Jonah: The Pragmatic
Prophet
The story of Jonah is one that should serve to remind theists, deists,
atheists, existentialists, moralists, pragmatists, cynics, skeptics, heretics,
phenomenologists, communists, pantheists, polytheists, and anyone else
that at the end of the day, your best bet is to do what God says, when
he says it, following his directions on how to do it. God doesn't
need your help, but he'll enlist whomever he will to the greater good.
And he will likely bug that person until he does what he says. The
book of Jonah addresses some key issues that will be examined in this page.
| A Nifty Overview of the Book of
Jonah |
 |
The book of Jonah is the 32nd
book of the Holy Bible. It begins with God sending his word to Jonah,
commanding him to leave his present location and go to Nineveh.
Jonah then makes a bee-line for Tarshish leaving the port of Joppa.
Tarshus, it is believed, was somewhere in Spain. Jonah's desire to
flee God was great considering he tried to cross the
entire Mediterranean Sea! As you probably know, God didn't give
up on Jonah. Very encouraging.
Part 1. The desire to disobey...
| Who has never felt the odd need to do what he ought not?
Jonah 1:3 "But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of
the LORD. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish,
paid the fare, and went down into it to go with them to Tarshish from the
presence of the LORD." |
When shown a door marked "private", do you wish to enter? Who
has not desired to do what he ought not? Jonah did, and he made a
full blown attempt to get away with his rebellion against God. Fortunately,
God hounded Jonah. |
Part II. The mode of movement and escapism....
| Jonah was pretty crazy, really. He thought that if he got on
a vessel perhaps God would leave him alone. How often do we think
that if we just do this or that, we can escape God. Perhaps we can
escape him in a vehicle, we think! Perhaps we can escape him in religion!
Escapism takes many forms in today's society from computers to cars to
people to church! We seem to be as dumb as Jonah at times! |
Part III: The Breaking of the Lamb...
Like any good shepherd would do to a wandering lamb, the LORD saw fit
to crush Jonah's will for the sake of the people of Nineveh. He did
so through the manipulation of a fish almost as big as the
one I caught last week... |
Fish are gross on the outside,
I can't imagine what it was like to be on the inside!
Jonah 1:17 "And the LORD appointed
a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the stomach of the fish
three days and three nights."
Part IV: The shearing of the lamb...
 + = |
I title this section "The shearing of the lamb" based on an episode
from my past. We had a big old hairy malamute who we decided to shave
one summer for his own comfort. After the fact, however, he was so
embarrassed that he ran under the house and hid! I can imagine it
is somewhat embarrassing for a lamb to loose its glorious wool. So
too must it have been embarrassing for Jonah to have to appear foul to
the smell and bleached or at least scathed by the innards of a fish especially
since he was back to where he would have been had he just obeyed God in
the first place! That's a valuable lesson for us too! |
Jonah 3:1-3 "Now the word of the LORD came
to Jonah the second time, saying,
"Arise, go to Nineveh the great city and
proclaim to it the proclamation which I am going to tell you." So Jonah
arose and went to Nineveh according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh
was an exceedingly great city, a three days' walk. Then Jonah began to
go through the city one day's walk; and he cried out and said, "Yet forty
days and Nineveh will be overthrown."
Part V. The breaking of a Lamb: Round II
After Jonah's less-than-enthusiastic preaching
to Nineveh, the whole city repented of their sin! Amazing!
Yet Jonah grumbled and moped because he knew this is what would happen
all along. So God, desiring to teach him a lesson, took the rod to
Jonah once again. Read on!
Jonah 3:10
"When God saw their deeds, that they turned
from their wicked way, then God relented concerning the calamity which
He had declared He would bring upon them. And He did not do it."
Jonah 4:1
But it greatly displeased Jonah,
and he became angry. And he prayed to the LORD and said, "Please
LORD, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore,
in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that Thou art
a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness,
and one who relents concerning calamity. "Therefore now, O LORD,
please take my life from me, for death is better to me than life."
Poor old Jonah. He went through all
that misery for nothing! Or did he?
Jonah 4:6
"So the LORD God appointed a plant and it
grew up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to deliver him from his
discomfort. And Jonah was extremely happy about the plant."
|
Jonah 4:7-8
But God appointed a worm when dawn came the
next day, and it attacked the plant and it withered.
And it came about when the sun came up that
God appointed a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah's head
so that he became faint and begged with all his soul to die, saying, "Death
is better to me than life."
Could
this worm be related to the one that ate Jonah's shelter?
In some ways it seems that God is being unfair and cruel to Jonah.
But God will chasten those he loves. And chasten Jonah he did.
Why did God do this to Jonah? To teach him about his own great mercy.
Jonah 4:10-11
Then the LORD said, "You had compassion
on the plant for which you did not work, and which you did not cause to
grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.
And should I not have compassion
on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons
who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well
as many animals?
Jonah's folly was pragmatism and it is ours as
well. Jonah realized rightly that God would spare Nineveh. But rather
than obey he fled God. We often know what the right thing is.
Then we choose the other because it seems more convenient to us at the
time. It seems that we are so concerned with results that we forget
the media of getting there. We are concerned with production but
God is concerned with our practice. When God calls us to obey, may
we not be like Jonah and try to avoid it or do it our way. Because in the
end he is going to do what he wants with us when he wants to and it's not
often comfortable when you rub God the wrong way.