Bible Stories for Grown Ups Week 3 

“My way or the highway” 

Jonah 1:1-4, 2:1-2, 3:1-5, 10, 4:1-4

8/18/24 Connection UMC 

Accompanist: Ethan Bonnell 

Hymns: 

UMH 64 Holy, Holy, Holy! Lord God Almighty!

UMH 121 There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy

UMH 512 Stand By Me

TFWS 2153 I’m Gonna Live So God Can Use Me

Call to Worship: 

Lord, sometimes we run from your call

Help us abide in Your presence

Lord, sometimes we keep Your love for those we think deserve it

Help us share Your love with everyone

Lord, sometimes our hurt and hate close us off from You

Lord, open our hearts and minds for worship ao that we might live within Your love!

Opening Prayer 

God of Radical Love,

Like Jonah, we believe, “You are gracious, merciful, and slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love and ready to forgive”. And yet, sometimes we think your love is just for us. At times this world frightens us. And we run away from your compassion and call. In fear we flee into the storm. In fear we keep your love for ourselves. In fear we hoard goodness and keep compassion within our borders. Forgive us for running away- resisting and restricting Your love. Free us from our hesitation to love others and ourselves. And in the moments where our compassion fails, help us find it again in the prayer you taught us saying Our God…

Benediction 

It comes as no small surprise that you would turn your back on this blessing, that you would run far from the direction in which it calls, that you would try to put an ocean between yourself and what it asks. 

Something in you knows this blessing could swallow you whole no matter which way you turn. 

Hard to believe, then, that every line of this blessing swims in grace— grace that, in the end, even you will find hard to fathom 

What to do, then, with such a blessing that depends so little on us and yet asks of us everything? 

Trust me when I say all it wants is for you to fall in, to find yourself engulfed within the curious refuge that it holds 

and then to go in the direction it propels you, following its flow that will bear you where you desired not where you dreamed not yet where only you could go so that in the end you could be found…and maybe, just maybe, help some others be found along the way. 

In the name of the creator, the redeemer, and the sustainer, go with purpose, go in peace, Amen. 

– Jan Richardson

The summer before my 6th grade year family moved out to Fairview. My dad had grown up living in his mom’s trailer on about 2 acres of land out by a railroad track, and he spent the summers working on his grandpa’s farm, and so he wanted to move out to where they could still be relatively close to the city but far enough that they could afford some land. So my parents, my brother and I, and my two adopted biracial sisters packed up and moved out to the country. 

That last detail is an important part of this story. For those who don’t know, I have 2 younger adopted sisters who are biracial. And back in the early to mid 90s when we moved out to Fairview, that detail made all the difference in the world. And I distinctly remember being at church one Sunday and overhearing some high school boys and what looked like their dads saying some really terrible things about my sisters and my family. 

It was the first time in my life that I remember being so mad that I wasn’t sure I could contain it. My fists and jaws were clenched. I was staring daggers at the older boys and imagining picking up the metal folding chair that was leaning against the wall and using their heads to put some dents in it. I remember feeling hot as my dad walked over and put his hand on my arm and said let’s go home Darren. 

I went home and just kept thinking about it. I kept thinking about all the terrible things I wanted to happen to those boys. We ended up staying in Fairview for all of a year, and the whole time there I only made one friend because I just couldn’t be bothered to give anybody at school a second thought. As far as I was concerned

they were all evil and I took every opportunity to go see friends back in Nashville. 

As we talk about this story of Jonah today, I wonder if there are people in your life who have, or still do, made you burn inside and that you simply say don’t deserve your time or attention or thoughts. Or maybe rather than saying I wonder if there are people, I should say I wonder who those people are for you, because I suspect we all have them. More on this later. 

The Book of Jonah is completely unlike any of the prophetic texts in the Hebrew Bible, and Jonah himself is unlike any other prophet. In terms of the text itself, scholars have argued about what it is. Is it poetry? History? Narrative? Or perhaps it’s Monty Python’s Life of Brian or Mel Brooks History of the World…a blend of parody and comedy. 

The book of Jonah is taking a prophetic narrative and spoofing it. Prophets typically had big, evocative, performance-art ways of listening to God and going wherever God calls them.

But not Jonah. Jonah runs the other way in a story that is filled with the absurd. — storms on demand, whales swallowing people, cows repenting, God-appointed worms. 

As Frederick Buechner writes “it is only when you hear the Gospel as a wild and marvelous joke that you really hear it at all.”

And this story does seem to be a wild and marvelous joke. It’s such a bizarre story where none of the characters do what you’d expect. And as we have done with the other stories so far, we ask

ourselves, why did this story survive? Why did people find this story important and worth telling and preserving? What does it tell us about how they understand who they are and who God is? 

That the narrator is up to something artistically clever is evident as soon as Jonah is mentioned. He is identified in 1:1 as “son of Amittai,” a name derived from the Hebrew root that means “to be faithful.” But, of course, Jonah proves to be anything but a “son of faithfulness.” 

And if you were around when this story was being told you’d assume it would paint the Assyrians as the villains. The Assyrians proudly boasted of foreign conquests and of killing Judeans. Not just killing, but mutilating and putting those mutilated bodies on display for entertainment. It’s disgusting.

But it turns out it’s the Israelite in this story, the prophet, the supposedly righteous messenger of God, who is the villain. 

God calls Jonah to share the good news with the Assyrians, and he runs as fast and far away as he can in the other direction. Had Jonah been to Bible Study, he would have known the words of the Psalmist, “Where can I flee from your presence? Where can I go from your spirit? If I ascend to the heavens, you are there. If I make my bed in hell, you are there. 

But Jonah still runs away and finds himself on a boat full of “pagan” sailors, and there’s a storm and these sailors are praying to the gods while the prophet Jonah is trying to sleep and hide from God.

But eventually they wake him up and he tells them it’s his fault and they throw him overboard and then a big fish swallows him and he prays and the fish spits him out in Nineveh. 

And if I’m honest, we spend way too much time on the whole whale/big fish thing. It’s mentioned twice in the whole book. Sackcloth is mentioned three times but we don’t spend much time talking about sackcloths. I get the being in the belly of a big fish thing is a compelling story and getting vomited out onto dry land is a pretty hilarious and disgusting image.

But after the fish Jonah has yet another call experience in Nineveh as 3:1 says the Lord’s word came to Jonah a second time, and this time he decides to listen, kind of. He listens in the same way I would listen when I was 10 and I didn’t want to clean my room but my mom had finally drawn the line so I grumpily dragged my feet up the stairs and kicked some stuff around on the floor and into my closet so that I could say I had cleaned my room without it being an outright lie. 

He gives the most theologically ungrounded prophetic message as he declares, “Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!” 

And furthering our understanding of this story as parody and comedy, in the typical prophetic narrative, the tragedy of being a prophet is it doesn’t work on any grand scale. They go to great lengths hoping to change hearts and minds.

The prophet Hosea married a sex worker to symbolize the relationship between God and a disloyal people. The prophet

Isaiah wandered through Jerusalem naked…for three years, to try and convince people of God’s message. They speak truth to power and get ignored and rejected for it.

But Jonah offers this half hearted sermon and somehow, it works better than what any prophet could ever dream. The city spreads the word and starts mourning and puts on sackcloths. Even the King gets in on the action and puts out a decree that everyone should join in the repentance, including the animals.

Perhaps there’s something in this for us about God’s faithfulness not being wholly dependent on our obedience. About recognizing that perhaps we can’t be good enough, or strong enough, or smart enough, or ready enough to finally fix what’s bothering us in the world. That perhaps we might even hate or despise what God is asking us to do, but that if we can bring ourselves to take that first bitter resistant step God will meet us there.

And so God meets Jonah there, and then Jonah saw the Ninevites changing their ways and his eyes were opened and his heart was softened as the fullness of God’s love washed over him. Right? 

No! Jonah’s response is anger and bitterness. He pouts and storms out of the city and sits up on a hill furious with God. 

And while it might be easy to judge that anger, if we think about it I suspect we can both understand it and relate to it.

Of course Jonah is angry. Of course Jonah is crying out, they don’t deserve mercy. They don’t deserve to be saved after all they’ve done and are threatening to do.

Does it even matter to God what they deserve? Does a good God forget about justice, just because God loves everyone? Where is the justice in God’s love and grace?

And then Jonah says “I know that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity...I know who you are God, and I’m not okay with it right now. I can’t live with it. Take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live” 

It sounds extreme, but remember this story was written after the Exile. We get a glimpse of how the Israelites felt about all of this in Psalm 137. It gives us insight into some of the historical background and helps explain the intense animosity. 

In three centuries the Jews were twice overrun, defeated and slaughtered by marauders and driven from their homes and land. In the 8th century it came from the northern Assyrians (721 BCE), in whose empire one of the leading cities was Nineveh. 

In the 6th century (586 BCE) it came from the Babylonians further south. Both empires really did a number on Israel, leveling much of the place (including Jerusalem), killing tens of thousands and hauling some of those who remained to a prison exile far from home.

But it’s not just the land that has been taken from the people. It was their very future, the next generation, their kids. And so we find in Psalm 137 this lament, this anger, this crying out, a blessing on the one who pays you back the very deed you did to us! A blessing on the one who seizes your children and smashes them against the rock! 

And so maybe like last week with Isaac and Abraham there is something in this story about simply being angry and crying out to God. Maybe Jonah is a mouthpiece for the anguish of a ravaged people, the Jews who watched powerlessly as their own small children were murdered in front of them. 

In this, the normal darkness of the human soul cannot but help fantasize of payback. Maybe when this story was told and Jonah is angry and running away from God the Israelites were cheering him on. Run Jonah. If you can get away from God then we can get away from God because sometimes God seems to just get it wrong. 

Perhaps the authors and the community of Israel are wondering where God is in all of this. Perhaps they are doubting and questioning their faith and their God. Perhaps there is tension within the community as some folks want to violently resist empire and take out as many oppressors and conquerors as they can whatever the cost. They are confident God will be faithful and deliver them through power and might and violence and conquest.

But then there is that ending.

The crux of Jonah’s story is in the fourth chapter, it’s not the big fish and it’s not about the conversion of an entire enemy population. It is about Jonah’s reaction to that amazing conversion. 

He is not happy, and the reason is he’s face with who God is and Jonah doesn’t like it. This story is so theologically rich as unlike in the flood story and unlike in the Abraham and Isaac story, this time the Israelites don’t want their God to be different. They want their God to be violent and to conquer and destroy. 

Jonah, and the Israelites, are wrestling with and resisting the idea that this God is different than all the other gods. And they are angry. Most translations actually play down his anger saying something like “this was very displeasing to Jonah and he became angry” (4:1). And God asks that poignant question, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

But if we look at the Hebrew a better translation would be “Is it good that it burns you?” And maybe God understands Jonah’s anger, maybe God even thinks it’s righteous and just.

But anger and burning are two different things. And it’s that burning that God is asking about. It’s that burning that I could feel in that church fellowship hall in Fairview. It’s that burning that leads Jonah to want to build a fence around God’s love.

It’s that burning that leads Jonah to play God and determine the Ninevites are no longer capable of repentance and redemption and restoration.

It’s that burning that leaves the Earth so scorched it no longer sustains life and flourishing.

It’s that burning we’ve all likely felt on more than one occasion as our bodies have a visceral reaction to the idea that someone who has caused so much harm and pain could be worthy of something as good as God’s love, grace, and forgiveness.

And so this story of Jonah is a wrestling with that burning. It’s a wrestling with what we do when the character of God flies in the face with what we want and what we think is right and just.

It’s a wrestling with that reminder that God gives Jonah that the people of Nineveh don’t know their right hand from their left and the only way for them to learn is if someone is courageous and compassionate enough to teach them.

It’s the nation of Israel asking themselves what about our call to share God’s love and to care for our neighbors and to welcome the stranger? And underneath that question are questions like can people change? Do you really believe in redemption? Do you believe in it enough to play a part in it when it’s for someone you hate? 

Can you move on from the past, or does the past decide the future? Are our wounds with us forever or can we heal and be set free from them? What does it really mean to be forgiven and to forgive, and are we willing to take those ideas and actually put them into practice? How much stock are we willing to put into this God thing?

I told you a couple of weeks ago that I love Judaism, and within Judaism Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement, or at-one-ment, when Jews the world over will remember the harm they have caused others and the harm that has been caused to them, and if they are ready, they make atonement real in thought and deed, asking and offering forgiveness. 

They spend the day in the synagogue, working on individual and group forgiveness for themselves and others. And this story, this book of Jonah, is read out loud during the Yom Kippur service every year, inviting the gathered community to wrestle with these questions. 

Is it good that it burns you? Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh? Do you want me to be the God that I am or the God that you create in your own image? Anne Lamott once said, ““You can safely assume that you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.” 

Can we find a way to come to terms with a God who loves and wants to forgive a couple teenage boys and their dads spewing hateful racist rhetoric?

A God who loves and wants to forgive murderers and terrorists the rich and the impoverished

Donald Trump and Kamala Harris

the homeless and those with vacation homes that sit empty most of the year

People imprisoned for minor drug charges and for unspeakable acts, and people that profit off of the cheap labor of the prison industrial complex

the people you think and feel are so backwards, and hateful, and bigoted you cringe when you see them or think of them?

What if God sees all these folks the way God sees Ninevites? People who are in broken and corrupt systems and who are making terrible harmful choices, but “do not know their right hand from their left.” People who can still be redeemed and restored. People who still have a chance to learn what is right and what is good. People who God challenges Jonah to allow God to love.

And let me be clear here I firmly believe we are called to be peacemakers and not peacekeepers. And God’s love doesn’t negate the reality that actions have consequences and that sometimes justice, particularly redemptive, restorative justice, necessitates consequences and reparations for destructive and harmful actions.

And there are people and places that I firmly believe God will not call you to be in relationship with. Sometimes what we need is to trust our communities and others to share God’s love with those who it’s simply not healthy for us to be in relationship with.

And other times we need a disruption to that burning that turns us inward and drives us to violence and hate. A whale that swallows us up and puts out the fire that burns inside. A worm that eats away at our comfort and self righteous burning, challenging our assumptions and patterns and reminding us that life is not about ideologies, or philosophies, or principles, or issues, but about people.

People who might not know their left hand from their right. People created in the image of God. People God calls beloved.

And if you’re like me that makes you squirm a bit, it makes you uncomfortable, it’s one of those moments where the good news of our faith doesn’t feel so good. If you’re like Jonah the good news doesn’t feel like good news at all. It burns.

The comedy and parody of Jonah is his stubborn refusal to recognize the simple and foundational truth that God’s love for the people of Nineveh is good.

And the question we are left to wrestle with as we move forward this week is the cliffhanger question the book of Jonah leaves us with…in the midst of our pain and anger and hurt and frustration

toward others, especially when it’s righteous and just, can we see them as people worthy of God’s love? How do we respond when God asks, “is it good that it burns you?”