The Preacher Who Succeeded....And Failed

January 27, 1991

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Scripture: Jonah 4:1-4

Just forget the part about the whale......we’ll come back to that later. It wasn’t a whale, anyway, it was a big fish, and that whole incident in the unfolding panorama is largely irrelevant. This is a story that deals with THEOLOGY, not ichthyology. There’s really no other story in the Bible quite like it, and scarcely another, at least in the Old Testament which can match it for breadth of vision. It’s the story of a very, very big God, and a very, very little man.

Jonah--- You almost want to laugh at him, his soul is so cramped, so circumscribed, so pathetic. I think that’s exactly the right word. He missed the point completely, and that’s what makes the story so funny/sad. He never did get on board, get in touch with the program. When the book ends, he’s still out there, on the side of the hill, moping, griping, and whining to God, at war with himself and everybody else in sight. His preaching converted thousands of people, and every one of them he roundly despised. He succeeded... and FAILED, never allowing his heart to admit what his head knew was true--- that HIS enemies were not also God’s enemies.

The scope, the splendor, and ultimately the liberation of that big concept never got through to him. Let’s examine him more closely this morning, if we may.... I think there’s something here for almost everybody. Was there ever a more unlikeable prophet than Jonah... as a person, as a human being?

Was there ever one pettier and more vindictive, narrower and more bigoted? Was there ever one less ready to perform the job God wanted him to do, or less pleased when the mission was successful? Talk about your mean-spirited and prejudiced personalities---this guy makes Archie Bunker look like Mother Teresa.

It’s all there in these 4 compact, little chapters.... It made him sick that God should spare the repentant Ninevites...it made him physically ill, sick to his stomach, and he sputtered out his complaint to God----

“You don’t let people get away with the things they’ve done to your people, Lord. Don’t you know that? It’s not right, it’s not decent, it’s not fair. Zap ‘em, and show ‘em who’s Boss. That’s what you ought to do. Let me show you how to run the universe.”

This is an ugly little man, a despicable little man, so filled with hate and venom he could see no virtue whatsoever beyond his own national borders.

What makes him more than just a stereotype, more than a straw man, or a cartoon figure, and what finally gives him a semblance of human complexity, is that as much as he hates to admit it, he has the dark suspicion all along, that he’s WRONG. AND THAT, OF COURSE, IS THE POINT OF THE STORY.

You see, the hero of the Book of Jonah is not Jonah at all... the hero of the Book of Jonah is the author of the Book of Jonah. There’s the key to it.... The prophet himself is the goat, the foil, the satirical conveyer of a truth the exact opposite of his own pinched personality. The author is not just telling a story, he’s using a story to preach a sermon----AND JONAH’S SERMON IS NOT IT.

“40 days....you’ve got 40 days to repent before God wipes you out”....That’s Jonah’s sermon, right there. That’s his message, his only message. That’s the only thing he preaches in the whole book..... “40 days and counting....”

Big deal! Some prophetic message. Jeremiah could have preached that with both hands tied behind his back.

No, the real hero of Jonah is the unknown, unidentified author of the book, who in a period of intense and bitter nationalism in his country had a vision of God that was broad and expansive....and who wrote an incredibly brilliant story, a kind of parable around a cramped personality, a luminous missionary story to proclaim God’s inclusiveness.

But I’m jumping ahead too quickly. I mustn’t pour it all out at once. Jonah is the Lectionary reading for today, the 3^rd Sunday after Epiphany. It was picked for today, this passage, because Epiphany is especially the missionary season, the season for the spreading of God’s light across the world.

That’s the thrust of the Book of Jonah. Let’s start at the beginning, and let the story, as the author has put it together with such dramatic skill and theological insight, simply tell itself.

There was a prophet named Jonah, who received the call of God to go preach to the Ninevites.... “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.”

Nineveh---capital city of Assyria, just north of present day Iraq... the arch enemies, the implacable foes of all that Judaism stands for.

What does Jonah do when he gets the call? What does any red-blooded, patriotic prophet do when God lays a burden like that on his heart?

HE RUNS, that’s what he does. He runs away, as fast as his little legs can churn. You really need a map to appreciate it. Jonah, of course, is in Judah, eastern end of the Mediterranean.....Nineveh, where God wants him to go, is way farther east still.... That away.

So Jonah heads west, like a speeding bullet, in the exact opposite direction. He goes to Joppa, on the coast, hops a freighter, buys a ticket, and sails for Tarshish, on the other end of the Mediterranean. Tarshish is in Spain, for heaven’s sake, as far removed from Nineveh as you could be in the inhabited world.

You see, he didn’t want that appointment. He was afraid of it, not fearful for his life, not fearful of physical danger, BUT FILLED WITH DREAD OF THE IMPLICATIONS OF IT.

Why should the God of the Jews be interested in the Ninevites, of all people? Why should their behavior be a concern to him?

Surely religion doesn’t apply here? You don’t warn people like that, you PUNISH them. You don’t send them a preaching mission, you send fire and brimstone. That’s what they deserve; that’s what they’ve got coming to them.

Jonah wasn’t sure he could trust God to do what Jonah thought God should do.... If I know I could count on you to stay the course, to hold the line, to be severe and judgmental with evil, as you’re supposed to do, I’d go in minute, delighted and charmed to be the bearer of the news of their demise, but do you know what people are saying about you, Lord? This is what frightens me---They’re saying you’ve gotten soft in your old age... They’re saying mercy has clouded your judgment. Why, they’re saying you’re not exclusively pro-Israel as you once were...I’ll preach for you. I’ll go for you, but don’t bring everybody in. What if they DO repent? If I have to share you with foreigners, especially foreigners like that, count me out. I don’t want any part of it. If that’s the way it’s going to be, I’m out of here.

So he ran. Wasn’t it Charlie Brown who said, “No problem is so big that you can’t run away from it”?

It’s not true, of course, not when you yourself are the problem. You just take it with you. Jonah’s agony was that his heart and his head, his better self and his prejudice were at cross purposes.... There is a battle going on.

But notice now a wonderful thing... a magnificent thing. The greatness of God is that He didn’t let him get away. Jonah found he couldn’t get away. He may have given up on the Ninevites, but God hadn’t given up on him.

Hang on to that... remember that when you’re trying to run away from something you

know you ought to do. The relentless Hound of Heaven, Francis Thompson called it... “those strong feet, following, following after...” THAT WAS GOD. He let him run, but he stayed right with him.

The storm at sea that follows, that terrible raging tempest that nearly ripped the ship to pieces is the story of God’s pursuit of a fugitive. The sailors themselves suspected as much--- “Who brought this on us?----they asked pointedly.

And I suspect, don’t you...there may have been as much storm inside Jonah as outside ---you wonder if the author isn’t suggesting that---for look what Jonah does.... first he denies responsibility completely, then he defends his credentials arrogantly, and then he suddenly shifts gears and assumes the role of a martyr... doesn’t that sound like a man at war with himself?

 “Throw me into the sea, and the sea will quiet down for you. For I know it’s because of me that this...has come upon you.” How noble! How grand! How hypocritical. He would rather die than lose face by admitting that he was on the same level with the rest of them. MAYBE SOME OF THE SAILORS THEMSELVES WERE FROM NINEVEH! Wouldn’t that have been ironical?

“I’m a Hebrew. I’ll show you what race of people is superior.” Every sentence he utters is sprinkled with pronouns in the FIRST PERSON. Nothing ministers to one’s pride quite like the call to be a martyr. It’s a particular temptation to religious people because it can wear such a lofty face.

“I’ll take the blame”, he crowed with pained nobility....a classic, textbook case of a man biting off his nose to spite his face. So sick at their stomachs, both from the heaving waves and their passenger’s pseudo-heroics, the sailors threw him overboard and sailed away.

Now that’s where the fish comes in. It’s the only part of the story many people remember. “3 days and 3 nights in the belly of the whale.... Again, the book doesn’t say whale, it says fish, and an exaggerated fish story is not an unknown phenomenon even in Winter Park today.

Do we have to believe it, exactly as recorded? No, nothing in the membership vows requires it. The whole story is a parable, remember, and that makes it a little easier to swallow....

I really wish the author had left that part out...or at least sent out a helicopter to rescue Jonah, because the point is not to stretch the credibility past the breaking point, IT’S TO SAY GOD IS NOT GOING TO BE THWARTED IN SEEING THAT HIS MISSION GETS CARRIED OUT. It’s the size of God’s persistence, not the size of His whimsy being represented. Nothing fishy about that.

At any rate, Jonah knew at last that he really couldn’t escape. Even if his heart wasn’t in it, he would go, and he would preach, and he hoped they wouldn’t listen.

Which brings us now to the Scripture passage, the passage read a moment ago. A preacher being cajoled, shoved, pushed by God to deliver a message he doesn’t sincerely believe. Words and motives clash together in discord.

Can’t you see him, can’t you picture him in your imagination, arriving at last to Nineveh,

battered and bruised, dragging his feet, digging in his heels, the very personification of reluctance? He goes through the city, 3 days worth, from one end to the other, the city of his enemies, operating out of duty, but not out of compassion, doing a job, but grinding his teeth, staring into their faces, and despising their hearts. What kind of preaching is this?

“Yet 40 days and Nineveh shall be overthrown”....Please, God let the time fly. AND PLEASE DON’T LET THEM RESPOND.I WANT TO SEE THE FIREWORKS. BUT THE UNTHINKABLE HAPPENED. Jonah’s deepest fears, HIS Darkest suspicions materialized. A revival swept the city, from person to person, block to block, from the lowest peasant to the king himself. It spread like wildfire.... It was PENTECOST in Nineveh.

Jonah had to step back out of the way to keep from being trampled. Everybody in town put on sack cloth and ashes, turned the direction of their lives around, and fell on their knees in penitence before the Sovereign God of the universe.

A sermon of 8 words, reluctantly composed, and petulantly delivered had converted Nineveh. The people had heard the voice of God even through the despicable personality of an odious preacher. It was the worst possible scenario that Jonah could have conceived.

Destruction of the city? The savor of revenge against his hated foes? OUT OF THE QUESTION NOW. God was going to spare them. Of course He was, and the prophet was livid with rage. The passion that had been missing in his preaching erupted in his prayer---- “I knew it”, he railed at God.... “I knew it all along. They were right what they said about you....I knew you were a gracious God, and merciful, and slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love.” That’s a quote, by the way, almost verbatim from the Book of Exodus. The preacher at least knew his Bible. “I knew it was going to turn out this way.”

And for the second time in the story, Jonah assumes the role of wounded martyr. “If you’re not going to let me watch you wreak vengeance on my enemies, I’d rather die than live.”

 I wonder if anybody else has ever been so angry with God that hatred strangled their

objective faculties?

We see Jonah next on the side of a hill, overlooking the city. We’re told even more, it’s on the EAST side of the hill, the far side, where he can look down and across, over the town and beyond the town, in the direction of Judah....toward home.

He’s eating his heart out, frustrated, remorseful, hurt, still angry.... He’s won, but he’s lost....successful, in a sense, but a FAILURE... and he scans the panorama with bitterness.

You are almost reminded of the scene in the Gospels where Jesus stands on the hill of Olivet, overlooking the city of Jerusalem. It’s a pre-Palm Sunday picture. What a contrast between the scenes.

We can see the 2 men in comparable situations, looking down on human beings...But where Jonah weeps tears of hostility and anger, Jesus weeps tears of sympathy and compassion....” Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, would that even now you knew the things that make for peace.” JONAH COULD NEVER HAVE SAID IT.

BUT ONE MORE CHANCE.... ONE FINAL PLEA....climax of the story, the incredible, ever-reaching patience of God. He sends a plant, a fast growing plant to grow over Jonah’s head to provide him shade out on the hillside from the broiling sun.

Now, you’re not going to believe this. I know you’re not going to believe this, but the Hebrew Bible identifies the plant as a castor oil plant. WHAT A PERFECT REMEDY. What an appropriate prescription for a man of that disposition. If only Jonah had eaten the plant instead of camping under it. It was that close. There, it seems to me, is the real whimsy in the story.

At least, though, Jonah had something to be thankful for... not much, you say, but something... something to touch him positively... the shade, the protection of that little plant from the sun. The Record says specifically, “So Jonah was exceedingly glad because of the plant.”

It’s the most hopeful thing written about him in the book. In fact, it’s the only thing. At every other point, he’s negative. Everybody else in the story, the sailors, the citizens of Nineveh, even the fish...all of them come off smelling better than he does. This is the first inkling of decency and humanity we’ve seen since we met him. Maybe finally, there’s a crack in the shell.

But alas.... A worm attacks the plant overnight, and it withers. With the withering of the plant goes the withering of our optimism for any significant change. The morose old moralist resumes his previous complaining. Bracing himself against the onslaught of wind and sun, he goes back to pouting, saying once more, “It is better for me to die, rather than to live.”

AND THE JUDGEMENT OF GOD, the final words of the book...so tender and so devastating: “Jonah, Jonah...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. Should not I pity Nineveh, that great city, where there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also much cattle?”

WHAM! Silence. The curtain drops, and the point is made. It may just be the finest missionary story ever written. It’s certainly one of the most exquisitely crafted. In the persona of the anti-hero, we see embodied everything a missionary ought not to be.

When we are tempted, as the human psyche is prone to do, to identify what WE want with what GOD must surely want, it is so healthy and proper to remember that the missionary himself may sometimes be the mission field, just as the physician may sometimes need to be the patient, or the lawyer, the client, or the teacher, the student.

It is good for us to be reminded out of the wisdom of the ancient past, out of the best in our Biblical tradition that God doesn’t have favorites among peoples and nations, that there are no “pets” among His children.... and that special insight, special knowledge, special resource blessing is never a license for irresponsible celebration, but simply a mandate for humble service.

We do well to remember that nothing stands in the way of God’s purpose with greater

perniciousness than hatred, vindictiveness and presumptuousness. These don’t solve problems, THEY MAKE THEM.

And maybe, especially in time of war, when passion is so easily aroused, we need to let an old book, that also came out of a time of conflict between cultures and religions in the Near East, make its point to us again---- THE LOVE OF GOD, UNDILUTED AND UNENDING, IS FOR ALL....the deserving, the undeserving, the just, the unjust, Jews....Ninevites, Christians...Muslims, us....and them.

The recognition of the blurred relationship between these distinctions is the beginning of wisdom.... and the submission to the God who extends His hand in mercy without reservation to the penitent is the beginning of salvation.