The Mind of God


Sunday, January 22nd, 2006
Epiphany/Ordinary 3B
Jerusalem Baptist Church, Emmerton
Jonah 3:1-10

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.

What is the single most astonishing aspect of the story of Jonah?

Ask any self-respecting 6-year old what the most amazing part of the story is and I would bet you a dime to a donut that he or she would say “The Whale!!”, or if they have read up on their Hebrew, “The Big Fish!”

There are several distinguishing features to the story, coming at it from a purely literary standpoint.

If you read through the other books of either the Major or Minor Prophets you find long passages – whole sections of the books that are written in verse – literally poems or song lyrics that are oracles against Israel or against the opposing or occupying nation. In Jonah, except for the prayer he speaks from the belly of the fish, we find an unbroken prose narrative – more like a modern-day short story than a poem – that tells the story from beginning to end – in chronological order, with little if any poetry.

As for Jonah himself, he is never called ‘the Prophet Jonah’ – ANYWHERE in the story. You know the story. In the first two verses of chapter one, we read where God tells Jonah to “go immediately to Nineveh and cry out against it”.

So what does Jonah do?

Picture this: Jonah is in Israel, on the southeastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea.

The ruins of ancient Nineveh are in what is today Iraq. In fact, they are across the river from a city that has frequently been mentioned in the news – Mosul. Anyway, Nineveh was across the river from present-day Mosul. Which if we had a map up here you could see is to the north east of Israel, where Jonah received the message.

Jonah, unlike the other prophets we read about, finds the nearest port, Joppa, and immediately books passage – not to Nineveh, which would in fact be an overland route, but in the OPPOSITE direction. In fact, as FAR in the opposite direction as he can go – a couple of the places with names similar to the word we read as Tarshish are in southern Turkey or as far away as Spain – the other edge of the known world at the time. Either way you look at it, Jonah wasn’t interested in following God’s orders.

Makes you wonder what it was about the assignment that Jonah didn’t like.

God does not sit back and watch Jonah run. Or rather, Jonah tries to run, and God chases after him. God sends a storm to stop the ship in its tracks. It scares the sailors so bad that they turn away from the gods they had worshipped up until that point and turned to God. Even so, the storm doesn’t abate. Meanwhile, Jonah is down in his cabin sleeping through the storm of the century. The sailors run down and get him, and he confesses that the only way they are going to get rid of the storm is to get rid of HIM. He KNOWS he’s the reason FOR the storm in the first place.

It is, after all, a slightly implausible story. And it gets stranger.

Jonah goes overboard and lands in the belly of a big fish. He then spends three days and three nights, according to the text, in that belly, and it is from there that he recites a prayer of thanksgiving to God that could have been pulled directly out of Psalms.

Have you ever watched a couple exchange sweet nothings to the point of nausea? You know the kind, where they are sickly sweet to each other, and all you can do is roll your eyes and work at holding your lunch down? Jonah’s is such a beautiful prayer that the fish just can’t stand it, and literally VOMITS him out onto the beach – the same shore that he left from just a few days earlier.

HERE is where we pick up the story this morning. Notice the numerical qualifier in the sentence: ‘word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time’. THIS time, Jonah obeyed. Reluctantly, yes, but he DID obey. Picture it. Jonah is a hayseed prophet going to a major metropolitan city, a center of commerce, culture, and military power, and God tells him “I’ll tell you what to say.” Jonah doesn’t get any talking points to review and memorize on his trip TO Nineveh. He doesn’t have an opportunity to craft the message, to work out the wording, the inflections, the pauses. He’s just told to GO.

So he does.

He gets to Nineveh, and the text describes it as a huge megalopolis. Last year when we visited Mexico City, there was no single place where you could be and take in the whole city. There’s a big telecommunications tower in the middle of the city, right next to the Zócalo, the central plaza, and it’s pretty tall, but I’m certain that even from the observation platform near the top, you still wouldn’t be able to view the whole of Mexico City – if for no other reason than the smog that is produced by the cars, taxis, trucks and buses that the 18 million or so inhabitants drive and ride around in. Nineveh is described in similar terms.

‘An exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across.’

Modern archeology is a wonderful thing. Surveyors and archeologists are able to reconstruct and bring to life all kinds of places from history. They have, in the last 30 years or so, excavated at least part of Tell Nabi Yunus – the Muslim name for the site – ‘Ruin of the Prophet Yunus - Jonah’ – you see, Jonah is part of Muslim tradition as well – and the whole city is about 3 miles long, with a perimeter wall about 8 miles around.

Why do you think God would describe it as an exceedingly large city that would take three days to cross if it is only 3 miles across? There are a couple of alternate explanations.

One is that the ‘city’ referred to is actually the equivalent of the ‘greater metropolitan area, including suburbs and the surrounding counties’ – which comes out to about a 60 mile circumference, which would be about right for a three day trip by foot.

The other alternative is that cities in the ancient middle east – well, even in the MODERN middle east, for that matter, tend to have incredibly concentrated centers of population – houses jam packed together, with tiny alleys in the place of streets, that twist and turn and zig and zag, making the prospect of getting through them a true challenge to KEEP it to a three day trek.

The other understanding is wholly different: that the exceedingly large city is more a reflection of two things – the success of Jonah’s efforts and the breadth of God’s mercy, than of the actual physical dimensions of the place.

Jonah shows up at the city not knowing the local language, not REALLY wanting to be there, and with a short and simple message: “Forty Days and counting until Nineveh crumbles!”

Here is a Jewish prophet proclaiming a message in Hebrew to the entire population of a city that hardly needs to take notice of his entire country. And what kind of success does he have? Disproportionate.

‘The people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.’

And this repentance – it didn’t stop with the grass roots population – word got around, and it extended up to the king himself. When HE heard, he took off his royal robes, put on sackcloth, and covered himself with ashes. And he had a proclamation made – that everyone and everyTHING in Nineveh would express repentance – picture animals wearing sackcloth and dusted with ashes – and everyone and everything went on a fast – all to convey to God their true repentance from their evil ways. “Who knows?” the king says, “God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”

The last verse in chapter 3 would seem to be the end of the story. God saw what they did, and changed his mind about the calamity he was going to bring upon them, and he did not do it.

But there’s a whole other chapter to the story. It’s got to do with Jonah’s reaction TO God’s mercy on the Ninevites. Jonah’s not pleased with God’s change of mind. Read a little further – in speaking with regards to HIMSELF and HIS run from God at the beginning of the story, he fled to Tarshish because he knew, speaking to God,

“that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.”

He goes on to ask God to kill him, since he’d rather die than go on living in the knowledge that God would be merciful to a people like the Ninevites.

There are times when Hannah will try to convince us to do something – or let HER do something – and will be … just a little dramatic in her presentation – makes us want to go “Oh, Camille!” – I can just picture God doing the same thing in response to Jonah’s comment there – “Oh, Jonah!”

The story goes on to a conclusion that involves a plant, a worm, a hot east wind, and Jonah again asking God to let him die.

The point is, God’s mercy and grace abounds in such a way that we can’t even begin to understand it. The words of the hymn – there’s a wideness in God mercy – speaks to that – in truth, we can only see what applies to us, and sometimes we’re given a glimpse of how broad the love of God is.

The shadowside of that knowledge is to stop at the application we receive – and assume that God stops there as well.

Jonah’s story parallels that of the people of Israel and Jesus. God sent love incarnate into the world through them, and they didn’t accept it – they ran from it to the point of crucifying him. And then when God overcame THAT in the resurrection, that Grace and love flowed well beyond the boundaries that they had expected – and we have been blessed because of it.

Let’s not box the love of God in.

Let’s pray.

God of grace, none of us are beyond your reach. In Jesus Christ you have sought and found us. Through him you call us to speak your redeeming word of love. Some of us answer willingly. Others pull back in reluctance. Some can respond impulsively dropping their nets and leaving everything else behind. Others can respond only through your repeated patience and your long-suffering love. Whoever we are, receive us into your love, enlarge our hearts and minds that we might serve you lovingly and logically. Give us the grace and good humor to see your hand in all things and make us useful in your sight. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

http://www.day1.net/index.php5?view=transcripts&tid=246
(Rev. William Carter, PCUSA)