Jonah

    Well, when I was little, before Courtney was born, in the rare times when I wasn't reenacting the latesr ballgame in the backyard, or inventing wonderful comebacks and fierce rivalries with the counting cats, or learning basic math while playing board games, I would gather up my stuffed animals, set them all in a row, and preach a sermon to the cottony congregation. They didn't complain much about the depth of teaching(or lack of), since I didn't know anyone cared about things like that until about five years later. And they didn't mind that it was always the same sermon over and over, about Jonah. (With maybe some David and Goliath occasionally in there, too.) 

       So, now fifteen years later, I'm sitting in my polar dorm room, with my homework mostly done for the most part, and wishing I knew people aroud here to do stuff with, where I didn't constantly have to keep my guard up, or pretend whatever was happening was interesting, or where I wouldn't feel like a burden to people. Just something...fun. 

       So, I guess I'll find Bruno and Fetch the Beanie Babies, Dusty the Webkinz, Traveler the random dog Amanda sent me, and Abby Lee the guitar, tell them to wake up, sing a hymn or two(quietly, very quietly. Sigh. They should be sung loudly and joyfully.) and then grab my Bible off the shelf and flip it open somewhere and study it. May as well be Jonah as any other place, right? 

     (Continued several days later, in much the same mood...) 

     "The word of the Lord came to Jonah the son of Amittai: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come before me." 
     But Jonah ran away from the Lord an headed to Tarshish. he went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord." 
   I'm interrupting here, in kind a William Goldman-ish way, to comment on these verses. If God has decided to destroy Nineveh because he's sick of dealing with them, they must have been aseriously wicked people. I don't really know anything much about ancient Middle-Eastern geography(or geography of anywhere at any time), but Tarshish is a long ways from Nineveh in the opposite direction. Maybe it's like having to be in Georgia and driving towards Oregon instead. 
   Anyway, the point is, Jonah is disobeying. And...did he really think he could hide from God? 
     "Then the Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. All the sailors were afraid and each one cried out to his own god. And they threw all the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. 
     But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish." 
   Whatever polythestic religion(s) the sailors had, they got this part right. This was bad. They were panicking, and knew somehow, way hidden deep in some mysterious way, they knew that God was the ruler of all. 
     "Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. 
     So they asked him, "Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from?  What is your country? From what people are you?" 
     He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land." 
     This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done?" (They knew he was running away from the Lord, because he had already told them so.) 
   Isn't this just unbelievable, Jonah's act of trying to run away in the first place? There must have been plenty of conversations between the sailors trying to figure out who this guy was, and why he was there. And again, proof that they knew about God's supremacy, by their incredulous question. 
     "The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, "What can we do to you to get the sea calm down for us?" 
     "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon us." 
   Was he trying to commit suicide, seeing as the running-away plan wasn't working? And that is a strange answer...
     "Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not; the sea grew even wilder than before. Then they cried out to the Lord, "O Lord, please do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O Lord, have done as you pleased." 
   These sailors are looking like the best people in the story so far...they didn't want to murder someone, so they tried to get him away as fast as possible. But then when they see they don't really have that option, their prayer is heartfelt and genuine, obeying by doing something they didn't understand. Their hearts were being re-formed, changed drastically in a way that wasn't tame, but it was good. 
     "Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging seas grew calm. At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sarifice to the Lord and made vows to him. But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights. 
   Still more proof that they were changed. And another example of God's providence, his directing of things that fit together well looking back, but that don't make sense at the moment. 
   But, anyway, that ends chapter one. 

     "From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. 
     He said, "In my distress I called to the Lord, and he answered me. From the depths of the grave I called for help, and you listened to my cry. You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me. I said, "I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple." The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me; seasweed was wrapped around my head. To the roots of the mountains I sank down; the earth beneath barred me in forever. But you brought my life up from the pit, O Lord my God. 
     "When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, Lord, and my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple. 
"Those who cling to worthless idols forfiet the grace that could be theirs. But I, with a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good. Salvation comes from the Lord." 
     And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. 
   Now, what he's saying is right...but...something just doesn't quite add up. See what's missing there? "I'm sorry for disobeying, please forgive me, Lord." That's kind of an important omission - if he would have said that, it would have been written down. But - it isn't.
He's depressed, and I think anyone would be, stuck inside a fish. But somehow this prayer is all about me, me, me...
Now to chapter three. 

     (Concluded a few days after that, while attempting to rest over the weekend and ignore this sickness that's trying to capture me...)

     "Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you." 
     Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now, Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go all through it. 
   I heard once that would be an estimated population of 120,000, which was ENROMOUS in that day. Something like New York City or LA nowadays. 
     "Jonah started into the city, going a day's journey, and he proclaimed: "Forty more days and Nineveh will be destroyed." The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. 
   Jonah probably loved that message, getting to talk about the destruction of his enemies' greatest city. But the important thing is that the Ninevites believed what he was saying and repented. Fasting and sackcloth don't really have modern equivalents, but they were signs of very serious prayer and repentance. 
     "When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust. Then he issued a proclaimation in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: Do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything, do not let them eat or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish." 
     "When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the desctruction he had threatened." 
   Wow. This is just amazing, so mind-boggling to consider: That a righteous holy God could forgive our sinful evil actions - Over and over and over... 
   This is also where most of the storybook versions we learn in Sunday School when five years old end. But it isn't actually the end of the story...
   We still have one final chapter in this very strange little book.

     "But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, "O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love; a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live." "But the Lord replied, "Have you any right to be angry?" 
   Uh... Really? So he runs away; reluctantly obeys and gleefully condemns the city, and then complains because God is merciful. And there's that suicidal tendency again. It's just so unbelievably petty. And then God's response, much like his answer to Job: "Do you have any real reason to be angry with Me?" 
     "Jonah went out and set down in a place wast of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its' shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah's head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live." 
   How did he build a shelter? Out of what? And he's just going to sit there and watch for...nothing? Then God provides in his mercy a plant to grow to give shade, which Jonah does not in any way deserve. How did it grow over six feet in one day, anyway? Those aren't important, but curious questions that come up while reading... 
   God's mercy is also tempered with justice, so he killed the plant and raised up a might wind. And STILL Jonah doesn't get it.
     "But God said to Jonah, "Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?" 
     "I do," he said. "I am angry enough to die." 
     But the Lord said, "You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their left hand from their right, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?" 
   And that's it. The end. A reminder that God is God, and we are not. We usually don't understand his purposes, but he has a reason for them.