A Humorous Fable
If you grew up in Sunday School, then chances are the first thing you think about when you think about the story of Jonah…is the whale. Chances are, you’ve engaged in speculation about whether such a thing could actually happen. Perhaps you’ve even heard an argument or read an article explaining how this unlikely phenomenon is not beyond the realm of possibility.
I’m not a marine biologist. I don’t intend to go there. Instead, I’d like to approach the story from a different angle, one less concerned with the mechanics of the story, and more concerned with its meaning. Scholars of ancient literature have pointed out that the story of Jonah is filled with satire and irony. They contend it is not meant to be told with a straight face but with tongue in cheek, with a frequent nod-nod, wink-wink. They think the audience would have been groaning and laughing in disbelief and delight. Sort of like my nephews do when they hear a funny children’s book, like Grover’s The Monster at the End of This Book or a modern adaptation of the three little pigs. In fact, this similarity is instructive. Many scholars think Jonah is meant to be a humorous fable, which is to say, a comical tale with a deadly serious point. Not unlike a few of Jesus’ parables, come to think of it.
With that in mind, I’d like to try something different today. I’d like to let the story tell itself. I will be reciting from my own translation, which is printed in the insert. But to ensure that the story’s humor is heard and its satire seen, I will periodically interrupt the reading of the scripture with an additional word of commentary.
So, without further ado…let us all listen now for the word of God, in the words that we read and in the meditations of our hearts.
Act One: Jonah Goes Down
The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, “Get up! Go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry against it for their wickedness has come up before me.” Just so we know what God’s asking here: Nineveh was the largest city in Assyria, which was Israel’s biggest and most feared enemy in the eighth century BCE. They were known for their cruelty. For example, they would leave big piles of skulls outside conquered cities to scare others into submission.
But Jonah got up to flee to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa. Notice the change in direction. God told Jonah to “get up,” which he initially does, but then immediately afterward he begins going the opposite direction: down. We might also pause to ask why Jonah is fleeing God. The most obvious reason would be that he is afraid of entering the heart of enemy territory to proclaim God’s judgment. That would surely be a death sentence, right? He found a ship going to Tarshish, and he paid the fare, and he went down—again, going down, when God said get up—into it [the ship] to go with the others to Tarshish away from the presence of the Lord.
But the Lord cast a great wind upon the sea, and there was such a great storm at sea that the ship was about to break up. And the sailors were afraid, and they cried out each one to their god. And they cast the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to make it lighter for them. Jonah, meanwhile, went down—a third time, Jonah goes down, when God had said get up!—into the hold of the ship, where he lay down and fell asleep. During a great storm. While the ship is on the verge of breaking up. Worth noting here is that Jonah’s name means “dove,” which perhaps says something about him. First, he is “flighty,” so to speak, fleeing the responsibility God gives him. And second, he’s a bit thoughtless, like a pigeon, choosing to take a nap here in a moment of mortal danger.
Act Two: Pious Pagans
The captain called to him and said, “What are you doing fast asleep?! Get up”—Interesting…the same command that came from God, now coming from a pagan sailor—“Call to your god. Perhaps the god will give some thought to us, so that we will not die.”
The men said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, so that we might know on whose account this evil has fallen on us.” And they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. They said to him, “Tell us, you on whose account this evil is upon us, what is your work and where do you come from? What is your land, and from what people are you?” And he said to them, “I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord God of the heavens, who made the sea and dry land.” If Jonah indeed feared the God of the heavens, who made the sea, surely he should have known there was no escaping God on the waters, as he has tried to do. Perhaps Jonah is a few french fries short of a happy meal.
The men were greatly afraid, and they said to him, “What is this you have done?” For the men knew that he was fleeing from before the Lord, for he had told them. And they said to him, “What shall we do that the sea might calm down for us?” For the sea was getting more and more stormy. And he said to them, “Lift me up and cast me into the sea that the sea might calm down for you, for I know that this great storm is upon you on my account.” But the men rowed to get back to the dry land. Remarkable! These pagan sailors have quite a conscience. More moral fortitude than Jonah. Even with Jonah’s admission that he is the guilty party, they try to row back to land with him on board. They try to save him. But they were not able, for the sea was getting more and more stormy around them. And they called out to the Lord, “Please, O Lord, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life, and do not hold us guilty for innocent blood, for you O Lord have done this according to your will.” Again, we might marvel at these pagan sailors, who demonstrate more piety, more prayerfulness than the prophet Jonah. You’ve heard the expression, “He curses like a sailor”? That stereotype was around in the ancient world too. But these sailors are not cursing but praying, practically wearing halos when we compare them to Jonah.
And they [the sailors] lifted up Jonah and cast him into the sea, and the sea stopped from its raging. And the men feared the Lord greatly and made a sacrifice to the Lord and vowed vows. If these angelic sailors haven’t yet caught your attention, then here they do. Make a sacrifice on board a ship? That takes the sailors’ piety to a comical extreme, for surely a sacrifice—with its requirement for a large fire—would risk their ship going up in flames. But no matter. For God, these sailors will do just about anything.
Act Three: Jonah’s Real Fear
[After Jonah had spent 3 days in the belly of the fish and had been vomited upon dry land] the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up! Go to Nineveh, the great city, and proclaim to it the message that I speak to you.” And Jonah got up and went to Nineveh according to the word of the Lord.
Now Nineveh was a huge city, a three days’ walk across. And Jonah started to go into the city, a one day’s walk, and he proclaimed and said, “Forty days more, and Nineveh is overthrown.” One of the world’s shortest sermons! Just five words in the Hebrew. Why so short? Perhaps Jonah hopes to remain unnoticed? Or perhaps he hopes to fulfill his responsibility and get out as quickly as possible?
And the people of Nineveh trusted God. And they proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, from the greatest of them to the least. Well that was…unexpected. The most fearsome empire of the known world, infamous for their brutality, suddenly becomes teary-eyed and remorseful!
When the word was told to the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, took off his robe, put on sackcloth, and sat down in ashes. And he had it proclaimed, and he said in Nineveh, “By the authority of the king and his great men: Every person and creature, of the cattle or the flock, shall not taste a thing! They shall not graze, and they shall not drink water.” To be clear, this is no ordinary fast. The king is calling for everybody—including every animal—to join in the fast. Now, I feed my cats regularly, and they still complain. If I instituted a fast in my house for more than a couple of hours, I’m afraid my furniture would be in utter shreds. “And they shall clothe themselves in sackcloth—every person and animal—and they shall call out to God with all their might.” If you’ve ever tried to clothe your pet and received that look of utter disdain, you have a sense for how ridiculous this decree is. Every animal in sackcloth? “And let everyone turn back from his evil ways and from the violence to which they hold fast. Who knows? Perhaps God will turn back and relent and turn back from his blazing wrath, and we will not die.” And God saw their acts, that they had turned back from their evil way, and God relented from the evil that he said to do to them, and he did not do it.
And this was very evil for Jonah, and he was incensed. This is…interesting. If Jonah had feared for his life, then we might have expected him to be relieved that the Ninevites had repented. He prayed to the Lord, saying, “Oh Lord, is this not what I said when I was still in my own land? It was for this reason that I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that you are a God gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and relenting from evil. And now, Lord, please take my life from me, for death would be better for me than life.”
Jonah Refuses God’s Ministry of Reconciliation
This is the final twist in the story, and it’s a big one. The real reason that the prophet Jonah refused God’s assignment was this. He was afraid of God’s love.
Jonah is a parody of a prophet. Not because of what he thinks about God. He has good theology. He knows that God is “gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding steadfast love and relenting from evil.” He is a parody of a prophet because he does not actually follow God. He is opposed to God’s ministry of reconciliation. He knows what God wants to do, and he wants no part in it. He wants to stop it, if he can.
At the beginning of the story, Jonah would rather keep quiet and not prophesy. He would rather see his enemies die than be reconciled to them.
At the end of the story, when God intervenes, the inverse becomes true. Jonah would rather die himself than be reconciled to his enemies.
Either way, Jonah prefers death to reconciliation.
Division and Reconciliation
Unless you have lived under a rock this past week, you have likely been encouraged to look around and see enemies. You have likely been encouraged to see them as Jonah saw the Ninevites. You have been told that “those people” are the problem.
But the real problem is this perspective. The real problem is not another person or group of people, but the spirit of control and division that draws battle lines and pits us against one another.
The Greek word for the devil, “diabolos,” means literally “the one who throws apart” or “the one who divides.” Our partisan politics is diabolical. Greed and competition are diabolical. Bitterness and resentment are diabolical.
Our God, our heavenly father and mother, seeks not division but reconciliation. Paul expresses the meaning of Christ in just these terms: “In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven” (Col 1:19-20). Elsewhere, Paul insists that as followers of Christ, we are charged with the same mission of reconciliation: “In Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself…and entrusting the message of reconciliation to us. So we are ambassadors for Christ, since God is making [God’s] appeal through us” (2 Cor 5:19-20).
Paul’s language of ambassadorship here has radical implications. It suggests that we belong to a new nation, a nation of the future—that is, the kingdom of God—and that we are ambassadors of this new nation to all the present nations of this world, including the one in which we reside. To be an ambassador for Christ brings me comfort and hope in troubled times. It means, on the one hand, that I can surrender the exhausting effort to control outcomes, to fight, to win. An ambassador has no claim on the foreign territory where they reside. Their job is not “to exert force or impose their will.” Their role, rather, is “attractional and invitational.” They live as representatives of a different nation and a different way. They are “a living flag, of sorts—a constant reminder of the existence of another country.” And so while I have the comfort of not being in control, I also have the hope of my homeland, where things are done differently. And I can share that hope here. I can be a witness to the simple fact that it doesn’t have to be this way. It doesn’t have to be competition; it could be consensus and collaboration. It doesn’t have to be profits-first; it could be people-first. It doesn’t have to be combat. It could be forgiveness and reconciliation.
In a sense, God calls us as God called Jonah. To march into the heart of another territory, not to announce its certain destruction (although that’s the tack that a bitter-hearted Jonah takes), but rather to announce as Jesus did God’s abounding love for us all and the invitation to live in God’s nation, the kingdom of God.
Prayer
Most gracious and merciful God,
Who is slow to anger
And abounding in steadfast love,
In Christ you have knit us into one body.
You have made us into a unique and strange nation,
Stretching across all the world,
Where old divisions fall away
And old animosities have no place.
Make us ambassadors of your reconciliation,
Not by the devil’s spirit of control
But by your spirit of care and grace,
In Christ, who gave himself to us: Amen.
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