Jonah – chapters 3 & 4.  4th February 2007 pm.

This morning Julia preached on the first two chapters of Jonah and I am going to help us look through chapters 3 and 4 tonight. Before I do I just want to say that I thought Julia did a pretty good job this morning – you may not have known but as part of the testing of Julia’s call to pastoral ministry two people were making notes on how she did, and I thought she did an excellent job. It was certainly challenging stuff.

Julia’s final point this morning was that God holds on. God never gives up, that God used Jonah’s situation to bring good. My first point this evening is very similar.

The first thing that struck me in chapter 3 was the fact that God called Jonah for a second time. As Julia said this morning, Jonah is unique among the minor prophets, and one of the unique features is that Jonah is the only minor prophet, indeed the only prophet in the whole bible that had to be called twice. God issued Jonah the same call in chapter 3 as he did in chapter 1.

And the thing that struck me about this was the fact that God still wanted Jonah to fulfil this task. Jonah had stuffed up so badly in chapter 1, unlike other prophets who might have expressed doubts at their ability to do what God was asking, Jonah ran for it – totally disobey God, even tried to escape from God’s presence – if that had been possible. It is hard to see how Jonah could have failed God any more.

And yet in chapter 3 God called him to the same task despite his previous failures. And notice that there is no threat about the consequences if Jonah runs off again, no mention of his past failure, no condemnation – just a simple and straightforward call to preach the message that God had given him.

Jonah had got it so wrong, but God didn’t hold it against him, his past failure didn’t exclude him being used by God in the future.

Sometimes, we have a view of God that if we get it wrong once then that’s it – we are spoilt, and God can’t use us – sometime we think that there is only one chance with God, if we fail him, then we will be consigned to the scrap heap – I have often heard it said that when we fail God we can only achieve second best, what God had for uis originally is lost forever.

But the story of Jonah seems to imply that that isn’t true – God is a God of second and third chances, a God who wants to see us succeed and fulfil his will in our lives, and when we get it wrong, he gives us another opportunity to succeed.

That doesn’t mean that there aren’t consequences for our sin – the story of David tells us that there are– and sometimes it might mean that we can’t fulfil God’s original plan for us – but it doesn’t’ mean that we are of no use to God. God doesn’t walk away from us or abandon us.

Perhaps sometimes as humans we are too hard on people who fail – there are times when we are too soft of course and we ignore sin or bury our head and pretend it isn’t happening – but sometimes we make people pay for their mistakes far longer than God does.

Julia’s first point this morning was that Jonah ran away when he received the call from God to preach to Nineveh. My second point follows on from that – the second thing that stood out to me in these chapters was that having received a call from God for a second time, Jonah responded by obeying the call.

There can be no doubt that the call to go to Nineveh and preach God’s message was a tough call to receive – there were very few harder things that God could have asked of Jonah – go to Israel’s’ arch enemy, the most pagan of pagan cities and tell them that God is going to punish them – fantastic!

And yet, when asked for the second time, Jonah went – why? What had happened between the first and second call to make Jonah more responsive to God?  3 days inside a big fish!

As Julia said this morning, and despite my joking cry of Heretic to the person sat next to me, it is what I believe, most bible experts now believe that the whale incident, if not the whole of the story of Jonah is a parable rather than a literal historical event.

Let me read…

I am more than happy to accept that Jonah didn’t spend 3 days in a real whale, and I don’t think that view changes the message of the story of Jonah at all. If anything it makes it easier to understand – instead of speculating endlessly about how a human being can survive for 3 nights inside a whale – we can ask what does that event symbolise- what point is the author trying to make !

So what was the point the author was trying to make -  I think Jonah’s prayer in chapter 2 tells us – in my distress I called to the Lord – from the depths of the grave I called for help.

Jonah had been to hell and back – he had been banished from God’s sight, he had entered the pit – his life was ebbing away – but as he reached the lowest of low, as he hit rock bottom, he cried out to God, and God heard him and rescued him.

Through Jonah’s nightmare experience, near death experience, he had returned to God, he had received mercy from God, and he had made a new commitment to God. I will sing a song of thanksgiving, will sacrifice to you. What I have vowed I will make good – why because salvation comes from the Lord.

Jonah in chapter 3, was not the same person as the Jonah in chapter 2, he had changed, matured, grown up. And now he was willing to obey God.

In the good times, Jonah refused to obey God, but having been to hell and back, having experienced the grace of God in a new and profound way, he was ready to obey.

And how often do we hear similar stories today. How many times have we heard people say that through the dark times in their lives, God became more real, maybe not at the time, but as a result of going into the pit and coming our the others side, their faith in God had been taken to new and deeper level.

Rom 5:3-5

3 Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; 4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us.

I think that the problem for many middle class Christians today is that while we have an intellectual grasp on the grace of God, because many of us have escaped some of the toughest times in life – we still haven’t fully experienced the saving grace of God – and so it hasn’t impacted the way we live our lives.

An illustration that has been told many times comes to mind – the person who has been given a glass of water after crawling through the desert for days is so much more grateful than the person who is given a mars bar after jogging round a park for 5 minutes.

In chapter 1, Jonah had a mars bar faith – but having gone to hell and back, he had a glass of water faith – he had experienced the grace of God – and so was willing to let God run his life.

How grateful are we for what God has done for us -

The third thing that struck me in these chapters was that against all the odds the pagan and depraved city of Nineveh repented. When Jonah preached that God would judge them in 40 days time, they don’t laugh or mock or say yeah yeah, heard it all before – end of the world is nigh – they listened, and verse 5 they believed God.

But as is the case throughout the scriptures, their belief wasn’t merely intellectual – they didn’t just accept God’s word as true – they didn’t just believe that God existed, they believed and responded. In the scripture s the kind of belief that is commended is always belief that is accompanied by action.

So they fasted, and put on sackcloth  as an outward sign that they were repenting. And when the king heard the news, he too fasted and put on sackcloth – and declared that everyone, man and beast should do the same. The Ninivites response was total, a complete and immediate turning to God – and a turning away from sin – verse 8 a giving up of their evil ways and their violence.

And the response of the people of Nineveh stands in stark contrast to the Israelites. For generations they had been in rebellion against God – king after king had taken them further away from God and despite the warnings from the prophets like Elijah, the people of Israel refused to turn back to God for any length of time.

And it is quite likely that the author of Jonah hoped that the shock, the humiliation of seeing this pagan nation turn to God, behave in a way that put Israel to shame, would help Israel to wake up to their own sinfulness, and help them to turn back to God in repentance as well.

And then fourthly, and this certainly was one of the main intentions of the authors in writing this story, we have God’s response to the people of Nineveh’s repentance.

Verse 10, when God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.

God had compassion on them, they deserved to be punished for their wickedness, but because they responded and turned away form their sin and towards God, God forgave them. As one author summed it up lie this – as the people of Nineveh changed their ways, God was relieved of the moral necessity of punishment, allowing him to do that which he always desires, that is, to bless mankind.

But for the Jews reading this story, this was radical stuff – God forgave the pagan’s. God’s grace and mercy wasn’t reserved for God’s people the Jews but was made available even to the pagans if they turned to him.

And we can see just how radical this was in Jonah’s response.

Verse 1 of chapter 4 – Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry – so angry that he wanted to die, which seems a pretty dramatic response – but why was he so mad?

There are a number of possible reasons – perhaps he was mad because he would be made to look stupid if nothing happened to Nineveh – he had spent 3 days prophesying that the city would be destroyed and if God forgives them, then he is going to look pretty stupid.

Another reason for Jonah’s anger could have been that he recognised that the Ninivites repentance made Israel look bad – he recognised that their response had turned his prophetic message of judgement into a message of judgement on Israel for their lack of repentance – and he didn’t like that.

But I think most importantly – Jonah was mad because his world view couldn’t cope with a God who forgave pagans. The people of Nineveh were wicked people, they lived a life that was so far from God, if anyone deserved to be punished by God it was them -

And Jonah just couldn’t accept that God chose to forgive them, to show mercy to them. Jonah believed that God reserved these characteristics for his relationship with the Jews – and he couldn’t accept God cheapened his grace and mercy by offering it to all and sundry.

Jonah had had a new revelation of God, he had experienced God’s saving mercy, now he was able to obey God, but Jonah still had much to learn about God.

As the episode with the vine showed, Jonah wanted a partisan God, a God who showed him grace, who blessed him, but not a God who blessed others. He couldn’t cope with a God who didn’t show him grace, which we see with his extreme reaction to God taking away the vine, but neither could he cope with a God who showed grace to others. Jonah wanted a personal God, not a God who was gracious and merciful to the cries of all of creation.

And this is the number one message of the story of Jonah – God’s grace is not reserved for God’s favoured people the Jews, God’s will is and always was that all people would call on him, not just a chosen few. And however hard it was for Jonah to accept this, however hard the Jews had tried to ignore it – God’s desire was to bless all nations.

And I wonder if over the years the Christian church has developed a Jonah attitude. At times, have we perhaps lost sight of the fact that God has blessed us so that we can bless others – have we perhaps lost sight of the fact that God’s blessing is for everyone, not just the people that we like the look of, or that meet certain criteria that we arbitrarily set.

Have we not created a God who is partisan, who blesses us, but not others, not those horrible gays, or those terrible Muslims.

Like Jonah have we not at times tried to limit the scope of God’s grace and favour – have we not tried to put God in a box and say this is how God works, have we not said that if you want to receive God’s forgiveness then it is essential that you buy a suit or a dress and come to church every Sunday.

The story of Jonah was a message to the Jews that God’s mercy and grace can’t be contained or reduced – God wasn’t partisan, that there isn’t anyone beyond the scope of God’s forgiveness and mercy.

That is not the same as saying everyone will be forgiven, the Niniviets were only forgiven as they turned to God in repentance – but the grace of God is for all people. Male, female, gay straight, black white, educated uneducated, good bad, rich or poor etc etc.

As we seek to engage more and more in mission, as we seek to make the grace of God known, this is a lesson that we need to remember  - or else, like the elder son in the story of the loving Father – traditionally called the prodigal son – we will miss out on the party. And that would be very sad.