Jonah

Eric Lemonholm

January 25, 2009

Epiphany 3 B

Jonah 3:1-10; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

The Bible is an amazing book.

Someone once said that the Bible is such an awesome and life changing book that few people actually read it.

But the Bible is a rich collection of stories, songs, poems, prophecies, and more.

It’s the word of God.

It’s worth reading.

That’s why I am reading through the Bible this year and blogging about it.

It’s not too late to pick up a reading guide and start reading through the Bible yourself.

One of the great stories in the Bible is the story of Jonah.

I encourage you to read the whole story. It’s just 4 short chapters.

Jonah was a prophet in Israel. He spoke God’s word to God’s people.

Imagine Jonah’s surprise when the word of God came to him and said, ‘Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.’

Do you know where the city of Nineveh is? Today, we call it Mosul. It’s a major city in northern Iraq.

But at the time of Jonah, almost 2,800 years ago, Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, at the time the most powerful nation in the area.

Eventually, some years after Jonah’s time, the Assyrians attacked and conquered Northern Israel, and scattered the people.

It was a brutal empire.

Is it any wonder that Jonah goes the other way and runs from God’s call?

Do you ever run from God’s call?

Do you ever say, “Whoa, God, you want me to forgive my brother? You want me to say I’m sorry to my co-worker? You want me to help that family that lost their home? You want me to confront the person who hurt me? You want me to get help for my drinking problem?”

How often do we turn and run the other way when God calls to our hearts? I know I sometimes do.

Jonah takes the next ship to Tarshish in Spain.

You know what happens next. God intervenes, through a storm and a big fish.

Fleeing from God’s will for him, Jonah is swallowed up in the depths of the sea.

Only the whale preserves his life.

Eventually, the fish spits Jonah back on land.

A Sunday school teacher had been telling her class the story of Jonah and the whale. Finally, she asked them what lesson they thought the story taught.

One little boy put up his hand. “I know, Miss!” he said. “It teaches that you can’t keep a good man down!”[i]

Back on dry land, covered with who knows what from the whale’s stomach, Jonah hears God’s command again, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.”

This time, Jonah obeys God and walks the right direction.

He arrives in Nineveh and proclaims what may be the shortest sermon ever: “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”[ii]

God’s judgment is coming.

Forty days, and the end will come for Nineveh.

Their sin will boomerang back on the Ninevites and knock them into the pit of destruction.

The end is coming soon.

The response of the people of Nineveh to Jonah’s message from God is unexpected.

They repent.

They are sorry for their sin.

They proclaim a fast, and neither eat nor drink.

They dress in rough burlap sacks.

They turn from their evil ways.

They renounce violence.

Even the animals of Nineveh wear sackcloth.

Here is how God responds:

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.

God changed his mind.

Instead of judgment, there is mercy.

Instead of destruction, there is forgiveness.

Later in the story, we find out that Jonah was actually hoping that God’s judgment on Nineveh would come to pass.

He wanted to see Nineveh destroyed.

He wanted to see the Ninevites pay for their evil ways.

He wanted revenge for all the evil things the Assyrian Empire had done (or would do?) to Israel.

Here is what Jonah said to God:

“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. ³And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” ⁴And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

Jonah knew God. He knew that God is:

gracious,

merciful,

slow to anger,

abounding in steadfast love,

and ready to relent from punishing.

Jonah did not want to proclaim God’s judgment on Nineveh because he did not want to see God’s mercy on Nineveh.

He wanted the Ninevites to face justice for their violence.

But God disappointed Jonah.

So, here is the rest of the story, from Jonah chapter 4:

⁵Then 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.

⁶The 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.

⁷But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered.

⁸When 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.”

⁹But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?”

And [Jonah] said, “Yes, angry enough to die.”

¹⁰Then 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.

¹¹And 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?”

As someone said, “God still can’t get over those animals running around in sackcloth.”[iii]

God is concerned about the people and the animals of Nineveh.

God does not wish their destruction.

So, when they repent and turn from their evil ways, God forgives them.

The city of Mosul in Iraq is still called Nineveh by the Assyrians who live there. Amazingly, most Assyrians in the world today are Christians, and they speak a modern form of the language Jesus spoke – Aramaic.

About 400,000 of them have had to flee Iraq since the war began. They may be starting to return.

This people that God spared nearly 3,000 years ago is still alive, and they are our Christian brothers and sisters.

They still remember Jonah and his call to their ancestors to repent.

What do we need to repent of?

What sins of commission – sins we have committed – or sins of omission – good things we have failed to do – lie buried in our past or dwell in our present?

When you get down to it, are we really that much different from the Ninevites?

What evil ways are we stuck in?

What violence?

Do we not repent every Sunday in worship?

Do we take that repentance seriously?

The Ninevites spent 40 days fasting and wearing sackcloth.

Lent is coming up in exactly one month – Ash Wednesday is February 25.

Isn’t it interesting that Lent is a 40 day season!

Now, we are going to explore the marks of discipleship during those 40 days.

We are going to explore spiritual practices like fasting.

We need a 24-hour prayer vigil to pray for this church and God’s mission for us.

Our growing edges as a church are still inspiring worship and passionate spirituality.

We need to grow our roots deeper so that our branches can grow wider and encompass our neighbors, so that we can bear the fruit of God’s mercy and justice in the world.

We are going to focus on prayer, worship, and loving our neighbors.

We have a lot to be thankful for in 2009.

We serve a gracious, merciful God, abounding in steadfast love.

God is steadfast. God will stick with us through thick and thin.

We are going to face challenges, just as our nation and world face challenges. But God is faithful.

We are growing.

Growing in membership.

Growing in fellowship.

Growing in service.

Growing in prayer and worship and reading the Bible.

God has blessed us with one another.

God has blessed us with loving relationships in our church family.

The time is ripe for revival and renewal here at Grace.

The time is ripe for repentance, not as a morbid inward focusing on our sin, but as quite the opposite:

· Setting aside habits and practices that hinder our relationship with God and our neighbors,

· Turning toward God,

· Opening up to God’s possibilities for us and for God’s church.

As your pastor, I need to wear sackcloth and sit in ashes for a while.

I am refocusing on what I am called to do and to be.

I am seeking God’s will for me and for this congregation.

But I cannot do it alone.

We are a team.

Let us renew our vision: Grace by grace, seeking to be God’s faithful people.

Let us seek to be God’s faithful people in 2009.

That’s what today’s annual meeting is all about.

That’s God’s call to us.

Amen.

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[i] Homiletics, 9/21/2008.

[ii] David Lose made this observation on www.workingpreacher.com

[iii] James Ackerman, in the HarperCollins Study Bible.