Week 25b--Jonah

Jonah’s little story is familiar to many people; it’s a Sunday School and VBS classic. Probably because it’s really fun to pretend you’re getting swallowed by a big fish. But if you ask people about the end of the story of Jonah, you will probably get several different answers. 

Jonah starts out running from God, trying desperately NOT to take the message of love and mercy to a people who desperately need it. Jonah says “You want to judge and destroy these people? Fine. They deserve it.” But in his disobedience, Jonah inadvertently brings destruction on the heads of the Pirates Who Don’t Do Anything. Oops, I mean the sailors (sorry, too many VeggieTales). Jonah is chucked overboard and swallowed by a big fish.

Can we pause for a moment and focus on how utterly disgusting that must have been? There is not a lot of space in the belly of anything, even a Really Big Fish. Jonah is there for three days, and he manages not to get suffocated or swallowed and digested and...passed (shudder). It’s a miracle he survived at all. Perhaps that’s the point.

But Jonah prays in the belly of that fish.  He says, “I have been expelled from Your sight. Nevertheless I will look again toward Your holy temple...You have brought up my life from the pit, O LORD my God...I will sacrifice to You With the voice of thanksgiving. That which I have vowed I will pay.” (Jonah 2:4-9) Notice that it was only after this prayer that God has the fish vomit Jonah up onto the land--a blessing in disguise if there ever was one!

Nineveh? Well, ok, here we go again...For 3 days Jonah walks the city warning that they will be overthrown. My husband says this came true; the evil that ruled Nineveh is overthrown, and a new Ruler--God--takes control. “Turn from evil,” the Ninevites say. “Perhaps God will spare us.” And He does. And this would be a really great place to end the story.

But Jonah doesn’t celebrate. He fumes. “I knew you were going to do this! That’s just the kind  of merciful God you are, to spare these awful people! They had judgment coming! But nooooooo....you had to go and forgive them! Humph!” And so Jonah pouts on a hill overlooking the city. And God says, “Seriously? You’re pouting about this? Did you miss the whole saved-from-certain-death-in-a-big-fish event last week? I’ll give you a plant to sit under while you stew about it.” The next day God had a worm eat the plant, and Jonah whined again. God confronts Jonah one last time. “You’re upset about the plant, but you couldn’t be bothered about the 120,000 lost souls in the city?”

Thus ends the story of Jonah. It’s an unsatisfactory ending, to be sure. I was convicted as I read it, though. Are we all about grace and mercy, as long as it’s directed to the right people? Or are we just waiting for all those sinners out there to get what they deserve?

What do you think?