Jonah 4

Jonah… Shade, Worm and Blazing Sun!

Like most, I always thought of this story as the story of the man inside the belly of a fish. But there is much more to the story of Jonah than just that. I would like first to retell the story for those who aren’t familiar with it.

The story begins with God calling a Hebrew man named Jonah to go to Nineveh –the capital of Assyria – and warn its citizens against the wrath God will bring on them because of their bad deeds. Classic Biblical prophet commission.

Jonah doesn’t like his new job, and starts a journey of escaping from God. He thought that if he left the land where God dwells- namely the land of Israel, God won’t be able to find him elsewhere. So he sets to sail to Tarshish which is a city on the western coast of Spain in modern geography.

Here the twist in the story happens; while sailing to Tarshish a sea storm happens, allegedly because God doesn’t want Jonah to go in that direction but in the direction God had previously assigned him. So to calm the storm Jonah is thrown overboard into the water, and then and there he is swallowed by a big fish. The famous story that we may have all heard- and he stays there for three days and three nights.

After Jonah is out of the belly of the fish, he finally obeys God and goes to Nineveh where he preaches that God is about to punish its inhabitants for their sin if they do not repent promptly. Which they do! We are told that all the people and animals were under a fast, and even the king put on sackcloth and ashes. The entire city repents, so God changes God’s mind and does not bring destruction on Nineveh anymore, which means that Jonah’s prophetic mission was successful. Now we would expect Jonah to be happy about it, but instead, he gets all angry at God and even depressed wishing his own death.

At this point comes the fourth chapter that we heard a while ago in which God converses with Jonah.

Before we explore the ending of the story, let me start by getting the historicity of the book out the way. The controversy over the factuality of the story of a man surviving in the belly of a fish had shut down the possibility of exploring other parts of the story and obscured the real issues raised by the book as a whole.

What if we frame the whole story as a parable? Or I would even argue that it was originally intended and also interpreted within the Jewish tradition as a parable. Not a foreign concept to Semitic cultures! The Biblical tradition is full of examples on teaching and learning through stories without presenting any concern about whether the story actually happened. Jesus himself was the master of parables. And when we read his parables we rarely concern ourselves with the factuality of the stories in them but more so about the truths that the stories bring.

The story could have ended in chapter 3 with the note of God’s mercy on Nineveh. But it doesn’t. Instead, the attention is shifted to Jonah and his reaction to that mercy.

In this fourth chapter Jonah complains again that the Ninevites, the Assyrian enemies aren’t worth the proclamation or the warning, let alone God’s eventual mercy.

Why doesn’t God just destroy them? Why would God send a Hebrew, a Hebrew prophet, a member of a community that was torn by the Assyrian empire to help them escape God’s fair punishment? Didn’t they deserve that punishment? And why?! Why, on God’s earth, would God eventually relent and forgive those Assyrians and treat them with compassion?

But here, in the midst of Jonah’s depression and grief, shift happens. God employs elements of nature to answer Jonah’s complaints.

The story goes on: Jonah sits down and waits to see what would happen to the city (still hoping God might destroy it). God makes a plant grow up over Jonah’s head to give him shade and Jonah was comforted. But then by dawn of the next day a worm chewed the leaves of the plant and it withered, and by sunrise, a scorching east wind blew, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. Again, Jonah is angry and wishes to die.

Now this is the culmination of the book: God responds to Jonah’s anger saying: “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, with thousands of people and animals?”

Let me say that God’s answer confused me. As I do not think that Jonah’s anger resulted from his concern about the tree! But I understand it more like this:

Alight God! You’ve brought me here to the land of enemies, You made me go through a sea storm, sailors anger, survive becoming sea creatures dinner, risk walking in a foreign city pronouncing judgment over it, and all this in vain, because You changed Your mind. Don’t I at least deserve a little shade for my head?!

Here God delivers God’s last speech, trying to stretch Jonah’s narrow and self-centered view:

See Jonah, this is the way the universe works. I am the one who makes the wind blow. I make the storm rumble. I calm the sea. I provide for the sea mammals. I spare your life! And you said it Jonah: I restore souls from the deep of the deep. And yes, I make trees grow and I also, give food for the worm. I order the sun and it blazes, the warm desert wind and it scorches, shade and it becomes … you got it Jonah, I tend my creation, and I care for every big and small being. Now would I not care for one hundred and twenty thousand humans in Nineveh, and many cattle?

We don’t hear again from Jonah after that. He is left to struggle with a message that united him with the rest of creation and yes, even with his enemies, in kinship. The book ends with an open ended question condemning Jonah’s biases and narrow nationalism. And the same question presents itself today: where are we from creation, and what does the book of Jonah say to these days of hatred and fear and prejudice?

Friends, we live in a world where if we would save ourselves we must also save others, and that includes the rest of creation according to the author of Jonah.

This small book brings a big message to us today: It is only through our acts of restoration that we experience healing and reconciliation. Let us ask God to free us from the bonds that tie us to our limited views, and help us be participants in God’s larger redemptive movement. Amen.