God is ...

“The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying ‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.’” What is this Book of Jonah? A fable or a farce? A fish story or a joke? A tall story with a point? A prophetic book with just an eight-word message? All of the above?

The book of Jonah probably dates from the period after the Exile, i.e., between the fourth and second centuries BC in Judea. After seventy years in Babylon, the descendents of the Jewish exiles had returned to a Jerusalem in ruins. Their struggle to re-establish themselves as a distinct community and to rebuild Jerusalem seems to have led to extreme nationalism and parochialism among them. During this period of the Second Temple, for example, the religious establishment banned marriage with foreigners and moved to exile foreign wives. Perhaps the anonymous author of this book created the character of Jonah and depicted God’s urgent desire for him to preach repentance to the residents of Nineveh in order to reflect the parochialism of the Israelites and to persuade them to give up their narrow vision of God and God’s care. Let’s review the story this short book tells..

The story begins with God’s instruction to Jonah to “Go at once to Nineveh,” and proclaim God’s judgment. Reluctant to go the capital of the hated Assyrian enemies, Jonah boarded a ship going in the opposite direction, to Tarshish. However, God sent a great storm, threatening the boat and all the sailors. After prayers to their own gods failed, the sailors turned to Jonah and his God. Jonah then directed them to throw him overboard. Of course, God rescued Jonah by causing him to be swallowed by a great fish. Although he had deliberately flouted God’s command, in the belly of the fish Jonah prayed earnestly to God, whereupon God caused the fish to vomit Jonah up on dry land. Once again commanded by God to go Nineveh, the reluctant Jonah went to Nineveh and preached the shortest sermon on record. When the Ninevites actually repented, Jonah was angry at God for changing his mind about destroying them. Tantalizing us forevermore, the story ends with God’s response to Jonah: “… should I not care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons … and also many animals?”

So what kind of a book is this? In both the Jewish Study Bible and the New Revised Standard Version Bible – what we hear in worship – the book of Jonah is included among what are called the Twelve Minor Prophets. Even though the book focuses first on Jonah and his ultimate change of heart and then on the repentance of Nineveh, ultimately the book of Jonah is a book of prophecy. It is a book of prophecy, because, like other books of prophecy, it has something profound to tell us about God. Actually three things about God.
The first thing that the Book of Jonah tells us about God is that God is persistent. When Jonah deliberately disobeys God’s command and boards a ship bound in the opposite direction from where God wants him to go, God persists in reaching out to him. God finds several different ways to get Jonah to have a change of heart, to deliver God’s message to the Ninevites, and to understand that God’s will ultimately cannot be thwarted or ignored. What is most important, God gives Jonah a second chance to do God’s will. And God would probably have given Jonah several more chances to do the right thing if necessary. God is a God of second chances, and what God is most persistent about is expecting and rewarding faithfulness to God’s commands.

Secondly, the Book of Jonah shows us that God is gracious. When the Gentile sailors obey God’s command and throw Jonah overboard, God responds with mercy by stilling the storm and saving the sailors from destruction. When Jonah finally delivers his eight-word sermon, he says nothing about any possible reprieve from the threatened destruction of Nineveh. Yet when the king and the people respond by fasting and putting on sackcloth, even including their animals in their observance, God responds in kind. God acknowledges the Ninevites’ repentance and turns back from God’s threatened destruction of Nineveh.

Thirdly, the Book of Jonah reminds us that God is cares for all humanity. The great prophets had indeed continually reminded their hearers of God’s love for all people and of God’s eventual intent to bring all people into covenant with God. Even so, the ancient Israelites, like most people, behaved as if God’s power and mercy were reserved for them alone. Early in the story, God demonstrates God’s love for the Gentile sailors by saving them from the storm, even though they had first appealed to their own gods. Despite Jonah’s reluctance to approach the hated enemy – and who knew if the Ninevites would even understand his language – the Book of Jonah reminds us in no uncertain terms that God’s love and mercy also extended to Nineveh, that great city, and, by implication, to all the rest of the world. Although Christians believe that the walls separating Gentiles and Jews were finally broken down only in Christ, the story of Jonah reminds us that God offers salvation to both. As one of the ancient Jewish sages might have said in response to the question of why God would send Jonah to Nineveh of all places, “God chose to send Jonah to preach repentance to Nineveh, because there is no place on earth bereft of the divine presence, not even among the foreigners in Nineveh.”

Such a tall story, such a farcical, even humorous tale as that of Jonah, has a lot to teach us about God! We learn that God is persistent, gracious, and merciful to all. We learn that God is a God of second – and third, or fourth, or tenth – chances, that God graciously responds to our attempts to seek God’s help or to repent, and that God cares not only for us and our in-group, our country, our ethnicity, our faith community, but ultimately for all humanity. Are you surprised that God is a God of second chances? Are you surprised that foreigners, that indeed all humanity, are included in God’s redemptive plan? Who might be included in God’s plans that would surprise and astound us? More to the point, to whom might we be called to go and preach God’s word? Does God’s persistence, graciousness, and care for all of humanity make a difference to us as Jesus’ disciples? Perhaps God might expect us to leave our comfort zones, go to Nineveh, fish for people, and experience the redemptive work of God in places and among people whom we might not expect to be included in God’s plan of salvation.

During the Rwandan genocide of 1994, God called Swiss missionary Philippe Galliard to tend to the sick, the suffering, and the starving survivors of the conflict. American relief worker Christine Darcas served in Chad. Of her time there, Darcas said, “As drought spread across the Sahara, I finally had the opportunity to roll up my sleeves and get into the field, to abandon my role as a bystander and make a difference.” British nurse Iain Levine worked in famine-struck areas of the Sudan and Mozambique. John Sifton, an American human rights attorney, has offered humanitarian aid in Afghanistan and Pakistan. In May 2011, Lee Hogan, co-chair of the Anglican Health network, went to Tanzania, to help establish links between St Luke’s Episcopal Health System in Houston and the hospital of the Diocese of Morogoro in Berega, Tanzania. As a result of this trip, next month, medical officers from St. Luke’s and the Baylor College of Medicine will travel to Tanzania to establish closer ties between the Houston medical centers and their Tanzanian counterparts. Closer to home, after their regular worship service, members of St. John’s Episcopal Church in Columbus go out every Sunday, rain or shine, into a vacant lot a block or two from the church. As members of the nearby homeless community gather together with them, the Rev. Lee Anne Reat presides over the Eucharist. After the service, parish members hand out sandwiches and soup to the gathered congregation. As Galliard, Darcas, Levine, Sifton, the representatives from St. Luke’s, and the parishioners of St. John’s follow God’s call, they have the assurance and the experience of the depth and breadth of God’s love for all people that Jonah conceded only reluctantly, but that we, as Jesus’ disciples, daily know deep in our hearts.

To whom is God calling you? To what is God calling this parish? Where is our persistent, gracious, and merciful God commanding us to go? “O God, you call us. We are here, not so much because we have sought you, but more because you have found us, called us, claimed us, and commanded us. Help us to have the faith in ourselves, the courage, and the trust in you, that we can board ship in the direction that you would have us go.” Amen.