Words of Grace
St. Paul’s United Methodist Church
Jonah 3: 1-5, 10, Rev. Marianne Niesen, January 25, 2009
I know the bulletin indicates that today’s scripture text is but 6 verses but I have bad news and good news for you. The bad news is that it is impossible to understand the assigned 6 verses without knowing the whole story of Jonah. The good news is that the whole book is only 47 verses and, rather than reading even that, I am simply going to tell you the story, using Marianne’s New and Definitely Revised Yet Somewhat Standard version! Here is the story of Jonah in shorthand.
Once upon a time, a man named Jonah, who lived in Galilee, heard a call from the great God of heaven and earth telling him to go at once to Nineveh, a great city, and tell them that if they don't shape up, there is trouble a-brewing! Jonah’s first reaction was . . .there should be trouble for those folks. That place is a hell-hole. That place is bad. Those people are evil! God said I know but go anyway. Tell them you're my prophet and that I want to give them a chance to change. To which Jonah replied, I don’t care if you are the great God of all the universe. I’m not going and you can’t make me!
Then Jonah decided to do what many people like to do in the midst of a crisis. He took some time off and signed up for a Mediterranean cruise, heading the opposite direction of Nineveh. Soon after the ship left port, the weather got bad. In fact it seemed they were headed directly into a great hurricane - which in and of itself was rather unusual for the Mediterranean! No matter where they headed or what they did, the winds got worse and the sea churned. The mariners were terrified. This was long before radar and weather tracking systems. All the mariners knew to do was pray so they called for a prayer service and Jonah responded by saying he’d rather take a nap. He didn't want anything to do with God. Of course the mariners, thought that a strange response to a crisis of divine magnitude. That’s when it dawned on them that the problem might very well be their new passenger. After all, hadn’t he told them over dinner one night, that his god - the Great God of all the Universe - had given him an assignment he’d decided not to take. No wonder things are bad, they yelled! Give him his money back and get him out of here. Of course, in the middle of the sea, that meant only one thing. Jonah was thrown overboard and the sea calmed.
But while the sailors were through with Jonah, God was not. God still had work to do on Jonah. So God sent a ‘great fish,’ which swallowed Jonah whole. This was definitely not Jonah’s idea of ‘getting away from it all’ so as he sat in the belly of the fish, he finally started to pray. All my trials, Lord, soon be over! Nobody knows the trouble I’ve seen. And pretty soon even the fish had it with Jonah and spewed him out with a big belch that landed him, conveniently, on dry land, facing Nineveh. This is the point where the text for today picks up. From The Message …
Next, God spoke to Jonah a second time: "Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and I can't ignore it any longer." This time Jonah (wisely) started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God's orders to the letter. Nineveh was a big city, very big—it took three days to walk across it. Jonah entered the city, went one day's walk and preached, "In forty days Nineveh will be smashed." The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it—rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers. God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. And God changed God’s mind about them.
Back to my version . . . Jonah was furious about the whole thing. This is precisely why I didn’t want to do it, he whined. I just knew with your track record, God, that you could be taken in with a little sackcloth and ashes and actually forgive these jerks. How could you after all they've done? You may be the Great God of all the Universe but even you are going too far on this one. You actually like the unlikeable and forgive the unforgiveable. You see hope everywhere. Where will it end? If a world of peace and justice includes these guys, well, count me out. I don’t want anything to do with these people.
So, Jonah tramped outside the city, plopped down under a tree - and did what he did best - pouted. And when God said, what’s with you anyway? Why does it bother you that my love is bigger than yours? Jonah just kept pouting.
The End
So how bad was Nineveh? It was the capital of Assyria which was, to the Jews at least, an evil power. The prophet Nahum described Nineveh this way:
Ah! City of bloodshed,
utterly deceitful, full of booty -
no end to the plunder!
The crack of the whip and rumble of wheel,
galloping horse and bounding chariot!
Horsemen charging,
flashing sword and glittering spear,
piles of dead, heaps of corpses,
dead bodies without end -
they stumble over the bodies! (Nahum 3: 1-3)
Nice place, that! Jonah actually had good reasons for his feelings about Nineveh. According to Nahum, nothing and no one in Nineveh was worth saving. That would have been the feeling of most of Israel. Nineveh was the capital of the country that brought widespread destruction on any power that stood in its way. It was the seat of evil rulers, ruthless leaders. Jonah knew that there was no hope for those kinds of people. Everyone knew it. The remains of the ancient city of Nineveh are located in Northern Iraq under the present city of Mosul. Nineveh really did exist and, as is so often true in any kind of war, Ninevites were responsible for acts of destruction and evil. That is historically accurate. Nineveh was real and Jonah was right. They didn’t deserve saving. And though it would be nice to read about the Nineveh of 2800 years ago as history, we know that Nineveh has never really succumbed to ruins. Nineveh is now.
Ninevehs are just as real today as that ancient city in Iraq was real. For Americans today, living in a post 9/11 world, Nineveh is not so much a country or a place as it is an amorphous group we call the “terrorists.” Bad people who have done bad things to lots of folks. People who threaten and cause havoc. And, our collective rhetoric about them is vengeful and unforgiving. There are specific Ninevehs as well. For Israelis, it’s Hamas, for Palestinians, it’s Israel. For Indians, it is the Pakistani government who harbored those terrorists who attacked them. For Afghans, it’s the Taliban. For the Taliban, it’s the un-believers. Everyone has a Nineveh. Indeed, the list is endless and it changes with the times. There are personal Ninevehs as well. Those are the people we distrust and, usually, demonize. I am sure you can think of a personal Nineveh or two. Some Ninevehs really do hateful, evil things. Others are Ninevehs because of our perception of reality. Of what is right and what is wrong. The Ninevehs of our lives are usually the perpetrators of that which we hate, that which disgusts us, that which we fear. And, generally, we are quite set in our ways regarding our Ninevahs.
And here is the amazing thing we learn from Jonah. God cares about Nineveh. Not just the ancient one - but our Ninevehs too. The innocent ones and the guilty ones. That thought for many of us is enough to make us do what Jonah did - run the other way. But our actions do not determine God’s love. God cares about Nineveh. Whether we like it or not, God is bigger than us. That's good news for Nineveh . . . but there is even better news.
Just as God did not give up on Nineveh, so did God not give up on Jonah. And, let's face it; Jonah gave God a lot of reasons to write him off. First, he ran from God. Then because of his arrogance, he almost destroyed a whole shipful of innocent people. Then, he tried to sleep through the consequences of his actions. Then he tried the ultimate escape method - death. Jonah actually suggested they throw him overboard but don’t fooled by his magnanimous gesture. Jonah was still running from God - better death than Nineveh! When he got saved and did what God wanted, he did it, at best, halfheartedly. He mumbled a clearly offensive short sermon – that was more threat than sermon. Undoubtedly he just hoped he’d be proved right and would get to see a really good fire-and-brimstone destruction. Bye bye Nineveh. That would make the whole fish episode worth it. Good riddance to God’s mercy and love. Jonah is an obnoxious hero. He never got over his anger. He pouted even at the end. Jonah did everything he could to lose God’s love. He was so caught up in his own vision of who was right and who was wrong that he was blind to anything but his own opinion. Jonah was so distasteful that even the fish couldn’t stomach him! It “spewed him out” which was a nice way of saying “vomited him!” But still, God didn’t give up. Period. Nor does God give up on you or me. That’s the best news of all! It says a lot about this God of ours.
The great German pastor, Helmut Thielicke in his book Christ and the Meaning of Life, told about an old photograph which he always kept near his desk. It was a snapshot of a nativity pageant. A group of rather grizzled looking men are wearing white robes and holding candles in their rough hands. Another group of men is kneeling before them, feigning terror. It is clear that they are supposed to be the angels speaking to the fearful shepherds. Why did he keep that in his study? He explains that it was taken in prison. The men in the scene were all convicts, hardened criminals whose lives had been transformed by Christ. These murderers and thugs were dressed like angels. For Thielicke, it was a beautiful and constant reminder that the grace of God is more powerful than the worst of human behavior.
And that's the point here. For all our well-formed dogmas and self-righteous clarity; for all our morals and laws; for all our well learned rules about who is saved and who is not, who is right and who is wrong, what is possible and what is not - we have not one iota of an idea of what God can really do. Nor do we have control over what God will do. And that should be both challenging and hopeful to us - challenging because it means that we have no right to give up on anyone, even ourselves or on any situation, even the most hopeless. We can still be realistic and disciplined and try to live our lives as best we can and teach our children right from wrong as best we understand that. But we have no right to limit God to our standards. In the end, I think that's what faith means. Faith is believing that the kingdom of God is possible. And that it will come with us (and with our help) and in spite of us (in spite of our reluctance).
The story is told of Sojourner Truth, the former slave woman who became a preacher and abolitionist. While at a meeting once with Frederick Douglass, she heard him bemoaning the fact that things had really gotten bad. Slavery can only end in blood he finally proclaimed to a group of peaceful abolitionists. It is said, that despair swept over the crowd as he spoke. Sojourner stood up from among the crowd and admonished Douglass with one simple question - "Frederick, is God dead?"
Indeed, if God can turn a reluctant preacher into a prophet, and big sinners in Ninevah into faithful citizens, why do we think that God can't do the same here and how? Faithful living means that we dare partner with God and do what we can to make a difference - even when we want to run away, give up or write off the latest people who have disappointed us. Faithful living means we refuse to divide the world into good guys and bad guys, friends and enemies. It is not an easy path but it is the only one that will lead to peace and make justice possible. Sojourner's words are good to remember next time we find ourselves giving up or feeling hopeless. Let’s just remember to ask at that moment - is God dead? And remember the answer.
