Wisdom 27 Jonah, a Whale of a Story

[HKHaugan]

Wisdom 27 Jonah: A Whale of a Story!

 When you were ten or eleven what did you answer when people asked what you wanted to be when you grew up? Policeman, fireman, football or baseball player, forest ranger? As you grew possibilities expanded into professional dreams, travel and people and setting goals on how to achieve the dreams. This is when the gods of success, wealth, fame and fortune drew your gaze and it was fixed on the moments of obtaining the dream. God, and the spiritual life faded in the splendor of neon lights, the digital arrival and controlling the moment. You win the moment, there is a kind of glory and pride that gather you under their promise. This is the substance of spiritual rebellion, the runaway world, as Michael Green, the English evangelist called it. We are in and of the world having to keep pace in it to survive it. This is rebellion and one country song defines it well when you are worn and tired from being a player in it. “All the gold in California is in a bank in the middle of Beverly Hills in somebody else’s name. So, if you’re dreamin’ ‘bout California, it don’t matter at all if you’ve been there before, California’s a brand new game. Tryin’ to be a hero and comin’ up a zero……. (Gatlin Brothers).” The dream can swallow you whole. The world can eat you up and then spirt you out, just like that. Behind this is a deeper story of being swallowed with a purpose. 

There is nothing subtle about rebellion. Ego is king in the heart separated from God and that from birth (Ps.51:5). Jonah was the Old Testament poster child for ego rebellion. You look at the world around you today and every news account is filled with it. “There are none righteous, no not one,” says Paul (Rom.3:10).” Seen in prideful behavior it is also hidden in the passive self-protective quiet that fear paves within. Guilt, remorse and regret are its nagging allies. The name Jonah means dove. The dove is usually seen as a peaceful but scared bird that takes flight when anyone comes near. Was it fear that drove Jonah to flee from God and go in the opposite direction as far as he could? His father’s name was Amittai meaning faithful or true. Looking at this from a spiritual perspective leaves us little alternative but to see Jonah, dove, fearfully fleeing from Amittai --- truth and faith in God the Father, the True and Faithful One. Is Jonah the rebel in all of us? How many of us are the classical runaways, passive-aggressives or brusk in-your-face behavior types, who ran out of breath and turned to see not a condemning God but One who loved us despite of who we were? You can’t run away from God no matter how hard you try. Psalm 139 reminds us,

“7 Where can I go from your Spirit?

Where can I flee from your presence?

8 If I go up to the heavens, you are there;

   if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.

9 If I rise on the wings of the dawn,

   if I settle on the far side of the sea,

10even there your hand will guide me,

   your right hand will hold me fast.

11If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me

   and the light become night around me,”

12 even the darkness will not be dark to you;

   the night will shine like the day,

   for darkness is as light to you.”

 From this old rebel a familiar adage observes that it takes one to know one. More than that, it takes one to admit it. Rebel to rebel this is written. Anyone who has accepted Jesus as Savior and Lord knows what I mean. We in the church are a kind of ‘rebels anonymous’ you might say, so the story of Jonah should ring a bell in all of us. For us rebels the Body of Christ is a ‘Holy hangout’ worshipping the Holy One who heals the rebel within all of us. It is also full of ‘holy helpers’ who share the Holy Spirit’s gifts to help the ‘holy lonely’ through their aloneness. Note the small ‘h’ for those who by faith have been set apart to serve the One Holy God which is what human holiness is all about.  We take up our cross when the rebel surfaces. We invite all the rebels around us to join RA, “Rebels Anonymous” aka, the Body of Christ.

 God chose the fearing rebel Jonah to confront a sinful city on the Tigris River called Nineveh which today is known as Mosul, Iraq, southwest of Turkey and below Syria. Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian empire in the 7^th Century B.C. and is believed to have been the home of a fish god indicating it to be a wholly pagan city. A drawn symbol found on a building there shows a fish in a house. Isn‘t it a bit of irony that God would choose a great fish to swallow Jonah? Just as it had swallowed Jonah, so it would be a direct message to Jonah that belief in a non-existent fish god had swallowed all of Nineveh. No wonder God was concerned for that city. Like most of the invented fertility gods in the Middle East the fish god controlled the food source in the river and fertility would guarantee a constant supply of fish. What rituals and sacrifices were involved is not known but still that belief consumed the city and its need for God was great.

 We need to be thankful for the country, state and city in which we live. But there are pockets of the spiritual Nineveh surrounding us in television, the media and the material culture. Where people are in them we need to be a redeemed Jonah to them.

 What motivated Jonah’s refusal to obey God is not clear. But running away from God is nothing new. More on Jonah, the fish, the storm and attitude to come.