That Jonah!

Jonah, chapter 3
If I could sing these days, this is the moment when I would bust out with lines from the children’s musical “O Jonah.”  I simply cannot resist Jonah.  So every time he shows up on the lectionary cycle, I feel compelled to preach with him.  After all, he only shows up once every three years.  But honestly, that kind of fits him.  Poor Jonah. 

 He is a minor prophet, the fifth one in a series of twelve in the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament.  If you can’t find his story, it is located right before the more often quoted Micah.  Jonah’s book is hard to find because it is short, taking only four chapters to tell his story.  If you blink, you miss it.  Poor Jonah.  It almost makes me want to feel sorry for him.  I say “almost” because frankly, I have a hard time feeling too sorry for him.  He cracks me up.  I think Jonah is hilarious.  As a matter of fact, I am convinced that one reason Jonah’s story is included in Scripture is to help us laugh, not just at Jonah, but at ourselves. 

 Jonah’s story is serious satirical comedy.  But since we could only read chapter 3 this morning, let’s do a recap of his whole story.  It is a short book, won’t take too long:

 Act 1:  God says to Jonah, “Hey Jonah, get up.  I need you to do something for me.  Nineveh is getting way out of hand.  Greed and nastiness are running the show.  The people in charge are out of control.  They are using and abusing anything and anyone they can get their hands on.  No one is behaving anymore.  So Jonah I need you to go and tell them that I see what they are doing and that I am not going to look the other way.” 

 And in response, Jonah gets up, just as God commanded.  But then, instead of heading to Nineveh, he marches right down to the dock on the Mediterranean Sea and boards a ship going in the exact opposite direction.  God said head east to Nineveh.  But Jonah heads west to Tarshish.  Why?  Were the people in Tarshish less corrupt than the Ninevites?  We have no idea.  But my hunch is that Jonah did not care if they were less corrupt or not.  All he cared about was that they were NOT Ninevites.  For you see, the Ninevites were on Jonah’s list. 

 You know what list I am talking about, don’t you?  It is our secret enemy list that we all carry around with us.  It is the list that has on it the name of the kid from 3^rd grade who made fun of you every day on the playground, along with the names of the middle school “in group” who ostracized you every chance they got.  

 It is the list with the names of those whose political or theological convictions are just so completely opposite of your own, that you can barely even articulate your distaste and maybe disgust with where they stand.  That is the list I am taking about. So be honest with me now, you’ve got one, don’t you.  Why I bet if it were just you and me, you could give me at least three names off of your secret enemy list.  You might even be able to tell me where they sit on a pew, or the name of their church; their feelings about the South Carolina Republican primary or, their stance on the state constitutional marriage amendment.   

See, most, if not all, of us have a secret enemy list.  And we carry it around in our hearts, regardless if we want to cop to it in church.

Well, the Ninevites were on Jonah’s list.  He could not stand the sight of them or even the way the word “Nineveh” felt in his mouth.  Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire.  It stood for everything that the people of Israel, Jonah’s people, detested and dreaded.  And Jonah disliked them so much that he could not even fathom having to look at them or to speak to them.  He would much rather just see them burn from a distance.  So regardless of what God said, Jonah fled God’s call, ran down to the dock, and boarded the first boat in the opposite direction, to Tarshish.

 Act 2:  The big storm arises on the sea.  The sailors cannot figure out what is going on until Jonah finally confesses he is fleeing from God.  So they toss him overboard to save their own skins and to appease the storm.  Then God provides a large fish to swallow up Jonah in order to save his life.  And while he sits in the dark belly of the fish, Jonah finally decides it is time to start preaching. 

 So Jonah delivers a very well-put- together sermon—a sermon, by the way, that uses the first-person singular (I, me, or my) 26 times in merely 8 verses, even though this sermon is theoretically a psalm of thanksgiving for what God has done.  Sounds like Jonah the preacher has a bit of an overinflated ego, more than just a tinge of narcissism.  The fish must have thought so too because as soon as Jonah says Amen, the fish coughs him up onto the beach.  Jonah’s self-centeredness probably gave that poor fish heartburn.

 Act 3:  Well, if we ever needed more proof that our God is an extremely patient God, God gives Jonah another chance, telling him,   “Get up, go to Nineveh and I will tell you what to say.”  So Jonah gets up and finally trudges to Nineveh.  Now, Nineveh was huge—sixty miles across.  So Jonah starts walking and begins to reluctantly deliver an unbelievably short sermon.  He walks and yells five Hebrew words over and over again, that, roughly translated, mean “Forty days and Nineveh is toast.”  “Forty days and Nineveh is toast.”  He walks and yells and walks and yells, making his way into the center of the city.  [By the way, did you notice that his short sermon does not reference God in any way?  He does not mention God at all.] 

 Furthermore, Jonah delivers his sermon in Hebrew, which the Ninevites may not have even understood.  And yet—and this is where humor begins to raise its head again----in direct response to Jonah’s 5 word, foreign language sermon with no subtitles, the Ninevites do the impossible.

They repent.  This minor prophet preaches a minor sermon in a minor key and all those theoretically horrible, evil, worthless, enemy-number-one people respond immediately.  They are immediately willing to turn from who they have been and turn to God.  They repent because they believe what Jonah says. 

 But not only do they believe their destruction might very well be on the way, they also believe that God might just give them a second chance.  They believe God just might change God’s mind about them.  So those no-good, no-account Ninevites declare a fast, put on sackcloth and dress for full repentance. 

 The King even takes off his royal robe to put on sackcloth and sit in ashes.  They even dress the dogs and cats and cows in sackcloth.  They have little puppies in sackcloth chasing little kittens in sackcloth chasing little mice in sackcloth.  Do you hear the laughter yet?  Friends, there is not another city in Scripture that responds so quickly and completely to God’s word as Nineveh does. 

 Their entire reality changes because of what God does with a reluctant minor prophet who preaches a very minor sermon in a pitiful minor key. 

 But guess what: It turns out the Ninevites were right.  They were right to assume God’s mercy could include even them.  God looks and sees what has happened and God changes God’s mind.  What do you think about that?  Not only do the people of Nineveh change, but God changes God’s plans and decides not to toast Nineveh after all. 

 Act 4:  Well, you might think that Jonah would be excited that the people responded to his sermon in such an amazing way.  If he were a Southern Baptist preacher like my great-grandfather, this would be like the ultimate altar call.  They heard the word and they repented and were born again.  Thousands upon thousands streaming down the aisle of the revival tent singing “Just As I Am.”  With a response like that, Jonah is on his way into the Prophet’s Hall of Fame.  BUT is Jonah happy?  No.  Not one bit.  On the contrary, Jonah is mad, mad, mad. 

“I knew it.  I just knew it,” Jonah pouts.  “I knew it would turn out this way when you called me and that is why I ran away.  I knew, God, that you were gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.  And now, thanks to your goodness, I do not get a ringside seat at Nineveh’s Armageddon.  I just knew you would end up loving them and showing mercy.  Just let me die.”  Hilarious, isn’t it. 

 Jonah is the only person I know who takes a psalm of thanksgiving for God’s mercy and love, and turns it into a psalm of complaint.  He is completely irritated because the people of Nineveh heard the word and changed.  He is angry because they are not allowed to be transformed people.  They are supposed to remain on his list forever-- enemies, people he could not stand to talk to, look at, associate with, or even share the same air.  But then they had the nerve to change. 

 And as if that were not enough to put him in a foul mood, God has the nerve to change too in response to their cries.  Once again God lets God’s mercy be the last word and God welcomes them home.  So Nineveh changes.  God changes.  But by golly, Jonah isn’t going to change.  He would rather die than have to make room in his theology or religion for God’s mercy for those people. 

Act 5:  Jonah continues to pout and throw himself a pity party.  And apparently, God decides to have some fun with him.  You know how sometimes, if you are in the middle of feeling mad and sorry for yourself and someone helps you laugh, that laughter can takes away the sting?  I think that is what God hoped for Jonah, for God tries to help Jonah laugh. 

 God watches as Jonah goes to the top of the hill to water his grievance garden and cry in his drink.  Then God causes a plant to grow up and Jonah discovers that he has a nice little shade under which he can more fully and comfortably sit and sulk.  But then, just as Jonah gets comfortable, God causes a worm to attack the plant and make it wither away, leaving Jonah’s head to bake in the hot sun.

 So Jonah grows even angrier and even more hurt.  “Come on now, God.  You can’t even follow through with your promise to smite my enemies and now you take away my shade?  Just let me die.”  But God responds, “Oh Jonah, please lighten up.  Enough with the drama already.  I just don’t get it.  If you can feel sorry for a plant dying, why can’t you feel any compassion for the Ninevites who were clueless about faithful living?  Can’t you feel something other than hatred for them?  And, come on now, Jonah, what about all those cows and the puppies and the kittens and lambs?  Didn’t you get a kick out of seeing all of them wearing sackcloth and ashes?  It was a brilliant move.  Have you ever seen something so funny and so heartwarmingly earnest in your whole life?”

 The End.  That is where Jonah’s story ends.  Right there, with God’s question.  Right there, with the cliffhanger of “Did Jonah laugh?”  So what do you think?  Do you think Jonah laughed?  Do you think that Jonah’s eyes were cleared and he realized what a fool he was being for trying to limit God’s mercy?  Do you think that Jonah saw how silly he was being for trying to shorten God’s long, embracing arms and water down God’s salvific love?  I sure hope so.  I sure hope that Jonah found his laughter and took God’s advice to lighten up and let God be God. 

 Because then, maybe, just maybe, after Jonah laughed so much that his cheeks hurt and his stomach ached; just maybe after he wiped away the tears that flowed from raucous laughter over his self-righteous behavior and silly complaints; perhaps as he sat next to the withered plant, he took out his secret enemy list and prayed it might wither up and die too.  And perhaps he wadded it up and asked God to make the same kind of extravagant mercy wash over him as it had washed over the Ninevites.  Maybe Jonah’s laughter helped him to finally realize that he was the only one being hurt by carrying around an enemy list, because it was slowly destroying his humanity from the inside out. 

 Besides, he had already learned that day that just because he did not like or understand someone certainly did not mean that God felt the same way.  Maybe Jonah came to the same conclusion that writer Anne Lamott has come to: “You can safely assume that you have created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people that you do.[i]”  Because really, that is what Jonah had been doing all along—trying to make God into his image, small and tame and controllable.  Trying to prove that God was on HIS side and his side alone.

We don’t know if any of that happened for Jonah.  But, just as we did for the people of Nineveh, we have good hope that even Jonah might be saved from his own destruction. 

It is a funny story—a seriously funny story.