The customer is always right, but then again so is everybody.

I’ve been reading two interesting books lately.  The first is the book of Jonah, in preparation for this sermon, and the second is a book by the psychologist Jonathan Haidt entitled: The Righteous Mind: Why Good People are Divided By Politics and Religion.  And no, the story of a pre-modern prophet is not as different from modern psychology as you might think.

We are wired to be righteous, Haidt explains.  People tend to think they’re right about most things.  One of the reasons I avoid things like Facebook lately is because every discussion seems to turn into a factory for self-righteousness, conversations in which people talk past each other in an effort to assert their viewpoint.

It doesn’t help that this is an election season.  Political divisions seem to get wider and wider every year, to the point that our politicians occupy the most extreme ends of conservative and progressive politics.  Which only means that we see our opponents not merely as different, but evil.

JONAH IN THE CITY

When God gave Jonah a second chance, Jonah agrees to go and call the city of Nineveh to repentance.  Loving others makes us uncomfortable.  Recall from earlier that the Assyrian inhabitants of Nineveh weren’t exactly friends of the Israelites.  Jonah would have had a natural fear of those who are different.  Yet he obeys by preaching to the city:

Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time: 2 “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.”

3 This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command and went to Nineveh, a city so large that it took three days to see it all. 4 On the day Jonah entered the city, he shouted to the crowds: “Forty days from now Nineveh will be destroyed!” 5 The people of Nineveh believed God’s message, and from the greatest to the least, they declared a fast and put on burlap to show their sorrow.

6 When the king of Nineveh heard what Jonah was saying, he stepped down from his throne and took off his royal robes. He dressed himself in burlap and sat on a heap of ashes. 7 Then the king and his nobles sent this decree throughout the city:

“No one, not even the animals from your herds and flocks, may eat or drink anything at all. 8 People and animals alike must wear garments of mourning, and everyone must pray earnestly to God. They must turn from their evil ways and stop all their violence. 9 Who can tell? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”

10 When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened. (Jonah 3:1-10)

Jonah is successful.  He’s got the kind of success that most pastors only dream of.  A whole city?  This is the kind of thing that makes for a great book deal.  At the very least, it’s cause for rejoicing.

WHEN BEING “RIGHT” REPLACES BEING REDEMPTIVE

Jonah, however, isn’t having any of it.

This change of plans greatly upset Jonah, and he became very angry.2 So he complained to the Lord about it: “Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people. 3 Just kill me now, Lord! I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.”

4 The Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry about this?” (Jonah 4:1-4)

Jonah is upset because he wanted the Ninevites to be punished instead of saved.  In Haidt’s book, he explains that our moral sense is like a tongue with six different kinds of “taste buds.”  People who are political progressives, he says, tend to rely on the moral sense of compassion and equality.  Conservatives share these senses, but also appeal to such things as authority and fairness.  Violate these categories, and an enemy is soon made.

I think something similar is happening with Jonah.  God’s grace seems wildly unfair.  He doesn’t want to see the Ninevites’ salvation; he wants the very fires of heaven to rain down on their heads.  They’ve done wrong, and God’s compassion is now a source of anger.

There’s a deep irony here—pun intended.  Jonah had disobeyed the Lord as well, running to Tarshish instead of obeying his calling.  If we were to read the original Hebrew, we’d find that the phrase “greatly upset” comes from the Hebrew yara.  Earlier the word (or at least a version of it) was used to refer to the Ninevites’ wickedness ( Jonah 1:2). Now the word is being used to refer to Jonah’s displeasure.  It’s as if the author is trying to remind us that Jonah has become the very thing he hated most.

Jonah had become so blinded by his personal sense of fairness that he failed to realize that the grace that had saved him could also save this city.  So God taught him a careful lesson:

5 Then Jonah went out to the east side of the city and made a shelter to sit under as he waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 And theLord God arranged for a leafy plant to grow there, and soon it spread its broad leaves over Jonah’s head, shading him from the sun. This eased his discomfort, and Jonah was very grateful for the plant.

7 But God also arranged for a worm! The next morning at dawn the worm ate through the stem of the plant so that it withered away. 8 And as the sun grew hot, God arranged for a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah. The sun beat down on his head until he grew faint and wished to die. “Death is certainly better than living like this!” he exclaimed.

9 Then God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?”

“Yes,” Jonah retorted, “even angry enough to die!”

10 Then the Lord said, “You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. It came quickly and died quickly. 11 But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn’t I feel sorry for such a great city?” (Jonah 4:5-10)

The story ends here—quite abruptly, as a matter of fact.  The author is trying to prompt us to examine our own hearts and our own motivations.  Does our personal sense of justice outstrip our capacity for compassion?  Are we willing to extend grace to others?

Not as long as we insist that we’re right; not as long as we dismiss God’s grace as impractical or unfair.  Think hard on this, because, again, this is an election year.  When we yell at the “liberals” on TV (or on Facebook), are we truly communicating the love of God?  This is not to say that there can’t be room for civil disagreement and dialogue, but surely our allegiance to God’s kingdom becomes evident in how we treat one another.  For the real test of God’s grace is not how we treat our friends, but how well we treat our enemies and our opponents.  For all have sinned and fallen short of the grace that shines in the life of the lowly and the desperate.

Some days you eat the fish; some days the fish eats you.

And of course, there are times when it’s hard to distinguish between personal suffering and God’s wounds of grace—and there are still other times when the two will be one and the same.

Jonah had previously ran from God’s presence and found himself in the belly of a “great fish.”  In Jonah 1:17, we read:

“Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights.”

But here, in the darkness and the deep, we see a glimmer of hope, and we hear the gospel through the utterances of this wayward prophet.

DID IT REALLY HAPPEN?

First, let’s get something out of the way.  Can we really trust that this story is reliable?  The whole thing sounds like the legendary stories of a primitive, pre-scientific culture.  Sure, we tell our kids about “Jonah and the whale,” but then we grow up and we learn that there’s no such thing as Mother Goose or Cinderella or the other tales from the world of make-believe.

After all, tales of great fish were common in the ancient world.  The Jews often spoke of a creature called “leviathan” which typically symbolized chaos and disorder.  And, as a point of clarity, we should note that the text never tells us that it was a whale.  In fact, I somehow doubt that Jonah even knew what sort of fish it was, and I doubt he bothered checking once his ordeal was over.

Still, we probably shouldn’t waste time trying to parse out what kind of fish this was or what kinds of fish men can live inside.  The point is that Jesus appeals to the “sign of Jonah” (Matthew 16, Luke 11) and seems to take the story quite literally, and if it’s good enough for Jesus then I suppose I’ll throw my lot in with the One who came back from the dead.

Dr. William Lane Craig suggests that maybe what happened is that Jonah actually died after being swallowed, and he was resurrected after being spit back onto the land.  The prayer in chapter 2 may then be a literary device.  Interesting, though I don’t agree.  First of all, why would it be easier to believe that God preserved Jonah then to believe God resurrected him?  If one miracle is to be believed, why not another?  But more importantly, Jonah’s prayer is more than a mere plot device.  It is the lynchpin of the story, and in the belly of the beast, we find the very heart of the Christian gospel.

ROLLING IN THE DEEP

The second chapter of the book of Jonah is an extended prayer.  Imagine, for a moment, the darkness that this man was plunged into.  The sounds, the coldness of the sea—maybe even the scarring of stomach acids or the constriction of fish guts.  In the midst of all that, Jonah offers this prayer:

Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from inside the fish. 2 He said,

“I cried out to the Lord in my great trouble,
and he answered me.
I called to you from the land of the dead,
and Lord, you heard me!
3 You threw me into the ocean depths,
and I sank down to the heart of the sea.
The mighty waters engulfed me;
I was buried beneath your wild and stormy waves.
4 Then I said, ‘O Lord, you have driven me from your presence.
Yet I will look once more toward your holy Temple.’

5 “I sank beneath the waves,
and the waters closed over me.
Seaweed wrapped itself around my head.
6 I sank down to the very roots of the mountains.
I was imprisoned in the earth,
whose gates lock shut forever.
But you, O Lord my God,
snatched me from the jaws of death!
7 As my life was slipping away,
I remembered the Lord.
And my earnest prayer went out to you
in your holy Temple.
8 Those who worship false gods
turn their backs on all God’s mercies.
9 But I will offer sacrifices to you with songs of praise,
and I will fulfill all my vows.
For my salvation comes from the Lord alone.” (Jonah 2:1-9)

In this darkest of moments, Jonah pulled from his memory bits and pieces of the psalms to affirm his trust in the Lord in all circumstances.  Now, it’s not hard to imagine that maybe later an editor came along to “tidy up” Jonah’s language here.  But I doubt that anyone had to put words in his mouth.  This was a man who went to the deepest place on earth and affirmed his trust in God.  And this, as we’ve said, is the heart of the gospel.

THE TRUE AND BETTER JONAH

After three days, Jonah’s prayer is answered:

10 Then the Lord ordered the fish to spit Jonah out onto the beach.

Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time: 2 “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh, and deliver the message I have given you.” (Jonah 2:10—3:2)

Please don’t miss what’s happening here.  Please don’t sweep this aside as a mere fairy tale or moral fable.  This is more than a morality play.  This is a powerful testimony to God’s grace.  Jonah had disobeyed God before, choosing to flee from his very presence.  Now he learns that not only is there nowhere to run from God’s presence, but when God catches up his attitude toward sinners is of mercy and a second opportunity to serve his kingdom.

You see the greatest danger that we face is not that we might experience suffering—because we will.  The greatest danger that we face is not that we will fail God—because we all have.  The greatest danger is that we not recognize the circumstances around us working together for our good and God’s glory, and we therefore let God’s grace slide past us unnoticed and unappreciated.

Jonah is hardly the first to descend to the low places.  Paul tells his readers in Ephesus that “grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift.”

8 Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,
and he gave gifts to men.”

9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)  (Ephesians 4:7-10)

Jesus stepped from heaven to earth in order that he might show us grace and redeem mankind.  Jonah’s disobedience took him to the depths of the sea; Christ’s obedience took him to the surface of the earth.  And because of Christ’s obedience, because of God’s grace, there is no mistake we can make, no circumstances we can endure, that put us out of the potential reach of God’s redeeming love.

Jonah should remind each of us that God indeed does have a greater plan for his expanding Kingdom.  No, that plan may not always seem pleasant when sitting in a whale’s belly, but here we, too, might experience the loving embrace of a God who lovingly and gracious allows suffering to point us toward his mercy and his grace.

The image of “Jonah and the whale” has been plastered across so many nurseries and adorned so many children’s books that it almost seems trite.  Yet embedded in this story is the very heart of the Christian gospel as well as the foundation for Christian mission.

The book of Jonah is typically classified as a book of prophecy, but it reads so differently from the other prophets of the Hebrew scriptures.  While books like Nahum or Habakkuk contain long sections of instructions and judgments, the book of Jonah weaves together the story of a reluctant prophet, his drift from God, and the finding of God’s grace.

JONAH’S CALL

Jonah opens with God’s call to a man named Jonah:

The Lord gave this message to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Get up and go to the great city of Nineveh. Announce my judgment against it because I have seen how wicked its people are.” (Jonah 1:1-2)

Jonah’s name literally meant “Dove” or maybe even “Pigeon” (!).  He lived during the reign of King Jeroboam (2 Kings 14:25), placing him somewhere between 700-800 years before the birth of Jesus.  God called Jonah to be a prophet—that is, a messenger, someone who speaks for God.  But the people of Nineveh was among the last places that Jonah—or any Israelite—would ever want to set foot.  For its Assyrian occupants were known for preserving their culture through some of the most violent and oppressive means necessary.  The very mention of an Assyrian city would have sent a shiver along Jonah’s spine.  The closest analogy we can find today might be the attitudes we have toward radical Islam and ISIS.  Sure, we understand that God can save anyone, but deep inside us we might find a desire to see them bombed into oblivion.  And God says, “Go.”

In the time after Jesus, Christians find their purpose in what we call the “Great Commission.”  Before ascending back to heaven, Jesus tells his closest followers:

¹⁸ Jesus came and told his disciples, “I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth. ¹⁹ Therefore, go and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. ²⁰ Teach these new disciples to obey all the commands I have given you. And be sure of this: I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” (Matthew 28:18-20)

All Christians are called to be preachers.  I don’t mean that we preach a sermon in the same way as a pastor on Sunday mornings, or finding a soap box and a crowded street corner.  I’m talking about the way we share the gospel with others, the way we open our mouths and tell the story of what God has done in our lives, and what he can do for others.

Still, we might be tempted to react like Jonah did…

JONAH’S FLIGHT

Jonah doesn’t exactly take to his assignment with a lot of enthusiasm:

3 But Jonah got up and went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord. He went down to the port of Joppa, where he found a ship leaving for Tarshish. He bought a ticket and went on board, hoping to escape from the Lord by sailing to Tarshish.

4 But the Lord hurled a powerful wind over the sea, causing a violent storm that threatened to break the ship apart. 5 Fearing for their lives, the desperate sailors shouted to their gods for help and threw the cargo overboard to lighten the ship. (Jonah 1:3-5a)

All of us have something we turn to when life becomes uncomfortable.  For Jonah, it was a physical place, a location that shielded him from the unpleasantness of his mission to the people of Nineveh.  Maybe for you it’s sinking yourself into a hobby, into career, into a relationship.  Maybe you sink yourself into the kinds of sins that numb you to the work of God.  In any event, we’ll see through Jonah that disobedience separates us from God and others.  Jonah disobeyed God by running away.  If you were reading this story in the original Hebrew, you’d see the repetition here of the word yarad.  It means “to go down,” to descend—the way that Jonah “went down to the port of Joppa.”  This movement downward will have some irony as the story unfolds.

But all this time Jonah was sound asleep down in the hold. 6 So the captain went down after him. “How can you sleep at a time like this?” he shouted. “Get up and pray to your god! Maybe he will pay attention to us and spare our lives.”

7 Then the crew cast lots to see which of them had offended the gods and caused the terrible storm. When they did this, the lots identified Jonah as the culprit. 8 “Why has this awful storm come down on us?” they demanded. “Who are you? What is your line of work? What country are you from? What is your nationality?”

9 Jonah answered, “I am a Hebrew, and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.”

10 The sailors were terrified when they heard this, for he had already told them he was running away from the Lord. “Oh, why did you do it?” they groaned. 11 And since the storm was getting worse all the time, they asked him, “What should we do to you to stop this storm?”

12 “Throw me into the sea,” Jonah said, “and it will become calm again. I know that this terrible storm is all my fault.” (Jonah 1:5b-12)

Jonah is strangely fast asleep through all this.  The sailors were frantic.  Imagine the confusion and running about on the boat as they sought to figure out what to do.  Being deeply religious people, they sought to manipulate nature by appealing to their various gods.  But none of their gods answered.  Jonah explains why—he believes that the evil swirling around them is his fault.  But the sailors deny Jonah’s instructions.  Maybe in their minds they were thinking: If this is what his God is like when Jonah’s alive, how much worse might it get if he drowns? 

13 Instead, the sailors rowed even harder to get the ship to the land. But the stormy sea was too violent for them, and they couldn’t make it.14 Then they cried out to the Lord, Jonah’s God. “O Lord,” they pleaded, “don’t make us die for this man’s sin. And don’t hold us responsible for his death. O Lord, you have sent this storm upon him for your own good reasons.”

15 Then the sailors picked Jonah up and threw him into the raging sea, and the storm stopped at once! 16 The sailors were awestruck by the Lord’s great power, and they offered him a sacrifice and vowed to serve him. (Jonah 1:13-16)

Do you see the irony?  Jonah’s disobedience prompted their obedience.  The sailors are the only ones taking God seriously at this point.  And what about Jonah?

17 Now the Lord had arranged for a great fish to swallow Jonah. And Jonah was inside the fish for three days and three nights. (Jonan 1:17)

Jonah had started his journey by descending—first going down toward Tarshish, but now descending beneath the waves and into the belly of a “great fish.”  Was this a whale?  Some sort of sea monster?  We don’t know, but we do know that it happened because “the Lord had arranged” it.  Jonah was fleeing the presence of God, but he would never be beyond the reach of God.  No one is.  That’s the whole point.  Jonah’s about to learn a valuable lesson in God’s grace in the face of willful disobedience.

I don’t pretend to know whether the suffering in our lives always corresponds to some piece of God’s will.  But I do know that when we step back far enough and survey the events of our lives—both good and bad—we can see how God shapes and molds our character even during seasons when we think we know better than the Creator of both land and sea.  No rowing can outrun the will of the Lord, and no mistake we make can place us beyond the capacity for God’s forgiveness.  Jonah reminds us that even the most rebellious among us can have a place in God’s kingdom, for if God can use suffering then maybe—just maybe—God can also use our disobedience for his glory.