Pentecost 25 (NL3) John B. Valentine
Jonah 1:1-3; 3:1-10 November 10, 2024

“GOING TO NINEVAH”

If you were to ask me what my favorite book of the Bible is ... no doubt I’d say it’s this one ... this one we tapped into as our reading for this morning ... “The Book of Jonah”.

You know:

Jonah ... This short little story from the Old Testament.

Jonah ... This short little story which features a really big fish and a persistent little worm and a cattle that repent.

Jonah ... This short little story that absolutely blows the doors off so very many of our preconceptions and misunderstandings about God.

I love Jonah ...

• In part because it’s about sailors ... and I love to sail.

I love Jonah ...

• In part because it’s shot full of satire ... and satire done well is something that I find funny.

I love Jonah ...

• In part because the lead character is someone with whom I can definitely ... DEFINITELY ... empathize.

But mostly I love Jonah because its speaks to me in a way that I can’t help but hear ...

And I’ve been known to be “hard of hearing” ... or maybe “hard of listening” ... at a number of points in my life ... and this story about Jonah says things in a way I can’t help but hear them.

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I mean ... this morning’s lesson began by introducing us to Jonah ... “the son of Ammitai” ... along with the assertion that “the word of the Lord came to him” ...

From which we can deduce a couple of things:

1. That this Jonah fellow ... based on his name and family name ... is a Hebrew ... an Israelite ... a member of the people of God. And ...

2. That this Jonah fellow ... based on the fact that that opening phrase “the word of the Lord came to” is the opening line of at least eight of the other “prophetic books” in the Bible ... is a prophet.

And you put those two things together and you realize that Jonah has thus been called to the particularly awesome and unpopular task of being a spokesperson for God.

And so it comes to pass that God tells Jonah ... “Listen up, Jonah. I’ve got a job for you. A message for you to deliver. I want you to get up and go to Ninevah.”

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NINEVAH ... you ever heard of that place before?

Probably not ... unless of course:

• you’re a Jeopardy champ ... or
• you’re someone who regularly reads sixth-grade social studies textbooks ... or
• you’re someone who majored in Ancient Near Eastern History in back in college.

You see ... Ninevah was the capital city of Assyria ... an empire that collapsed back in 330 B.C.

On the other hand ... you may perchance know Ninevah by its modern name ... MOSUL.

• The second largest city in Iraq.
• That city which was all over the news like seven or eight years ago now.
• That city became the primary battleground of that nasty unspoken war against ISIS.

Now it may come as no surprise that ...

Back in Jonah’s day ... the inhabitants of Ninevah have seen themselves as archenemies of the inhabitants of Israel ...

Even as today ... the inhabitants of Mosul see the nation-state of Israel in pretty much the same way.

But thus you can well-imagine that God’s call to Jonah to “get up and go to Ninevah” went over like a lead balloon.

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Anyhow ... what does Jonah do?

What did it say there next?

“But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the LORD.”

• God says “Go east” ... so Jonah heads west.

• God says “Take a hike” ... so Jonah takes a boat.

• God says “Go to Iraq” ... so Jonah says “I’m going to Spain!”

Bottom line here ... Jonah says he doesn’t want to job ... he isn’t gonna’ go ... he’s not gonna’ pay attention to God’s Word.

But you want to venture a guess as to WHY Jonah doesn’t want this “spokesperson for God” gig?

• Because he can full well imagine the sort of reception he’s going to receive from the locals ...

• Because he doesn’t want to head into hostile territory?

• Because he doesn’t want to die?

Actually .... NO!!!!

Jonah is afraid of something far more terrifying than that!

If we were to flip forward to chapter four of Jonah ... you’d see this spot where Jonah says:

“See ... I knew it! I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.”

• Jonah’s problem with going to Ninevah here isn’t that there might be trouble if he goes ... IT’S THAT THERE MIGHT NOT BE TROUBLE if he goes!

• Jonah’s afraid that if he goes ... God is going to be gracious!

Jonah wants God to play the greatness card on those Ninevites ...

To act like a judge and give them exactly what they deserve ... which in Jonah’s opinion looks like hellfire and brimstone and death and damnation.

And Jonah is afraid that God is going to play the graciousness card ...

And be kind and loving and forgiving to a bunch of people that Jonah just can’t stand!

You see ... Jonah knows that lost people matter to God ...... the problem is that they don’t matter to Jonah!

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Can you relate to Jonah on that one?

Is there some group of people or some individual who doesn’t matter to you like they matter to God?

Is there someone ... or someones ... whom you’d really rather not see experience the fullness of God’s kindness and love?

• For Jonah and the Israelites ... it was an entire country of people ... an entire ethnic group ... those nasty Assyrians whom they wanted to see suffer ... or at least not enjoy the abundance of God’s blessings.

• For us ... whom might that be????

Let’s be honest here ... folks.

We have just endured what has to be that the most divisive and emotionally-exhausting presidential election that our nation has known in at least in the past hundred years.

And we have watched two political parties each spend upwards of a billion dollars defaming and de-humanizing the opposition ... and inviting you to do the same!

I mean ... by the end of October ...

• most of the ads that the Trump camp was running had to do with how the Democrats were all communists who hate everything America really stands for... and

• most of the ads that the Harris camp was running had to do with how the Republicans were all fascists who hate everything America really stands for.

My point being ...

There’s nothing wrong with having political opinions .... and

There’s nothing wrong with expressing our political opinions ...

But when our political opinions allow and even invite us and encourage us to de-humanize our fellow citizens ... something is seriously messed up ...

And we’re in the same boat with Jonah.

And when the media we consume harden our hearts to the point that we no longer see the left or the right ... the red or the blue ... as human beings ...

We’re in the same boat with Jonah.

And when our hearts are so hardened that we put labels on people so that we don’t have to acknowledge their names ...

We’re in the same boat with Jonah.

Problem is ... if you know chapter one of the Book of Jonah .... “In the same boat with Jonah” is the LAST place I’d think any of us really want to be!

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But think about it this way:

In the Bible there are what ... sixty-six books? And of those sixty-six books ... thirty-nine of them are in the Old Testament.

And of those thirty-nine ... thirty-eight of them are about the particular covenant and commitment that God made with the people of Israel.

But ONE of those thirty-nine books focuses not on God's love for the insiders ... the chosen people ... the people of Israel ... but rather on God's care for those beyond ... the outsiders ... the non-Israelites ... the Gentiles.

And that one little book is JONAH!

You see ... the point of this story is that God LOVES human beings:

• Not just some people ... but all people.

• Not just Hebrew people ... but Gentile people.

• Not just the ‘good’ people ... but the misguided people.

• Not just small-town people ... but big-city people.

• Not just safe, sane and sensible people ... but whacked-out and wacky people.

• Not just “our kinds of people” ... but “all kinds of people”.

• Not just the kinds of people we wish we were ... but the kinds of people we really are!

And maybe the overarching question that hangs over this Book of Jonah is simply this:

“IF GOD IS WILLING TO BLESS AND BEFRIEND EVEN THOSE SORTS OF PEOPLE, DON’T YOU THINK IT WOULD BE GODLY OF US TO DO THE SAME?”