Yeah, Right

"Yeah, Right"

Jonah 3

Chapter 3, of course, picks up right in the middle of the story.  So, let’s back up for a quick recap of what’s happened so far.  Jonah, a Jewish prophet, has been sent by God to go to Ninevah, the capital city of the Babylonian empire.  That, in itself is odd, because, up to that point, God only sent his prophets to his own people, not to the non-Jews.  It signaled a shift for the Jewish prophetic ministry, letting everyone know that God is concerned about and cares for not just the Jews, but also with non-Jewish people who have no idea who God is.  God is putting people on notice, through Jonah’s mission, that God’s people includes a lot more folk than just those who consider themselves God’s chosen.  It should be a signal to Christians as well who draw their boundaries of God’s favor too tightly.

Jonah listened to God’s “mission impossible” assignment calmly and courteously.  “Yup; mmm hmmm; yeah; OK; sure; yes; I understand perfectly; got it.”  And there was a lot of head nodding in the affirmative.  And then, Jonah, just as calmly and courteously bought a ticket on a boat heading in the opposite direction.  Instead of heading east on an over-the-land trek to Ninevah to preach God’s message of judgement to the Ninevites for their faithlessness, Jonah set sail on a ship heading west for Spain.

When you say NO to God, you have to expect there will be consequences.  That, ironically, is the message that God gave to Jonah to preach to the Ninevites.  They had said NO to God for far too long, and there were consequences for that kind of indifference.  I wonder why Jonah felt like there would possibly be no consequences for his way of saying NO to God.

The consequences came to Jonah.  God sent a storm of anger against the ship that Jonah was on.  So the consequences for Jonah’s NO, affected not only Jonah, but also all the others on the ship.  That’s what we don’t see:  that the consequences of our actions don’t often just affect us.  They move out in larger ripples to envelop all those around us, both loved ones and acquaintances.

It’s interesting that the sailors were almost more spiritually aware than Jonah.  They understand that there’s a spiritual dimension to this storm; that there’s a God behind this storm; that it’s not just a normal squall.  Jonah finally confesses that they are correct, and that God is after him.  Somehow Jonah decides the best way to save them is that he die.  Jonah decides the best way to save himself from this chasing-after-God, is to be sent to Davey Jones Locker.   That he be thrown overboard.

We don’t know how it is that Jonah came up with this idea.  We are not told if God somehow told him this weird solution to the stormy problem.  Or, that possibly Jonah simply had a death wish.  Jonah would rather die than do what God asked him to do (which fits in with Jonah’s personality better).  Jonah was asking the ship’s crew to help him commit suicide.  He had no idea if it would stop the storm.  He just wanted to end it, not give in to God or what God wanted.  So he preyed upon the superstitions of the sailors.  As they heaved him overboard, he folded his arms across his chest, closed his eyes, and prepared to die in a catastrophic storm at sea.

The sailors must have thought that was the end of Jonah.  Jonah thought that was the end of Jonah.  As he’s sinking further into the rocking arms of the undercurrent’s depths, the lights go out.  Jonah is in darkness.  He thinks he’s in the throes of death.  Instead he’s in the belly of a great fish.

It’s clear that the whale, or whatever kind of fish it was, that swallowed Jonah was sent by God, not as an act of punishment, but of grace.  Because that’s what this whole story is about.  God’s grace.  In the belly of the great fish, Jonah had some alone time to think.  Being given that alone time with God is always an act of grace, because it helps us ponder where our lives are going, and where they should be headed.  The alone time with God in the belly of the great fish gave Jonah some important alone time to rethink the way he was thinking.  We don't often stop and do that--take a time out to see if we are thinking right--if we're too negative, too pessimistic, too much over-thinking,  or just too little thinking deeply about things at all.

Jonah, like the prodigal son in Jesus' parable, finally came to his senses.  Isn’t that what grace is supposed to do?  Jonah was finally ready to pray.  And God was right there, ready to listen.

Jonah prayed his prayer of confession.  God accepted it.  Accepted Jonah.  And then God redirected.  Whenever we pray our confessions to God, God always gives us a new direction.  For Jonah, it was the original direction:  Head for Ninevah.  God is in the second chances business, and Jonah got his.

In a display of God’s sense of humor, God has the great fish barf Jonah up on shore.  You can’t help but laugh at the vision of Jonah sitting in a pile of whale barf--stinky, rotting fish guts, partly digested fish bones, stray pieces of this-and-that kinds of sea garbage, mixed in with intestinal slime and juices--all covering Jonah as he's waving goodbye to his ride, smiling a smirky grin in God’s direction.

That’s where we pick up the story here in chapter 3.  Jonah accepts God’s redirection and heads for Nineveh.  Nineveh was a combination of New York City, Los Angeles and Las Vegas.  Into that huge city, Jonah walked a days length and began preaching his one sentence sermon:  “In 40 days, Nineveh will be smashed!”

It must have been Jonah’s first sermon.  First sermons are notoriously either very long or very short.  I remember my first sermon in my first church.  I think I packed everything I learned from 3 years of seminary into one, tightly knit, theologically sound, historically accurate, 35 minute sermon.  It was impressive.  It was so impressive, people didn’t look at their watches; they pulled out their calendars, wondering what day this thing was going to be over.

On the other end of the spectrum there was David Livingstone’s first sermon.  Livingstone went on to become one of the great missionaries, but he was so nervous when giving his first sermon at a little village church, that he stood up and said, “Friends, I have forgotten all I had to say,” then ran out of the church.  I think that’s what the people in my first church wished I would have said and done.

Jonah’s sermon was kind of like that.  Certainly we’d like to think that the sermon to Nineveh was much longer, but all we have recorded is, “In 40 days, this place is toast.”  (Or something like that.)  Jonah must have been the kind of preacher who only had a one point sermon, and he liked to get right to it.

My question to you is, “After hearing a sermon like that, what are your options?”  I mean, what are all the different ways you could react and respond?

You could make fun of and belittle Jonah.  I used to be a fan of all the Law And Order TV shows.  One of the tactics of the the trial lawyers, especially when a witness had a damaging testimony, is to smudge that witness’s character.  So, in Jonah’s case, the Ninevites could have said something like, “But Jonah was told by God to come preach this message, but ran away in the other direction.  Even Jonah doesn’t believe it.  And what does that say about Jonah and his own faith and trust in this God he speaks of?  If that’s how Jonah acts, why do we need to listen to his message?”  The whole effect of Jonah’s mini-sermon would have been minimized.  That’s one possible reaction.

Or, another reaction the people of Nineveh could have had would be to ignore the message and the messenger.  They could have treated him as insignificant and unworthy to be listened to.  They could have responded to him with total indifference.  Just like they did with God.

When I was serving the church in Nebraska, I would go into Lincoln to listen to some blues at a festival that was called the July Jamm.  This one time I was walking around, looking at some art booth displays.  I happened to notice, just outside the fence, at one of the ticket gates, a street preacher.  He was preaching about the judgement of God; that God wanted all people to repent; that hell was waiting for those who didn’t repent of their evil ways.

I stood there and watched him for a while.  Mostly I watched the people walking by him.  No one was giving him the time of day.  They all walked right past him, busy in their own conversations and anticipations.  They were either trying hard to not pay attention, or just totally oblivious to the preacher and his message.  To nearly everyone, the preacher was invisible and mute.

But what if he were a Jonah figure, sent by God to tell us in 40 days everything as we know it is going up in smoke?  How do you know?  I guess one answer is not caring what the answer is to that question, and just walk on by.

There are probably a lot of assumptions that fuel that reaction.  One is the thought, “Yeah, Right.  That’s not going to happen.”  Or, “Why would God do that; we’re not that bad.”

Let’s examine that.  At the start of Jonah 3, God says to Jonah, in his redirection instructions:  “Preach to them.  They’re in a bad way and I can’t ignore it any longer” (vs. 2).  That statement tells us a lot.  First, it lets us know that people are always under God’s watchful care, even the ones we wouldn’t necessarily include in God’s list.  God cares when “those people” go off the deep end; when they mess up in a wholesale kind of way; when they get so deep in their own humanity, they can’t find their own way out.

Kind of like the church in the book of Revelation, at the end of the Bible.  Remember that list of seven churches that the Risen Christ addresses towards the start of the book.  To one of those churches, Christ says:

I know you inside and out, and find little to my liking.  You’re not cold.  You’re not hot.  Far better to be either cold or hot!  You’re stale.  You’re stagnant.  You make me want to spit you out of my mouth.  (3:15-16)

It wasn’t that the church was immoral or evil that Christ was disappointed.  It sounds like Christ wished they were either saints or totally corrupt.  At least Christ would know where they stood.  But instead, they were a church full of fence straddlers.

Or, more to the point, they were a bunch of people who looked God in the face, time after time, and said, “Maybe.”  Not, “Yes.”  Not, “No.”  But, “Maybe.”  Maybe I’ll be faithful.  Maybe I’ll be generous.  Maybe I’ll be a person who extends grace to others.  Maybe I'll be involved.  Maybe I’ll be a light for the grace of Christ.  Maybe I’ll take time to pray.  Maybe I’ll stretch my understanding and knowledge of scripture.  Maybe.  Maybe.  Maybe.

Maybe, Ninevah wasn’t a city full of immorality and smut.  Maybe that’s not why God felt they were “in a bad way.”  Maybe it was just because it was a city of “maybe people.”  Maybe you’re not that bad.  Maybe God isn’t going to turn us into a puff of smoke, and leave us in cinders.  Maybe.  But maybe isn’t good enough.  Maybe is what brings messages from God about being spit out of God’s mouth; or, that in 40 days God is going to bring the curtain down for the final act.

Secondly, God’s instructions to Jonah let us know that God doesn’t ignore anything.  It seems like it.  It may seem like God doesn’t care, and we get to go on acting and behaving as we please.  Because, (point upwards) He’s really not paying attention.

On the other side of that is the fact that God keeps waiting.  God keeps waiting for something to happen.  God keeps waiting for us to make the changes we know need to happen.  God is so patiently waiting for us to turn this mess around, and take some responsibility for what we have done, are doing and, apparently are going to keep on doing.  God keeps saying to God’s self, “I just know they’re going to clean up their act any moment.  I know I’m not going to have to step in and bully them into making the changes they know they need to make.”

One of the things I did for fun, when I lived in Leoti, was coach the two jr. high girls basketball teams.  During one of the games, I had one girl who kept throwing the ball to our opponents.  I stopped counting at 18, for the amount of times she threw the ball to the other team.  Our whole team should have less than 18 turnovers, let alone one girl.

My problem is, I believed in this girl.  I just knew she was going to stop doing what she was doing.  I talked to her personally every time out.  I kept muttering to the assistant coach, and mostly to myself, “I gotta make a change; I can’t let her keep throwing the ball to the other team like that.  I gotta do something.”

But I never did.  It wasn’t that I didn’t care what was happening out on the court.  I was balancing the reality of so many turnovers with my belief that she would stop throwing the ball away.  I never made the change I needed to make, and she ended up hurting us.  I ended up hurting us, because I didn’t do something I should have done as a coach.  I wasn’t ignoring the problem.  I just kept hoping she’d change.  I wanted her to succeed so badly, and I gave her chance after chance.  Probably too many chances.  I don’t know.  I’m just that way.

So I wonder about God, as God looks down at Nineveh, waiting and wondering how long it was going to be before they realized they were, time and time again, throwing their lives away.  And God patiently waited and waited for them to understand what they were doing, and make the change.  God must have taken a few time-outs, told the players in Nineveh what they needed to do out there in the game, but even so, they just kept throwing it all away.  Finally, God took the ultimate time-out and said, “I’m done waiting.  I’m not ignoring the problem.  But I’m not going to let the problem keep going on and on.”

So, the final option, when we hear a sermon like Jonah’s, when we hear the “or else” of God in that awful “time out” called by God, halting play, and letting everyone know what the expectations really are, the final option is to finally understand what needs to be done, and do it.

That means courageously facing the truth of God’s message.  God is not some cosmic sadist who likes to throw down pronouncements like that and laugh and say, “Just kidding; I wasn’t going to destroy you; I just like watching you all sweat and squirm and run for cover.”

No, we’ve got to take God seriously.  We need to find out why God thinks we’re in a bad way.  We better find out, because, maybe, just maybe, there’s something we can do about it.  After all, we’ve been given 40 days.

That’s an important point to see:  why the 40 days?  If God was beyond angry, then why not go ahead and destroy the place immediately?  Because, as I said in relation to Jonah and the Ninevites, our God is primarily a God of second chances.  The 40 days was an option of grace.  The 40 days was a second chance given to the people to change their ways, and stop throwing their lives away.  The 40 days was an ample time period to see if the people were willing to change their ways, and seriously begin working on their faithfulness to God.

My final questions are, Why do we need to be thrown off a boat, swallowed by a whale, or have God’s thunder clouds swirling over our heads before we are motivated to do what God simply wants?  Why does God have to tell us, “Or Else!” before we get serious about being God’s faithful human beings?  Why can’t we just be the faithful people God wants us to be, and do that willingly, joyfully, without having to be threatened into it?  If you can figure out the answers to those questions, and do it in less than 40 days, then maybe, just maybe, you will spare yourselves and this place.