We Have a Runner…

November 8 2020

Jonah 1:1-17, 3:1-10, 4:1-11

         As you can kind of tell from looking at me, I’m not a runner. There are people I know who are runners, who get up and go for a run every day but I am not one of them. My philosophy is that the only reason to run is if something is chasing me. Praise God this has never really happened because I’m not really sure my running would do any good. That being said, there is a kind of running we all can do, a running that we all are familiar with and that is a running away from God. Now the thing about running away from God is that eventually God is going to catch up with you, you simply can not out run God.I don’t just say this because I know for a fact that this is true.You see, I wasn’t always a pastor. A long time ago I was just a guy like everyone else sitting in the pew every Sunday morning doing my best to be the person God wanted me to be, I was active in church, on a lot of committees and when the pastor of the church where Jennifer and I first attended got called to another church, I stepped up and helped provide leadership until another pastor could be called to our church.Through all of these experiences with the church I started getting the nagging feeling that God was calling me to do more, to dedicate myself to pastoral ministry but I really wasn’t all that interested.  I wasn’t like any other pastor I knew; I didn’t fit the mold so to speak. To top it off I really did not like to stand in front of a group of people and speak. So, thanks but no thanks God. Well, a friend of mine offered to sponsor me on a three day retreat as a time to draw closer to God and I thought hey, why not, what’s the worst that could happen. Well, as part of this retreat all of the participants had to take a piece of paper and write our sins on it and then nail it to a cross. Sounds easy enough doesn’t it? Well, I really struggled with it and I wasn’t sure as to what to write and then the Holy Spirit grabbed a hold of me and convicted me that it was a sin to tell God no when he calls you to do something. In that moment, God caught up with me and I stopped saying “No” to God. Long story short, four months later I was hired as a pastoral assistant at a local church and the rest as they say, is history.

         That is my story but I believe that everybody has a story. God may not be calling you to be a pastor but I believe that God calls everybody to be somebody for him. The thing we all have to figure out is just what is it that keeps us from saying “Yes” to God. It is one thing to know Jesus as our Savior; we all love knowing that he gave his life for us. But it is when we call him Lord, this trips us up because this means that we in return, give our lives back to Christ. So, if Jesus is Lord then the answer has got to be yes. I had a thousand reasons to support my answer of “No” but only one reason why I would say “Yes” and that is that Jesus is Lord.

         That being said, our reason for saying “No” tells us a lot of how we feel about God and what God is capable of doing. This is what the story of Jonah is all about. Now most people, even people who aren’t church goers, when asked about the story of Jonah are going to say something about this is the story of that guy who gets swallowed by a big fish or a whale. The thing is that we get so caught up with the fish in the story that we forget just why Jonah found himself in the fish or whale in the first place. In all actuality, Jonah is not about a fish at all. If you do a little word count, you find that in the story of Jonah, the word “fish” is only mentioned two times. In contrast, the word “God” and “Lord” is mentioned thirty five times. Are you beginning to see what Jonah is really all about? 

         The story of Jonah begins by telling us that the word of the Lord came to Jonah, the son of Ammitai. The name Jonah in Hebrew means dove and as many people know the dove is a symbol for peace. This corresponds to the message of peace that God is going to entrust to Jonah. Yet another meaning of Jonah, the dove is found in the seventy fourth Psalm where we read “Remember this O Lord, how the enemy scoffs, and a foolish people revile your name. Do not deliver the soul of dove to the wild beasts, do not forget the life of your poor forever. So, the name Jonah whose meaning is a dove I believe points also to the fact the Jonah represents Israel who has been oppressed by her enemies. This also helps us understand just why Jonah was so reluctant to obey God. The dove, Israel who was oppressed, cries out to God because of her enemies and God’s answer is go to those same enemies and seek their repentance, to which Jonah’s reply is “No thank you” There is a certain irony in the fact that Jonah’s fathers name, Amittai means “The Lord is true” and Jonah is one who refuses to believe in the truth of God.

         So, as the story tells us, Jonah tried to run from the presence of the Lord.His plan is to go to the port city of Joppa and get on the first boat headed to Tarshish. This is a sea port on the coast of Spain where the Atlantic meets up with the Mediterranean, what Jonah would know as the very end of the earth.Well, guess what, God wasn’t real happy with Jonah’s choice so he sends a storm that is so fierce that the boat is in danger of breaking apart. The crew of the boat, they are running around terrified, crying out to the gods they believe in and where is Jonah? Jonah is below deck taking a nap. The captain of the ship goes down and tells Jonah to wake up and pray up because only a supernatural power is going to save them. The crew of the boat decide that they need to figure out just who it is that has done such evil to cause such a storm so they cast lots and of course, the lot fell on Jonah. So Jonah has to explain just what it is that he has done and all he tells them is that he is a Hebrew, and that he fears the lord the the God of heaven earth and sea. The text further tells that they already knew he was fleeing the presence of the Lord because this is what Jonah had told them. They ask Jonah just what do they have to do to get the storm to die down and Jonah knows that what has to happen is that they throw him overboard. Now here is where the story begins to get interesting because these sailors who don’t even know God, they have a hard time with thinking that they must send one man to his death in order to save themselves. They try hard to row to shore but the storm just gets worse when they do. Knowing that it is inevitable that they must throw Jonah overboard to save themselves, they cry out to God, praying “O Lord let us not perish for this man’s life, and lay not on us innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” With that they took Jonah and hurled him over the side of the boat and immediately the storm ceased its raging. Then we are told that the men feared the Lord and offered to God a sacrifice and made vows to him. Now we have to ask just why if this story is about Jonah why are we given so much information about some nameless sailors? The reason, which will become more apparent, is that they act more like what the people of God should act like and Jonah, who is one of God’s people, fails miserably to act like he should. The sailors know how precious even one life is and they agonize and pray that the life of Jonah be spared. It is they who cry out to God, they who make sacrifices to God and make vows unto God which is what God’s people are supposed to do and that which Jonah does not do. 

         Well, Jonah finds himself in deep water, literally, yet God doesn’t desire that Jonah die so God appoints a great fish to swallow up Jonah. Jonah was in the fish three days and three nights, a powerful allusion to death.There in the belly of the great fish, in the midst of death this is where Jonah prays because it is here that he finally realizes that he cannot out run God. Jonah praises God for even there in the deep of the ocean, God could hear the cries of Jonah. Jonah is so certain that God will save his life that he exclaims that he is going to one day be back worshipping in the Temple of God. Jonah states that when he knew his life was on its way out, that is when he remembered that it ain’t over till God says its over. So he prayed and his prayer came to God whose presence is in his holy Temple. Then Jonah goes on to say something that will come back to haunt him because he prays, “Those who regard vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love.” Now that sounds pretty correct, doesn’t it? But it is just this thinking that is the root of Jonah’s problem because God has called Jonah to go to Nineveh, that great gathering of idol worshipers precisely because of his steadfast love for them. We have to hold on to this thought as we continue with the rest of this story of Jonah.

         Well, God heard Jonah’s prayer and the fish spits Jonah out upon dry land. We read this so matter-of-factly that we dot even stop to remember that Jonah has refused to be obedient to God’s call yet here God in his great mercy has rescued Jonah from a certain death. So far in our story we have seen concern for human life in the group of anonymous sailors and God and it is Jonah who has been the focus of that concern.We have to ask if Jonah being the recipient of that mercy, has this affected him at all? Well, we get to find out because God once again calls out to Jonah to go to Nineveh, the great city of Assyria and all out against it, cry out to them the judgment that God has against them and seek their repentance. This is the same Assyria that was ruthless against her enemies, the one who would surround cities, placing them under siege until the people within the city walls would slowly starve to death. These people, these ruthless people, these are the ones God wants to repent. What Jonah is experiencing is the lived out truth that we hear in the book of Ezekiel, the eighteenth chapter where God tells Ezekiel, “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord God, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live? As God told Ezekiel in this chapter, “If a wicked person turns from his away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes and does what is just and right he shall surely live; he shall not die.None of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him; for the righteousness he has done, he shall live.” This is what is being lived out in real time in the story of Jonah. Jonah went into the middle of Nineveh and declared that in forty days the judgment of God would come upon them. And our story tells us that the people of Nineveh believed God. They put on sackcloth, the dress of mourning and they fasted also a sign of mourning,We are then told that the word Jonah spoke reached the king and he also put on sackcloth and fasted and he decreed that everyone in all of Nineveh was to fast, be covered with sackcloth and to call out mightily to God for mercy.Everyone was to turn from their evil ways and cease from their violence.Then the king said something that should have been familiar to at least the Jewish readers of the story Jonah. The king says “Who knows? God may turn and relent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we may not perish.” These are very similar words to what we hear Moses say when the people of Israel worshipped the golden calf. But the difference here is that God turns from his fierce anger because God saw what the people of Nineveh had done, that they had turned from their evil ways. God relented of the disaster he was going to bring upon Nineveh because of the people of Nineveh had done. In the story of the golden calf, it is God who repents, not the people of Israel, in order that God’s wrath did not come upon them. So, what is implied is that the people of Nineveh were more willing to repent of their wickedness than the people of Israel had been when caught in the fros of their wicked acts.

         Now, you would think that now that the people of Nineveh had repented of their wickedness that the story would be done but it isn’t. It isn’t done because the story of Jonah is not about great fish even though that’s what captures our imagination nor is it about Nineveh and its people; no, the story is about the subtle wickedness of the people of Israel. We must never forget that Jonah represents all the people of Israel, the people who quite rightly have been oppressed and perhaps it is felt that their attitude is justified but as we discover this attitude is not justified at all. The attitude I am referring to is the attitude that Jonah has when hearing of the repentance of Nineveh. We are told at the beginning of the fourth chapter that it displeased Jonah exceedingly and he was angry. Thousands upon thousands of lives have been saved from the wrath of God and the reaction of Jonah is that he was exceedingly displeased and angry. And in this state of mind Jonah prays, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? This is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish. So, now we are going to find out why Jonah was running from God are you ready for it? Here is what Jonah says is his reason for his flight, “For I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster. Let’s let what Jonah said sink in for a moment. Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh simply because he knew God, he knew God was a God of grace, a God of mercy, slow to anger and a God abounding in steadfast love and he knew that instead of being a God who would bring upon the people of Nineveh the same hurt and pain and devastation that they had brought to the people of Israel, God was going to be who he always has been a God of second chances.So you see that a group of unknown sailors struggled with knowing they may have sent one person to a watery grave, and where God had mercy on Jonah in spite of his blatant disobedient here is Jonah so cold and calloused that he desired that thousands upon thousands of lives be struck down in an act of severe vengeance. Here is the perennial problem that always plagued Israel. They wanted their God to be a God who was like all the other gods only stronger; a God who would mete out vengeance without mercy upon their enemies, those idol worshipers who deserved no steadfast love. But when they worshipped and prayed to this God of no mercy, a God of quick vengeance what they were doing, was in effect, worshipping an idol because the reality is that no such God exists except as a figment of their imagination. There is only one God and who he is does not change regardless of how much we desire that he would.  This is why Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh because he knew that God would have mercy on Nineveh instead of wrath. God attempted to get through to Jonah by causing a plant to grow up by the shelter Jonah had built in order that Jonah might have shade. But the next day after Jonah had so enjoyed the shade the plant had given him, God made the plant die leaving Jonah to scorch in the heat of the day.Jonah got angry that the plant had died because he liked the plant. God pointed this out to Jonah that he was more concerned and sad about a plant that had come and gone in a day than he had been for Nineveh. God asked Jonah could he not have pity on Nineveh and its one hundred and twenty thousand people who had no sense of right and wrong?

         You see this is what angers people is that they want a God to side with them in the hatred of their enemies but unfortunately no such God exists. It is this anger that blinded the people of Israel when Jesus, the one who came from the Father came and flatly told them that the God they believed in, the God who would empower them to conquer their enemies, this God does not exist. What Jesus was doing was telling all who believed this that they were no more than idol worshippers. So in telling the truth about God, Jesus became enemy number one who had to be silenced and silence him they did by nailing him to a cross. There on the cross Jesus demonstrated what the true worship of the true God entails, a laying down of ones life even for ones enemies all because this is the love of the one true God. God verified the faith of Jesus three days later when Jesus stepped victorious out of the grave. Jesus unlike Jonah did not run when called by his Heavenly Father to go into the world and speak the message of repentance and mercy and unlike Jonah, Jesus rejoiced when those furthest from God at long last returned home to him.

         You see what Jonah is is not a big fish story. No, Jonah is about people who run from God, running because they know that our God is a God who is gracious, a God who is merciful and abounding in steadfast love and they run because they really wish he was a God who supported the hatred of their enemies. Unfortunately, there is no God who is out their that will back such hatred and if you pray for God to support such hatred you are really just worshipping an idol of your own making. Nevertheless, God’s steadfast love remains for everyone, his mercy never ceases to call even the most wicked to come home to him. Amen!