frustratingly calm voice from God, leaning in over his shoulder like the butler on Downton Abbey, murmuring, “You good and angry about that vine, Jonah?”
“You bet I am, God!” Jonah snarled. “Angry enough to die.”
“Why are you angry, Jonah?” God asked, as smooth as butter, reasonably, and everyone knows the most infuriating thing when you’re furious is to be met with someone reasonable. “You didn’t do anything for that vine—I put it there out of mercy. It was here for a day and gone in a day. You should be glad it was there at all. But even when it’s gone, what’s it to you?”
“You promised Nineveh would be overturned, God!” shouted Jonah. “And now they’re better than ever!”
Jonah thought he heard a small chuckle. “Why, they ARE overturned, Jonah,” replied God. “They overturned their hearts, and they overturned their evil ways. You did it!”
Jonah stared up at the sky with his mouth hanging open. “Really, God? That’s your loophole?? A play on words? A PUN??? JEEZ! This is why I tried to run away in the first place!” And Jonah was speechless, and a little ashamed, because he was lying. He certainly didn’t know God’s plan at the start, and now he felt like a total fool, and traitor, too, helping the enemies of his own people like that.
God’s voice got softer. “You yourself said it, my son. I AM God, slow to anger, abounding in mercy—unlike you, that’s for sure. And that’s lucky for you, too, dear Jonah. And I will have mercy on whom I choose—you don’t get to decide, especially since right now YOU seem to be lacking in mercy, compassion, and loving-kindness.”
The voice grew more tender. “I am God. You are my messenger, and you know I love you and have mercy on you. And right now I also have mercy on Nineveh, and its 120,000 people and thousands of animals.”
And there the story ends.
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Now, there are a quite a few interesting lessons here. When I first told you this story three years ago, this parish was in a state of hurt and bewilderment, torn between sorrow and anger. And I decided to tell you this story again because right now our country is in the same place. The lessons of this story need repeating again, I think.
I think about what it has to say to us about how to move forward in our national life and in any relationship which has experienced a huge rupture—one that has hopefully awakened us to the very real danger the politics of division plays in hurting and wounding very real people. There’s a lot of talk about unity right now—but not so much talk about accountability and repentance. Jonah’s story IS about repentance before God. What enrages Jonah is that Nineveh’s repentance before God leaves unsettled the score between Nineveh and Israel—Nineveh as oppressor, Israel as victim—unsettled. Jonah knows that Israel has suffered at Nineveh’s hands—and he wants vengeance.
That’s where we are stuck, right now too. Asking forgiveness of God, and asking forgiveness and reconciling with those whom you have hurt in our human relationships as part of that same sinfulness and selfishness are two very necessary parts of the same thing.
Jonah helpfully models for us exactly what God is NOT: vindictive, retributive, discriminatory—much of what we have seen on display for far too long in our country. We’ve seen the Ninevites take us over—and it’s time for us to wake from the nightmare and say no. No to hurting others as long as we justify it by our own rights without talking about responsibility. No to violence. No to hatred.
Sometimes our own hard-heartedness and stubbornness puts us in the belly of the whale. Even when Jonah grudgingly did as he was asked, he still tried to impose a theology of vengeance and retribution upon God. Even though he could quote scripture identifying God’s essential characteristics as being gracious, merciful, slow to anger, and eager to forgive, in practice he thought that only applied to his own people. A theology of vengeance and division that has ruled our life as a nation for FAR too long.
But God IS the God of second chances—especially for those that have been misled by the lies of the powerful who take pride in their robbery, to quote our psalm. Instead, Jesus becomes incarnate to show us that we are capable of following the path of God in our everyday lives: through Christ, God invites us to seek justice, reconciliation and healing, and not twist those calls in the name of the power of violence and oppression. The Ninevites are now CALLED to embrace God’s values. They cannot continue sowing violence and oppression as they did before.
And God calls all of us too- to engage in not just asking forgiveness but in evaluating where we have supported policies that have hurt very real people because it was easy or profitable, or because we were told that they deserved to suffer. If the Ninevites repentance is real, they can no longer live by oppression, division, hatred, and war.
The lessons we learn from Jonah carry over into the message we hear from Jesus, who also preaches mercy, grace, and healing in a world devoid of it far too often—much like our own world today. A world in which we have to take responsibility for change that brings hope and compassion to all. A world in which far too many people suffer want, neglect, and poverty as we will be reminded in our prayers of the people in a few moments. We will be called to consider working to heal the economic divisions that cause very real suffering in our country and around the world.
I hear a call in this story a reminder that the work of God’s forgiveness doesn’t let us off the hook. To receive a gift is one thing. To be worthy of the gift is another. In order for us as a nation to really embrace the way to reconciliation, which is deeper and more meaningful than mere unity we have to be willing to assume responsibility for the harm done when our opponents are instead recast by our leaders as our enemies and beneath any need for respect. Such dehumanization violates our call as children of God to honor the dignity and worth of EVERY person.
Made in the image of God, we too are called to be both individuals and communities of mercy, slow to anger, abounding in kindness, and ready to forgive. We are also called to account and to restore where we have damaged others in our blindness or selfishness. In terms of our current crisis, both economic, pandemic and political, we are reminded that we are only as strong as our bonds that hold us together.
We are only as strong as our bonds that hold us together.
May we begin this work—today. Honestly. Humbly. Remembering we all owe our lives to God—and to each other, regardless of differences.
Amen.
Preached at the 10:30 am online service from St. Martin's Episcopal Church, Ellisville, MO, January 24, 2021.
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