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The story of Jonah haunts me.
It is a message for the church--for all of us self-professed God-followers--whose minds are packed with theology, yet whose thoughts and actions prove otherwise.
This book teaches us about the far-reaching, mind-boggling sovereignty of God: the wind and waves obey Him, He summons a fish, a plant and worm do His bidding--and yet, the only person in the story that does not follow God's clearly given instructions is a preacher--oh, the irony!!
This book shows us how deluded we God-followers can be: to arrogantly assume we can flee from the presence of God--HA!--and live in ways that stand diametrically opposed to what we say we believe. This is seen best in chapter 1, verse 9, when Jonah is answering the fear-stricken sailors in the middle of a storm about who he is:
"I am a Hebrew, and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land."
Oh, really, Jonah? You say you fear the Lord, and yet you bolt and run in the opposite direction of God's command to go to Ninevah, boarding a boat headed to Tarshish?? And yet, a few verses later, we see the pagans, after hurling Jonah into the sea and watching the storm become still, offer up sacrifices to the Lord and making vows. Scripture states "then the men feared the Lord exceedingly" (1:16). Who is truly fearing God here? Can we God-followers truly be this delusional?!
This story makes me uncomfortable with God's anger. Why are innocent sailors brought into the storm of God's wrath? And yet, when I look closer at God's anger, I see a redemptive purpose here. If God were unleashing His fury on a wayward Jonah just to punish him, the story of Jonah would end after the first chapter: prophet disobeys God, God sends a horrific storm to teach him a lesson, and Jonah is no more.
Instead, we see the grace of God and His redemptive purposes peppered throughout this story. With phrases like "But God" and "a second time," we see that God seeks to not only redeem Jonah, the Hebrew prophet, but also pagan sailors and a pagan city (including all its inhabitants as the cattle are mentioned, too!). Grace and wrath kiss--a storm comes, but so does salvation in the form of a big fish. A rebellious prophet is given a second chance. Pagans are told about God's impending judgement and repent. Grace and mercy abounds.
But here is where I truly get uncomfortable with the story of Jonah: you see, Jonah runs from God's mission, not because of fear (after all, the Assyrian empire, of which Ninevah was a hub, was ruthless) but because of his self-professed bigotry. Jonah believes that God should be gracious to his own Hebrew people, but not to other people groups. Jonah clearly states the reason why he ran away from God's instruction in chapter 4:2-3:
“O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
The only time we see Jonah wanting to die is NOT when he is in the belly of the fish, but when God desires to show compassion to Ninevah if they repent from their sins. Wow. I am left speachless. A few verses later, we see that Jonah literally cared more about the death of a plant (which ensured his personal ease and comfort) than he did about the perishing of sailors in a storm or an "exceedingly great" city like Ninevah.
How can we not cringe? Is this how base our hearts are as believers of God?
I squirm when I see pagans care about people perishing, praying for deliverance (ship captain) or repenting (Ninevah's king) for even the hope of rescue from God's judgement (see 1:6 and 3:9), and yet the Hebrew prophet can only thank God for rescuing him in the belly of the fish (see 2:9).
But I cannot stand apart and look upon Jonah with judgement. No, in this book, if I am truly honest with myself, I am confronted with the waywardness of my own heart.
- I do not have the heart of God.
- My confessional theology, what I say I believe, can stand worlds apart from my functional theology, how I choose to think, and act, and live.
- I misunderstand the anger of God, seeing it as punitive and not redemptive and salvific.
- I am consumed with my personal salvation, ease, and comfort.
- I do not extend compassion to those who are lost.
- I see how misplaced my anger can be!
And yet, the fact that we have Jonah's story speaks to the tremendous potential of spiritual growth and redemption. Jonah had to have told his story to someone (or penned it himself) for only he would be able to tell of being in the belly of a fish. He had to have chosen to paint himself in this horrible light of rebelliousness and bigotry. Perhaps he is offering up his story for us, with all its rawness and reality, for us to learn from and ask ourselves what we would do in his shoes. After all, chapter four closes with a question that just hangs out here, as it if waits for us to answer it...
"And the Lord said, 'You pity the plant, for which you did not labor, nor did you make it grow, which came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?'”
How about you, dear one? Do you pity the plant or do you care for the people? Do you have the heart of God? Do you see God's wrath as restorative and redemptive? Let us search our hearts, dear friend, as we look at Jonah's heart and life. As we truthfully offer up our hearts as they really are, God is faithful to forgive and refine and replace our hearts of stone with a heart of flesh! (see Ezekiel 36:26)
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