Roger Ray, pastor
January 22, 2012 Epiphany 3
Jonah 3
The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2"Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." 3So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. 4Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!"
5And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. 10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
The story of Jonah is an Old Testament parable and it is, in my opinion, one of the most wonderful and most misunderstood books in the Bible. It is not intended to describe a historical event. This short work doesn't tell us about a real person or a real city and, much to many folks disappointment, not even a real whale. It struggles to tell us something about God and our anger. And like any well crafted parable, it is full of irony, humor and dramatic action.
The story is set up this way: a Jewish man is called by God to go and preach in the capital city of Assyria. It is set in a time when Assyria has destroyed Israel and pretty well messed up Judah and all of their neighbors. Assyria was practicing that ancient form of warfare which built their national wealth by stealing everything of value from all of their neighbors and enslaving their population. Assyria had never done anything good for any Jew and had done every outlandish, criminal, reprehensibly violent thing they could do to destroy the Jewish people.
So, this is a very tense set up. God tells Jonah to go and preach to the people he hated the most. Now, Biblical scholars agree that this story is not nearly old enough to have been written in those days of Assyrian rule. It was written much later, two or three hundred years later.
It was written in a time when the tiny little remnant of Jews were trying to rebuilt a scrap of a nation on the ruins left behind after nearly a century of slavery in Babylon. In those days of reconstruction there was just an awful lot of anger.... they had been bullied, robbed, burned out, sold into slavery and then finally dumped totally vulnerable in a nearly barren land in a city with no walls and very little to eat.
The person who sat down to write Jonah lived among a rag tag bunch of survivors who kept themselves alive by feeding on how much they hated Babylonians, Egyptians, Syrians and just about anyone who didn't look and sound Jewish. And when people are so certain that their hatred is justified, when they know for a fact that their blood thirsty prayers are heard by God it is very very difficult to offer an alternative position.
Sometimes, when people are that mad, using a little slap stick humor is the only way to break the ice. So the story starts with Jonah going the opposite direction from where God wants him to go. And God causes a great storm to strike the ship at sea. And even pagan gentiles are getting religion trying to beg God to help them.
They finally throw Jonah overboard into the raging sea and the sea calms down and a giant fish swallows Jonah and swims for three days to deliver him to the shores of Nineveh. See, everyone in this story is totally obedient to God.... the weather, the sea, the fish, and even pagan sailors but one person is defiant of God's will..... the preacher!
Cause, see, he has got a serious mad on. It is not just that he thought Judaism was that much better than the religion of Assyria or that Judah was just all that much better than any other nation.... it was that he had seen the wreckage, the slaughter.... he knew people who had been killed, enslaved, raped and robbed. His anger was a righteous anger that doesn't really believe that anyone who disagrees with him can be anything but stupid or evil and probably some of both.
Jonah walks into the middle of this huge monstrous city and delivers a short and pretty sad attempt at a sermon. He preached a sermon predicting the immanent destruction of the city. And against all credible odds, the entire city repents. The story teller wants us to believe that everyone from the King to the cattle in the field repented! Best revival in the history of the world!
But, of course, that is part of the irony. Jonah didn't want them to turn from their evil. He wanted God to destroy them. Isn't that God's business? Destroying evil people? Doesn't God see the injustice? Doesn't God become outraged by the mass destruction? Doesn't God want us to wipe out Nineveh and every city like it?
Jonah goes up on a ridge over looking the city to watch and see if they'll mess up.... maybe God will go ahead and bomb the city anyway. You know, it gets hot when you don't have anything but your anger to keep you company. Jonah is just sitting up there, waiting, watching, hoping they'll mess up.
In Alcoholics Anonymous they say that anger is the dubious luxury of ordinary people. It is a luxury because it is an emotion that some people can revel in but recovering alcoholics know that it is a luxury they can't afford.
If they get angry then it won't be long before they also get drunk. But it is a dubious luxury because even people who don't get drunk don't seem to get much good out of it. Anger doesn't seem to make people very smart. It doesn't make them spiritual.
It doesn't make them compassionate or loving and a whole lot of the time it makes them do something really destructive, usually self destructive. The wisdom of A.A. is that when I am angry it usually means that there is something wrong with me. The Big Book of A.A. calls anger poison and it may well be.
But let me return to the Biblical story. Jonah is sitting on the ridge watching the city and a vine grows up over the little shack where he is sitting and the vine is the only decent thing that has happened to Jonah.... at least the vine offers some shade from the hot sun. However, just as the weather, the sea, the fish and the pagans are all obedient to God, now even a worm is sent to do God's will..... a worm eats through the vine and it dies and that, for Jonah, is the last straw.
He rants at God:
He said, "It is better for me to die than to live."
But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?"
And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die."
Then the LORD said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left...?
When God asks Jonah, "Do you do well to be angry?" Jonah doesn't even understand the question..... because, you see, anger can be its own logic. Why wouldn't he be angry? Angry at the Assyrians for their violent sins. Angry at God for not destroying them. Angry at the vine for dying and making him so uncomfortable..... angry enough to die.
You know the routine...... angry at illegal immigrants so that when you see signs in Spanish at the hardware store you are afraid that you are losing your country. Angry at Muslims who raise terrorists and who have no remorse for their heinous deeds. Angry at auto workers for demanding salaries that bankrupt American businesses. Angry at bankers who helped to wreck the economy. Angry at gay people for wanting the same rights as straight people.
It is not that Jonah and his people did not have a reason to be angry, it was that he had a better reason to get over being angry. The message of Jonah to the people who first read it was that their captivity in Babylon was over and it was time for them to stop hating and to accept the interracial marriages among them, the mixed blood Jews, the Jews who spoke other languages or who had family members who were of another religion.
But the stakes are much higher today than they were for the first people who read the book of Jonah. War in the 21st century is a lot more serious than it was 2500 years ago. Our nation has been at war for the past decade and we appear to teetering towards starting a new and probably much more bloody conflict than the last two wars we've been in. I want to ask you to look at a couple of maps.
This is a map of Iran. The ten American flags around Iran show where we have American military installations. This second map is a map of the United States which shows all of the Iranian military installations surrounding us..... you may notice that there aren't any.
Let's look at that again; here are the American military installations around Iran. And here are the Iranian military installations around the USA. One of these nations is accusing the other nation of having aggressive military objectives and is seriously talking about a pre-emptive invasion to stop them from their insane rouge military objectives. Now, I'm no expert on these things but if you looked at this map from Iran's perspective, would you feel inspired to beef up your arsenal?
We are being asked to be very frightened by the prospect of Iran developing a nuclear weapon because they might use it against Israel. Again, I'm no expert but Israel has an estimated 100 nuclear weapons and I suspect that what would keep Iran from bombing Israel is the same thing that kept us from bombing Russia and Russia from bombing us during the Cold War. I wish that we could rid the world of all nuclear weapons but if Iran's desire to have a nuclear weapon makes them crazy and unreliable then what does having 6000 nuclear weapons say about us?
God asks Jonah, "Do you do well to be angry?"..... And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left...?
God asks Jonah to look at the inhabitants of the city he wants to have destroyed. I think that is an excellent idea and I would like for us to take just a couple of minutes to look at some of the people who live in Iran:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98j0I7e5OHE
In years past we have invaded Mexico and Canada. We have gone to war with England, France, Germany and Japan, all of which are now close allies and trading partners..... OK, not France really but still..... think of the wine and cheese. It is possible for old enemies to become allies.
It is possible to find a way around the anger to something much more healthy..... not out of fear but out of courage....Not in ignorant naiveté but in powerful faith.
The question the Bible poses to us is to wonder if we do well to be angry. Jonah asks us to remember how compassionate that God is and it asks us to see how silly we look when we cannot see that our blood lust is not echoed by God.
If I could wish one thing for my nation today it is this, I wish my people would stop being afraid.
