One of the great objections that I hear to people having faith or having a religion is, for many people, it is a crutch, it’s for the weak, it’s for those who can’t think for themselves, it’s for those who have no personal strength in their lives and rely on an outside power to help them, to artificially prop them up and then when they have problems, turn to this higher power for some strength and for sustenance. I’m sure you’ve heard that yourself. You might have, even in the deep recesses of your mind, wondered that very same thing; is my faith anything more than a crutch to prop me up when I can’t stand things on my own?
I often hear it and think of Jonah and today’s passage of scripture. I realize that, here was a person within the Old Testament who was very much like the character of Shakespeare’s King Lear, who started off strong, had a call, a purpose, had everything all nicely organized but then as time progresses, as Lear became dependent on Gloucester, so Jonah becomes dependent on God. Both start out strong and end up weak. So is it, therefore, a bad thing to sometimes start off strong and end up weak? I think the answer from Jonah is no.
Jonah is an incredible story. Some have suggested that it was just a parable, for the sake of teaching. Some believe that it was actual history; that everything in the book of Jonah happened. From the moment that Jonah gets on a boat, to when he ends up in the belly of a whale for three days and gets spat out and goes to another city. Then there are others who believe that it is something different than both of those. It’s called didactic fiction: a story based on an historical character and events, but exaggerated to make a point. I tend to be in the latter because I can see very strong historical tones in the book of Jonah, but at the same time, I can see a story that unfolds with its message and the setting is fantastic and means a lot.
The setting was during the reign of Jeroboam II, who was the king of Northern Israel. Israel was wealthy, powerful and affluent as well as militarily strong, but they had one enemy: the Assyrians. The Assyrians’ capitol city was Nineveh and the people in Israel despised Nineveh and all that went on there. Nineveh was a city that worshipped idols, it was commercially corrupt, it was morally bankrupt, it was violent, it was a war machine, it was despotic; it was a dangerous place, Nineveh. The people in the Northern Kingdom of Israel looked at Nineveh with distain and horror.
Then, one day, God decides to do something about Nineveh and he sent the prophet Jonah. He said to Jonah: “I want you to go to Nineveh, and I want you to save them. I want you to preach to them, to call them to repent, to come to me and to worship me and to turn away from their evil deeds.” Rather than going to Nineveh as God had commanded him, he gets on a ship and heads in exactly the opposite direction. He heads to Tarshish, as far from Nineveh as you can possibly get in that world and while he’s on his way there, the story is quite complicated but eventually he’s on the ship and he dives over the side of the ship and when he dives over the side of the ship, he ends up in the belly of the whale. You’ve heard of the story of Jonah in the belly of the whale for three days. Even Jesus mentions it at one point in his ministry.
I’ll never forget my cousins who, in their church, actually had a little play, with a paper mache whale on a Sunday morning. This was a far cry, by the way, from a Spirit Express performance or a pageant here. All it was was a paper mache whale and the idea was that Jonah would get spat out and then someone inside it would throw a bucket of water after him. Everything was set up and sure enough, Jonah came flying out of the mouth of the whale and a bucket of water came out after him. The only problem was they were supposed to have set the whale sideways but instead they placed it long ways and when the bucket of water was thrown, it went over the first few pews that were in the front (dangerous place to sit in a church). Everyone got soaked. I’ve never forgotten Jonah and the whale and I think it’s a wonderful story because in many ways, the story of Jonah and the whale is a disaster. It really is. When, finally, he gets out and is saved after having been in the belly of the whale for three days, God says to him: “I’m going to give you a second chance, Jonah and this time, don’t be an idiot. Go where I send you. Go to Nineveh.” Jonah got the point.
He goes to Nineveh. He preaches, the city is saved, everyone repents, huge success. Now, you would think that at that moment you would just end that book of the Bible and you’d just say, “Hallelujah, Jonah and God saved Nineveh” but the book doesn’t end there. It ends with Jonah getting angry with God. Why? He’s furious because he’s been successful. He went there, he preached, Nineveh was saved and he didn’t want that. He wanted Nineveh to suffer. Nineveh was the enemy of his people and he knew that when he went home to his people they were going to be furious with him for having been successful in doing what God wanted. He knew that that hatred was so strong in the hearts and the minds of the people of Northern Israel that he was in trouble. And then he starts to feel guilty.
I love the way the Dietrich Bonhoeffer put it in a little poem that describes what happens when you’re successful and then you feel guilty about it. Bonhoeffer wrote this: “In tearful thus they plead till Jonah said, tis I, I’ve sinned against my God and now deserve to die. Away from you cast me, you must. God’s anger flies at me alone. The sinless must not previous lives give up to sinner’s deeds atone.”
Jonah was upset. He reveals to God that, in fact, the reason he went to Tarshish and not to Nineveh at the beginning of the story is that he knew that God would save the people of Nineveh and he didn’t want any part of it. He knew God would be gracious. He knew God would love the people and the last thing that he wanted was to be successful, but he was.
What does God do with Jonah? God changes Jonah. You see, the story about Jonah is not about Jonah at all. It’s about God. It’s about the grace and the love of God. It’s about the sovereignty of God and he needed Jonah to move from his strength to his weakness before he would truly hear and understand what it was that he had to do. Rather than being a crutch to prop Jonah up, God had to bring Jonah down before he could lift him up.
I love what C.S. Lewis once wrote, it is so true and I’m sure, whether you’re a Christian or not, you’ve experienced this: That “God whispers to us in our pleasures, God speaks to us in our consciousness, but God shouts to us in our pain.” It’s actually only at that moment when we in fact are not just looking for God to be a crutch or that we’re not just relying on some power to help us, it’s actually then we start to listen. And Jonah began to listen to God saying all kinds of things.
Then there’s this moment and you can tell someone’s been having fun with the text. Jonah decides to go on a retreat, you know, get away from it all. Go to the cottage, get out of Nineveh, be by the river, relax; knowing that something’s going to happen to Nineveh but he doesn’t know what but he’s getting out of town just in case. He makes a little camp for himself and God sees him there and says, “Oh well, I’m going to grow a nice little vine over you to protect you. Something cool and green on a hot day and so this vine grows and Jonah feels good. Then, suddenly, God sends a worm and it eats the vine. Then God sends the sun and the wind, and Jonah is getting hotter than we are in this church today. He is absolutely dying in the sun and he says to God, “Why are you doing this?" God says:
Jonah, you do not have any right to ask me that question. Who was it who provided the vine? Me. Who is it that gave the worm to get rid of the vine? Me. Who is giving the sun and the winds? Me. Jonah, it’s not about you. It’s about me. I want you to look at this city. There are 120,000 people over there who I want to save and I’m actually not that worried about you Jonah. I’m worried about them.
I think this is a very powerful passage. I think it’s a particularly powerful passage right now, probably more than it has been in almost 2,000 years and I will tell you why. Nineveh, today, is called Mosel in Northern Iraq. Did you know that? And Mosel has been under attack and nearly destroyed at times.
Just two weeks ago at an interfaith service, there were readings from an Imam and the Qur'an, a leader of the Sikh community, and of different churches and religions. At the end, there was one priest who got up when he started to read from Romans, Chapter Eight, the other two ministers who were sitting next to me who are friends of mine, looked at each other and at me. We realized that all three of us were crying. The priest was a Chaldean Christian priest from Mosel, a Chaldean. As he read the scriptures and it said “Neither life, nor death, nor principalities and powers, nor things past, nor things to come, nothing can separate us and the love of God in Jesus Christ, our Lord,” we dissolved into tears because, according to the Wall Street Journal I had been reading the week before, the number of Christian Chaldean’s in Mosel had gone from 1.4 million to 500,000. They were being driven from their homes all over the Middle East and were facing the most terrible threat from Isis.
And not only them, but other citizens of other faiths are also being persecuted. Nineveh needed saving and Nineveh needs saving and I couldn’t help but think of the difference between Jonah and God when it comes to Nineveh. Jonah was only interested in himself but God was interested in Nineveh. God was not going to select who his enemies were and who his enemies weren’t. God wanted to save and restore Nineveh. It’s not just what we want or what we think is important, the world is about what God thinks is important.
Are we not living in a day and age when we human beings, particularly in our culture, are obsessed with ourselves? When we draw the lines about what’s important and what’s unimportant based on our principles or on our values or what’s going to serve us the best. It’s natural as individuals that we’re going to think this way. We’re human beings but we have to be driven from that self-obsession to ask ourselves, what is it that God wants us to do? Where is my Nineveh? Where is the world that I need to care for? Where must I break out of my self-centredness?
Do not misunderstand me. God did not say to Nineveh, you’re okay as you are. He said to Nineveh, you need to repent and change but in doing that, he wanted Nineveh to be better, for Nineveh to be true to him, to be a place of grace and love. One of the great prayers I have for the children that we baptised this morning is that they will grow up in a world that is not self-obsessed but will be looking to where God wants them to serve and to care and to transform.
Jonah is anything but a crutch. Jonah is not a story of faith that is propped up by God. Jonah is the story of a self-obsessed person who was made weak in order that he can serve others and if there is anyone in all of history who embodies what Jonah was called to do, it was Jesus of Nazareth and Jesus of Nazareth is calling us to find our Nineveh. Amen.