"Jonah and the Caring God"
God shouts to us in our suffering.
Sermon Preached by
The Reverend Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, January 9, 2005
Text: Jonah 1:1-17
Not one of us who has eyes to see and ears to hear has not been moved and upset, frightened and mournful for the terrible disaster in Asia. Indeed, we would be cold, heartless and insincere if we weren't touched to some extent, by the suffering and the pain we have seen. How fitting is the headline in the Toronto Star this morning: “Asia's pain is our own.”
As I have been thinking for the past two weeks of this disaster that has befallen the world, my mind has turned to a wonderful phrase coined by the great C. S. Lewis, who in his own life experienced great personal pain and tragedy. He once wrote: “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks to us in our conscience, but shouts to us in our pain. It is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.”
And so I asked myself, “What is God is saying to us, what blast of the megaphone is he giving us now to rouse us as a deaf world? What should we hear from our God in the midst of such pain and tragedy?”
More than six weeks ago, in preparing for this very Sunday, I chose a passage from the Old Testament, from the Book of Jonah. As I began to read this passage, over the last week in preparation for this morning, I was overwhelmed by the sense of coincidence, by the power in these words, about a man who went down into the sea and came back and rose from it. The images from the Book of Jonah are powerful, and the lessons there are palpable. They are poignant, and they speak to us this very day.
When I look at the Bible, I see many extraordinary, magnificent and splendid characters such as Moses, Deborah, Samson, Paul, John, Mary and Mark, and I marvel at how great they are, and how exaggerated are the things they do, beyond our comprehension.
But what is marvelous about the Book of Jonah is this: Jonah is like us. Rather than being a great hero, Jonah is someone who embodies real, honest-to-goodness human life. The message of the Book of Jonah speaks to a hurting world. It is a message of God's compassion and of God's grace. Now, I think it is fair to say that most of us remember the Book of Jonah for one incident: when he ends up in the belly of the whale. Many of us heard the story in Sunday school of how Jonah ended up in the belly of the whale for three days.
As I was reading the story again this morning, I remembered when my cousins were in a Sunday school pageant that tried to enact the story of Jonah and the whale. They made a great big papier maché whale, and Jonah was supposed to be in this whale, and then be spat out of it. The idea was that Jonah would come flying out of this papier maché whale, and one of the other boys standing behind would throw a bucket of water over Jonah's head. The only problem was that they set the whale at the wrong angle, and rather than pointing across the stage, it pointed right out at the audience. So, Jonah flew out - the bucket of water was thrown - and the audience got soaked!
We all know the story of Jonah and the whale. Biblical scholars and ichthyologists have debated its veracity, whether it could have actually happened or was actually real. Well, I am here to tell you today that, regardless of that the Book of Jonah is not actually about Jonah and the whale so much as it is about God. The message is not about a man in a fish, it is about God's redemptive activity to save a city. That is why Jesus, our Lord, refers to the Book of Jonah in Matthew 12. He is being questioned by the Pharisees, who are trying once again to trick him, and he mentions the story of Jonah, likening it to his own pending death and resurrection.
There is a sense that Jesus believes that just as Jonah was in the whale's belly for three days, so too he, Jesus, is going to die for three days. For just as Jonah was saved from death by coming out after three days, so Jesus, after three days of death, would rise from the dead. That is why the whole Christian doctrine of baptism is the celebration of the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the water is the symbolism of going under the water, dying, and then coming out of the water and living again.
In many ways, the Book of Jonah is a proto-baptismal text. It is a foretaste of the symbol of death and resurrection, of dying and new life, of going down under the water, and coming out again. My friends, what could be a more fitting message of hope for the world than that message this very day?
The Book of Jonah is about Jonah and the whale, true, but it is also about the death and the new life he experienced. The story is very simple: Jonah has been told to be a prophet to the city of Nineveh. Nineveh was a city of some 600,000 people, named after Nimrod, and was probably the biggest city in the world at the time. But it was a pagan city. It worshipped a god called Dagon, who was half-fish and half-human being, and Nanshe, a goddess of fresh water. Asher and Ishtar also were worshipped as idols in the City of Nineveh.
God wanted the people of Nineveh to hear his word, and so he sent Jonah with a message of repentance and redemption to the city. But rather than responding as he should have done, Jonah went in an entirely different direction. Nineveh was to the east, but he got on a boat and he headed towards Tarshish, in the west. He wanted to get as far away from where God wanted him to be as was humanly possible. On the boat, a storm came up, and all the sailors wondered who among them had done something wrong causing some god, somewhere to be angry with them.
They finally look at Jonah who feels guilty because he should be in Nineveh, and he is on his way to Tarshish, so he cries: “I am responsible; my God is doing this to us because of my disobedience; throw me overboard!” They are more than pleased to accommodate him, and toss Jonah overboard, calling out, “Oh, please, don't let it be on our heads that we have done this!” But deep down, all of them believe that some other god was responsible for the terrible natural disaster, and the waves were going to tear the boat apart. But the storm calms.
Jonah goes down under the water, and is swallowed by the whale. The whale can't stand him (Jonah gives him indigestion!), and three days later spits him out. Jonah is saved; he is ecstatic: “Oh God, you have delivered me! This is magnificent, fantastic, wonderful! Lord, you are the God of the universe! I will always worship you. You are marvelous!” But is that the end of the story of Jonah? Is that it? Many people think it is. But is only half way through!
It is the second half that is the most important, because God is simply saving Jonah for the purpose of the salvation of Nineveh. God has not forgotten why he called Jonah in the first place, and so he says to Jonah, “I want you to go back to Nineveh, where I originally wanted you to go, to preach a message of repentance. But Jonah is still fearful. The Ninevites have a bad reputation: They do not like Jews! He is scared; he doesn't know what is going to happen to him. Nevertheless, he does as God says, and when he gets there, he is astounded, because he preaches the word of repentance, and Nineveh actually does repent, and God says, “I will save them, then.” Because Jonah had screwed up his courage and gone into this frightening and difficult place God did something marvelous in it.
Mark Buchanan, an outstanding Baptist minister in British Columbia, tells the story of a man called Paul Yonggi Cho, who is the number-one minister of the largest church in Korea, which is the largest church in the world. Cho gets a message from God to go and preach the gospel in Japan. Now, you have to understand that the relationship between the Koreans and the Japanese often has been very hostile. In fact, many of Cho's people died as a result of the Japanese invasion in World War II. He said, “Lord, I don't want to go to Japan to preach the gospel! Send me somewhere else, please!”
Still, in his heart, he felt he should go. So he went there with his message, and he was ready to proclaim it, and he was excited about it, and there were ministers, and theologians, and college principals, and leading lay people from the Japanese community there. Then he got up to speak, and out of his mouth came words he couldn't believe. He was so filled with anger at these people, he just said, “I hate you! I hate you! I hate you!” There was this pause, and slowly, one by one by one, members of the congregation stood up and began to applaud him, and one by one, voice after voice, they responded, “We love you! We love you! We love you!”
Cho said that never in his whole life could he have imagined the love and the forgiveness of people, after he had said something so terrible and so shameful. Such is the power of obedience. Such is the power of following what God wants you to do, of doing the right thing. When Jonah finally went to Nineveh, his words were blessed because he had the courage to go.
But here is the really human part of the story: When God decides to save Nineveh, Jonah gets angry at God. He says, “I thought if I went to proclaim the word, you would bring disaster and famine and terror upon these people, but you're not! You're saving them!” The problem Jonah had with God was not that God was too strong, but that God seemed too weak. Not that God was too harsh, but God seemed gracious and too nice. This often happens, does it not, to religious people, who experience the grace and the forgiveness and the love of God, but then turn into self-righteous, hateful people, who call down fire and judgments on others who do not share their faith.
What a grave irony this is! Jonah was doing exactly that. He was talking of the people in Nineveh, and he was hating them. The very last verses of the book of Jonah tell us so much about God. Jonah is wrapped up in himself; he is cursing and being angry with God, but then, there is this final word. God says to Jonah: “But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left. [This is a reference to babies, to children, who have no consciousness of right or left, and many cattle, as well.] Should I, God, not be concerned about that great city?” Thus ends the Book of Jonah.
Jonah, a good man in many ways, was wrapped up in himself. He was concerned and consumed with himself. He didn't want to go to Nineveh, so he headed for Tarshish. When he finally went to Nineveh and said something powerful, he was angry that God actually blessed them and didn't destroy the people. Jonah was wrapped up in himself.
How right C. S. Lewis is: “God whispers to us in our pleasure; speaks to us in our conscience; but shouts to us in the pain.” I believe my friends, that the pain of the world is the shout to us to have the same attitude as God towards Nineveh: to love and to care. I have been hearing from people who ask, “Is God not ultimately responsible for what is happening in Asia?” Just as they would have asked, “Is God not responsible for the destruction of the ship on the way to Tarshish?” Two types of people think that way.
The first are the atheists, who do not believe in God. They are the first to actually question that if there is a God he must be the author of suffering, and therefore they conclude there is no god. In a wonderful book titled The Twilight of Atheism, Alister McGrath quotes Annie Besant, whose influential book, Why I Do Not Believe in God, was very popular in the 19th century. In this book, Annie Besant said something I do believe people still think:
I do not believe in God. My mind finds no ground on which to build up a reasonable faith. My heart revolts against the spectre of an almighty indifference to the pain of sentient beings. My conscience rebels against the injustice, the cruelty, the inequality which surrounds me on every side. But I believe in man, in man's redeeming power, in man's remolding energy, in man's approaching triumph science, through knowledge, love and work.
Here is a person who questions the very existence of God, but believes in the power of humanity. Isn't it ironic that if I were to enter into a debate with Annie Besant now, I would be able to recount the events of the 20th century, for which she had such great hope for humanity. Could I not respond to her by asking, “Was it God or was it people who put people in gas chambers in Auschwitz? Was it God or was it people who brought about the terrible effects of the regime of Stalin? Was it, in fact, human beings, or was it the God that she suggests, who created the weapons that can destroy the earth? I would say to those who think the glory of humanity is the highest good and the highest answer, “Think again.” There is much evidence to suggest otherwise.
But it is those who are not necessarily atheists, who are fatalists, to whom the Book of Jonah speaks most clearly. Those who wonder whether God is actually really responsible for a natural disaster like the tsunami. The Bible makes it abundantly clear: God created the earth, and it was good. But the earth fell from that state of goodness. It did through its disobedience, and God gave it the freedom to be what it is. The earth is a living, free organism, just as you and I are living and free organisms. If God is going to give us and all creation that freedom, why then do we blame God for the disasters of that free creation? We should not!
So, what should our attitude be? Well, the Book of Jonah is clear and the gospel of Jesus Christ is clear. While there is no concrete blow-by-blow description of why there is suffering in the world, there is an affirmation, there is a declaration of faith: God is in the midst of the suffering and the pain of the world. God in his compassion is there, incarnate, side-by-side with those who suffer. God was there with Jonah in the belly of the whale. God came to save Nineveh at the point of its potential disaster. And in the cross and in the resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, we have a God for and with and alongside suffering humanity.
This is not a God who is an indifferent, detached being. The Bible says this is a God who, while giving freedom to the universe, nevertheless in compassion and love, comes into the midst of that suffering and suffers alongside it. I think many of our questions as to whether God is responsible, are nothing more than the avoidance of human responsibility, of our responsibility as people of faith. I can't address anyone else, but it is our responsibility, as people of faith, to do all we can, when we can, where we can, for those who suffer. The megaphone of God speaks to us in the midst of the pain, and says, “Give all that you can for the sake of those who suffer.” When the fissures open up in the world, whether physical in the earth, or spiritual and emotional in ourselves, whether in our society, or in our homes, wherever they are God comes into the midst of this pain and says, as he said to Jonah, “Why are you worried about whether I am concerned? You know I am.” You know I am!
Faith says to a broken world that God is there in the midst of its suffering. God is saying to you and me, as people of faith, as he said to Jonah with Nineveh, “Go and take my word and tell the people of Nineveh that I love them.” How right C. S. Lewis was: “God whispers to us in our pleasures; God speaks to us in our conscience; but God shouts to us in the pain of the world!” What he shouts is this: I care! Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.