Sermon by Herman Kauffman
Syracuse Church of the Brethren
June 20, 2004

Jonah's Journey

Matthew 21:28-31a
Jonah 1:1-3

Once upon a time there was a man named Jonah. We can read the story about Jonah in the Old Testament of our Bible. Jonah is one of everybody's favorite stories. Children commonly love this story, but adults are also fascinated. You mention Jonah and you hear a response like this: "O, Jonah! Yeah, he's the guy that got swallowed by a whale, isn't he?"

"Well, no, not really. What the biblical story actually says is that the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights."

"O, well ... large fish / whale they're both the same, right?"

"Not really. A whale is not actually a fish, it's a mammal...."

"But, you know what I mean, right? Say, do you really believe that Jonah could have been swallowed by and survived for three days and three nights inside of a whale?"

"Fish. A large fish!"

"Oh, right. Well, ok, do you really believe we are to take this story literally?"

"Do you? What does this story mean to you?"

 

If we can ever get beyond the discussion of a whale or a large fish, and beyond the debate about how literally we understand verse 17 of chapter 1, we might discover a biblical story that speaks to you and me in our contemporary world.

The story of Jonah is like a 2-act drama with an interlude in the middle devoted to prayer. In the first act of this drama, we find Jonah being disobedient to God's call; but after an interlude of prayer, the second act of the drama shows us an obedient Jonah. However, in both acts of the drama, Jonah fails to live up to God's expectation. In this respect, the story of Jonah is not unlike the parable Jesus told [Matthew 21:28-31a] of a father and his two sons. One son who first refused his father and later changed his mind; and the second son who agreed to obey his father but then did not. [And aren't we glad we don't have persons like them in our churches today.]

But back to the story of Jonah. One writer describes Jonah "as a rather pathetic, even comical figure. He's one of those fellows who all his life has failed, and yet at the end succeeds so well in spite of himself that he becomes depressed. Failure he had learned to handle; but success? - what do you do with success when you've never had it before?"(1)

The story begins simply enough with God's call to the Prophet Jonah to go at once to Nineveh and to cry out against their wickedness. That is, after all, what a prophet does, right?

Well, not Jonah. This prophet wants nothing to do with confronting the wickedness in Nineveh.

[As a side note to those of you interested in history and geography, Ninevah was located in what today we know as Northern Iraq - 200 miles north of Baghdad near Mosul.]

When Jonah received his prophetic call to preach in Nineveh, he headed out in the other direction to Tarshish [present day Spain]. Jonah's Journey is initiated by God's call. It's not that Jonah simply ignores God - he doesn't stay in Joppa and continue life as normal - no! Jonah goes, in an act of disobedience, to a destination of his own choosing. Jonah uses God's call to run away from God, to avoid being in the presence of God. But why?

Why would anyone want to runaway from God? Eugene Peterson suggests that "A curious thing happens to us when we get a taste of God. It happened first in Eden and it keeps happening. The experience of God - the ecstasy, the wholeness of it - is accompanied by a temptation to reproduce the experience as God. The taste for God is debased into a greed to be God."(2)

The problem for Jonah, as we learn later in the story, is that he is content that the wicked Ninevites be destroyed; he has no desire to confront their wickedness and call them to repent. Jonah is already tempted to be God and he has already judged this people to be worthy of death.

So Jonah seeks to escape God's call on his life by heading off on an adventure to a distant paradise. This attempt at escapism sounds vaguely familiar, doesn't it? It's easier to escape the lawn that needs mowing by curling up with a good book. Television may help us escape a visit to a church member in the nursing home or the needs of a neighbor down the street. Attending church meetings may help us escape the task of sharing the gospel one-on-one with a friend.

The 1st Act of the Jonah story is a story of disobedience, with Jonah sailing off to Tarshish. But the effort to escape God is aborted. There is a storm at sea and Jonah ends up in the angry sea. Now, this is where the large fish enters the story, sent by God to save Jonah; for God is not yet finished with Jonah. God has not given up on Jonah, as Jonah has given up on Nineveh.

Sea storms are pretty common in the biblical stories and often serve as the moment of decision-making, either we lose our lives or we are saved. In that respect, they are not much different than the storms that shake our lives today. In the midst of our most difficult storms of life, we either recognize God's saving presence with us or we literally descend into the depths of hell.

This drama of Jonah's Journey comes to a brief interlude between the two Acts of this drama.

For three days and three nights, Jonah experienced his own hell before recognizing he was still in the presence of God. From the belly of the fish, Jonah prays: "I called to the LORD out of my distress, and he answered me; out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice. [2:2] ... I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever; yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O Lord my God. As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the Lord; and my prayer came to you.... [2:6b-7] ...what I have vowed I will pay. 'Deliverance belongs to the Lord!'" [2:9]

The interlude between the two acts of the drama is captured in Jonah's prayer, as Jonah rediscovers God and vows to be obedient. We will soon discover how dramatic this change in Jonah's life actually is, but we may gain a humorous and disgusting clue in the closing verse of the 2nd chapter where Jonah is literally vomited out of the fish onto dry land.

The 2nd Act of Jonah's Journey begins with God again calling Jonah to go to Nineveh. This time Jonah obediently goes to Nineveh and preaches the word of God there as he was told to preach it.

But we now discover that the obedient Jonah is even worse than the disobedient Jonah. For while Jonah is obedient to God, he is also angry and vindictive. Jonah hates Nineveh. Jonah despises Nineveh. Jonah obeys to the letter what God tells him to do, but his heart is not it. And when the Ninevites repent before God, and are mercifully forgiven by God, Jonah's pouting and anger betrays his complete indifference to God, God's ways, and the people who have just become God's people.(3)

Have you ever found yourself with the heart of Jonah? Perhaps you have experienced God's salvation and found your way into the church as a faithful worker; but your anger and hatred toward other persons whom you see as sinners is as strong as it has ever been. Is it possible that the church's failure at evangelism is because we really don't want the sinners to be saved?

We want good schools and roads, as long as it's not my taxes that are increased. We want terrorism eliminated so our cities are a safe place to live, even if it means dropping bombs on cities in distant lands and destroying the homes and hospitals and schools of their citizens. We want the church to do mission work in Nigeria, Brazil, and the Dominican Republic ... as long as it does not call on me for sacrificial giving. We want to see the church grow numerically; as long as I don't have to do the work, as long as nothing within the church is changed, and as long as no "real sinners" come through the door. Perhaps we are more like Jonah than we want to admit.

Jonah is angry with God and this is what he prays [4:1-3]

O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country?

That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."

 

The drama of Jonah's Journey is left open ended. We don't know what happens to Jonah ... but the story does leave us with the certainty of God's love for all God's people - those who are wicked and need to be confronted with their wickedness that they might repent and be saved and those, like Jonah, who are angry at being used by God to save those who once were wicked.

The story of Jonah does not end the way you and I like our stories to end, with resolution, with the main character of the story living happily ever after. The story ends with a question, a question from God to Jonah, a question that is never answered because it is the question God leaves with us - for you and I to answer. It is a question that calls us out of our self-centeredness, a question that asks if we are yet aligned with God's will in being concerned for the wicked of the world who might yet be saved. A question in which God asks us: should I not be concerned about Ninevah, should I not be concerned with the people of modern-day Iraq?

The drama ends abruptly with God's question. And you and I are left to ponder our own relationship with God. Which Jonah am I? The disobedient prophet seeking to escape God's call on my life or the one who obediently responds to God's call but hates every moment of it?

 

Today is Installation Sunday and perhaps the sermon seems inappropriate for the occasion; but in his book Under the Unpredictable Plant [from which I have borrowed several thoughts], Eugene Peterson suggests that the Jonah story is sharply evocative of the vocational experience of pastor. Peterson reminds us that the story of Jonah is a parable at the center of which is prayer ... and that with these tools of parable and prayer, pastors - caught hesitating at the edge of the abyss - are led gently but surely into the depths where we can develop a spirituality adequate to our calling.(4)

Guy, if you want to explore Peterson's premise further, I'll let you read the book. [You can even borrow my copy.]

I do want to remind all of us, however, that pastors are not exempt from the same spiritual struggles and temptations of the rest of us. In fact, pastors may also be tempted to play God. If we preach the word of God long enough and often enough, it doesn't take a great leap of the imagination to take up the pose of the God who is speaking the word.

Which is to say that ministry at Syracuse is a mutual ministry. As your pastor, Guy will need to be prophetic at times - confronting you where you need to be confronted. But unlike Jonah, Guy, you need to be pastor and prophet with a loving heart for your people rather than a heart filled with hatred and anger. Likewise, if Guy gives in to temptation and begins to play God around here, you need to confront him in love.

I know many of you here this morning, some better than others; but I know you well enough to say that not one of us here today has reached the potential that God has placed within us. Some still harbor hatred toward certain types of sinners. Some have been trying to escape God's call on your life for a long time. Some of you are struggling in your own hell, and need to cry out for God to help you. Some of you have tried to be obedient church members for many years, but have not yet been able to align your will with the Will of God.

I believe that your best days are ahead of you. God has not given up on you. God has not allowed you to escape beyond God's holy presence. And despite your imperfections, God has found ways to use each one of you to touch the lives of others in ways you may never fully understand.

 

In your tomorrows, I pray that God will transform any lingering anger and hatred into love.

 

1. Kenneth L. Gibble, "Jonah and the Worm" in Yeast, Salt and Secret Agents, p. 43, Brethren Press 1979.

2. For more, see Eugene Peterson, Under the Unpredictable Plant, p.12,Eerdmans Publishing, 1992.

3. Ibid., pp.29-30

4. Ibid., pp. 6-8