Jonah: the Reluctant Prophet
The Very Reverend Harry H. Pritchett, Jr.
The Cathedral of St. Philip, Atlanta, GA
January 22, 2006
My hunch is that when you hear the word “Jonah”, your first association is with the bizarre report of his being swallowed by a whale. But Jonah is not just the first occupant of a submarine without windows. I don’t think we really can appreciate Jonah if the extent of our knowledge is—Jonah equals whale! Neither will we sense his significance from hearing only the five verses of our first reading in the lectionary for today. So…. I want to talk this morning more about Jonah… who he was, what he meant to the folks who first read the book, and maybe what this peculiar story might mean to us today.
Who was Jonah and what was he about? For those of you who are skeptical about living conditions inside a big fish-- lack of oxygen, raw seafood diet, toilet service—just relax. The story is just that—a story. A very short story—about 1,300 English words. It’s fiction—but fiction for a purpose. Fiction with a message. It’s really a little parabolic drama in two acts.
First, Act I: The Lord orders Jonah to go to Nineveh, capital of Assyria, the land of the dreaded Gentile infidels. He is to preach repentance to the Ninevites. But this calling—this assignment—brings no joy to Jonah. Preach penance to pagans?—announce salvation to non-Jews??? No, no, not for Jonah. He flees as far from the Lord as he can, buys a ticket on a freighter bound for southern Spain. The Lord then raises up a storm, and the ship threatens to break apart. The pagan sailors draw lots to discover who has brought them this bad luck. Who else, but Jonah, the Jew? But he’s a good fellow at heart and so he asks them to toss him overboard. And they readily oblige. The sea settles. The sailors are converted to Israel’s God. And as for Jonah, a big fish, with instructions from God, swallows him whole. After three days, at the bidding of the Lord of the sea, the fish vomits Jonah up onto the shore. And that’s the end of Act I.
Act II: The word of the Lord comes to Jonah a second time. “Get up and go to Ninevah,” the voice says again. Jonah still dislikes this assignment, but this time he does go. How could you argue with a God who has saved you from the stormy depths in such a unique way? And so he preaches, and lo and behold, the people change their minds and change their ways. So God spares the city.
But Jonah somehow is angry with his own success, or perhaps it was God’s success through him. Pagans should not be beneficiaries of God’s acceptance, he says to himself. So he blows his stack and tells God to put him out of his misery: “It is better for me to die than to live,” he says. He sits down and sulks outside the city, shaded from the sun by a plant that God provides for him. Jonah pouts! But then God gets a worm to wither Jonah’s sunscreen plant, and the sun beats down on his unprotected head. So Jonah whines again. He is angry enough to die, he says.
Then God lets him have it with both barrels: “So you pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow. But now you resent my taking pity on a hundred and twenty thousand human beings??” With this abrupt and harsh and unanswered question, the book of Jonah simply ends…
Well, what did all that mean back then? What was Jonah’s importance for Israel? Why did they put Jonah among the great prophets of the Old Testament? Along side the really big ones like Isaiah and Ezekiel and Jeremiah and Joel. All of those guys had impressive qualities. They were obedient to the Lord and they had vision and passion. But look at Jonah. He disobeys the Lord and he refuses to preach and is totally inept at the “vision thing.” When finally he does obey and the Ninevites believe, he gets angry. He gets angry enough to die. Why put such a reluctant prophet in the Holy Scriptures?
Of course the point is that the book of Jonah is not really centered on Jonah, but on God. Oh yes, it tells us a lot about Jonah, but it tells us much more about God. We discover once again how stupid a person sent by God can be—how difficult for him to grasp the goodness and comprehensiveness of God—how narrow his outlook on those who are different from him, who worship other gods. More important still, we glimpse through Jonah, how good God is—how loving—how persistent—how God’s compassion embraces every creature in God’s universe. And so all are called to turn toward their Creator, the heart of everything that is.
Jonah could not see that. He could lose his cool and grow livid with anger when a plant that was his sun block withered away. Yet, he could let thousands of humans perish in their unbelief without turning pale. He was not basically a bad person; after all, Jonah was willing to drown for the pagan sailors. No, he was not evil, you see, he was just myopic or short-sighted. He was too wrapped up in his narrow nationalism. God was his God, the God of the Hebrews, imprisoned in one country and one temple and one Ark of the Covenant.
Now, I believe that whoever wrote this story—this satire, if you will—was using Jonah as an example, a warning to all narrow-minded Israelites. The author was saying in effect, “Each of you is Jonah—dreadfully near-sighted. Remember your mission which is the universal vocation of the people of God….to be a light to all the nations with the good news of the endless illumination of God’s mercy and forgiveness.”
So finally, what might Jonah say to you and me now? What is the message to us who follow the one who said the only sign he would give was the sign of Jonah? Two suggestions occur to me.
First is the same message that Jonah’s ghost writer was commending to ancient Israel: think big about God! I believe our tendency is to always shape God in our own image, just like Jonah. You know, there is the God who has a special affection for capitalist America. And there is the God who always rewards the workaholic. And there’s the God who loves only the nice guys. On the contrary, the writer of Jonah declares that God’s compassion reaches out to every one… even those who must stretch God’s compassion to the breaking point. If there is a breaking point it is not God who reaches it, but it is we who go out and sit under any tree we can find, and whine and pout and sulk about our condition as though we earned and deserved special treatment. No. It is simply not possible to think too big about God and God’s compassion.
The second suggestion of the message here sounds so simple, but it is really quite subtle. It is this: quit running from God. Most of us, I believe, flee God in some way, at some time, to some extent. Oh, we’re more sophisticated than Jonah. We know from our catechism days that God is everywhere—that a slow boat to China or a Qantas flight to Australia will not really distance us from God. We flee God more effectively.
Some of us limit God to the church, and resent it if God runs over into the rest of our lives-- into the family den, the bedroom, the voting booth, or the stock exchange. Or maybe our early faith stumbles on the tragedies that stalk human existence around every corner—a brain-damaged infant, starving skeletons in Nigeria, war upon senseless war, a cancer ravaged friend, incidents or accidents that bring sudden lost of what we held dear. Or perhaps we flea God by assuming we don’t need God…science is shaping a super Adam, a super Eve, with no rotten apples. Technology is creating a brave new world beyond anything the creator could have even conceived of. Or perhaps most of all, we flee God by saying we simply don’t have time for God right now because the struggle to make a good living, to get ahead, the “great grade rush” which seems to never end from school through death.
Now I do not mock all this or belittle it or hold it inhuman. It is all touchingly human. And I want to tell you I understand it from the inside. Because to some extent at some time or another, each of us is Jonah—running away, hiding, denying our calls.
But I say to you and I say to me, don’t let this happen! The thrilling paradox is the love you may be fleeing is not escapable. It is here beside and within you. To ignore God is like ignoring your own flesh. To put God off till Sunday is akin to holding your breath for a week. Challenge God is you must, ask God to show you God’s face, dump your anger and resentment on God, but don’t try to flee from God. If you do, or if you have, I pray that you will stop and change your mind (which is what repent means in the first place), and acknowledge God who has always been there. If we stop fleeing—if in response to Jesus we leave our nets and follow, we will know ultimately a joy, a depth of delight beyond our wildest imaginings. But dear Jonahs, we have to stop running!
Comments? Contact Dean Pritchett at: HPritchett@stphilipscathedral.org