Jonah: Take Two!
Gettysburg Presbyterian Church
Jonah 3 & 4
June 19, 2011
David C. Wright
Last Sunday we looked at the first two chapters in the book of Jonah. I even risked my pastoral authority by using a goofy little song to help! If you weren’t here, let me briefly recap the story. God called Jonah to go to Nineveh, a city renowned for its cruelty and violence. Jonah refused, instead heading the opposite direction on a slow boat to Tarshish, Spain. God then caused a storm to come up which put the boat in peril. Jonah told the sailors that this was all his fault, because he was running from the Lord. In desperation, and at Jonah’s urging, they threw him overboard, which calmed the seas, but created a big problem for Jonah, because he was gonna die! So God provided a great fish to save him. In chapter two we find Jonah’s prayer from the belly of the fish. In that prayer Jonah thanks God for saving him and promises to do better the next time. Chapter three begins with that next time! (You might notice that there are wonderfully humorous touches in both of these last two chapters of Jonah.)
1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying,
2 "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you."
3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across.
4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.
6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.
7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water.
8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.
9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish."
10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it. (Jonah 3:1-10)
Jonah gets a second chance. And he obeys God this time. He makes the long, hard journey to Nineveh. He enters the city and proclaims his message. It’s not a very creative message, is it? “You’ve got 40 days and then God will destroy your city.” That’s it. But what a response! Perhaps the greatest revival of all time! It starts as a grassroots movement of repentance. Repentance means to change your mind, to change direction. And the people do that. They demonstrate sadness for their past sins, by putting on sackcloth, which was a sign of grieving. And they fast- another sign of sorrow. They turn from their evil ways, including the violence for which they were so well known. Then the king, doing what governments do best, makes a law commanding everyone to repent and pray. You gotta love the fact that even the animals get in on the act, wearing sackcloth and fasting along with the people!
The king’s final comment is telling, “Who knows?” he says, ”God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” (Jonah 3:9) He seems to accept the fact that God has the right to judge his city. And there is no attempt to manipulate God here, as was common in most pagan religions. Instead, there is a humble hope that God may see their changed hearts and have mercy on them. Just like the pagan sailors in chapter 1, this pagan king demonstrates a pretty good understanding of how to approach God in prayer, in contrast to the professional Hebrew prophet, Jonah! You can see how this story is a little subversive, isn’t it?
What I love about this chapter is that it reminds us that God is a God of second chances! Jonah gets a second chance, even though he failed horribly the first time. And the people of Nineveh get a second chance, even though their evil is renowned throughout the world. God loves people- Jonah, the Ninevites, and you! We sometimes think that God is watching for us to mess up so he can zap us with his judgment. That’s not the kind of God we see in Jonah, is it? This God is merciful and compassionate and patient, desiring that each of us would return to him and be the people God has created us to be.
In the movie, “Seabiscuit,” a broken-down, unemployed cowboy named Tom Smith is interviewed by millionaire Charles Howard who wants to build a horse racing enterprise. Howard has just seen Smith rescue an old, lame horse that was about to be put down, and he asks why. Tom replies, “You don’t throw a whole life away just ‘cause it’s banged up a bit. Every horse is good for something.” Howard is impressed and hires Tom to train his horses.
Later, they find the horse, Seabiscuit, whose small size and difficult temperament make him an unlikely prospect for racing success. Tom trains him well and hires a second-rate jockey, “Red” Pollard, to ride him, because Red seems to have a special connection with the horse. Unknown to Tom, Red is blind in one eye, and in a critical race at Santa Anita, Red’s limited vision allows a competing horse to overtake Seabiscuit and win the race.
Tom is furious that the jockey’s apparent inattention resulted in the loss. He pushes him again and again to explain how this could have possibly happened. In a burst of emotion, Red shouts out, “Because I’m blind in that eye.” Tom feels betrayed and urges the owner to fire Red. He refuses. Tom can’t understand why. He presses Howard for a reason. Howard replies, “You don’t throw away a whole life just because it’s banged up a bit.”
That was God’s attitude toward the Ninevites. And it’s God’s attitude toward us!
Let’s move on to chapter 4.
1 But this (the sparing of Nineveh) was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.
2 He prayed to the Lord and said, "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.
3 And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."
4 And the Lord said, "Is it right for you to be angry?"
5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.
6 The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush.
7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered.
8 When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live."
9 But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die."
10 Then the Lord said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night.
11 And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?" (Jonah 4:1-11)
And that’s the end of the story! That Jonah is a real piece of work, isn’t he? Why do you think he was so angry that God spared the Ninevites? Some scholars have suggested that he felt hurt and embarrassed because God made him look bad. You see, he prophesied destruction, but no destruction came. But I think it runs deeper than that. Listen again to his prayer to the Lord, which I think is intended to sound ridiculous, “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.” (Jonah 4:2)I believe that Jonah was so consumed by hate for the people of Nineveh, that he couldn’t forgive God for sparing them. They had long been enemies of Jonah’s people, Israel. They had wiped out most of its population- maybe even some friends or relatives of Jonah. And Jonah simply couldn’t forgive that. And he wasn’t willing for God to forgive that either! He’s accusing God of being soft on sin! The result was tremendous anger in Jonah, who appears to be something of a drama king anyway, as he tells the God who spared his life to just go ahead and kill him!
But Jonah’s problem wasn’t simply an anger management problem, and God didn’t send him to therapy. God sent him that plant to try and reach him on a spiritual level, for this was not a psychological problem; this was a spiritual problem. Jonah was willing to accept God’s grace- the rescue at sea, and the opportunity to serve God again. But Jonah was not willing to extend any grace to the people of Nineveh. His hatred was stronger than his commitment to the Lord. It warped his heart and mind so that he could see no good in 120,000 people made in God’s own image.
I wonder if there’s someone who you hate. Before you answer that you couldn’t possibly hate anyone, how about this? Is there someone you simply cannot wish well? Someone, who if they succeeded at something, it would give you heartburn? Someone you just can’t forgive for something that they have done? If you are holding on to those kinds of feelings for someone, I believe that it is crippling your soul. It is keeping you from being able to see reality, because God is a God of second chances, and can even redeem the life of that person you can’t stand. Holding onto those toxic feelings is keeping you from experiencing the full nature of a loving God.
Perhaps it is time for you to learn the lesson from this funny, poignant little book. Only God gets to decide who deserves judgment (even your judgment!). And God is patiently waiting and earnestly desiring that all people would return to him. So, let go of judgmental attitudes. God will take care of judgment if that is what is necessary. Your job is to learn to forgive, and to wish the best for every person.
As we enter into a time of prayer for healing and wholeness, Jonah reminds us that God desires the best for all kinds of people. No matter who you are. No matter where you’ve been. No matter what you’ve done, God desires the best for you. God is compassionate and loving. And when we pray, God has the power to deliver us from our afflictions. Come and seek God’s healing in this moment.
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