When we begin to read we think this story is about Nineveh, but it’s really about Jonah and God and what Jonah learns along the way. Jonah is the most successful prophet in the OT. He goes into a city and tells them to change, and everyone changes. And yet, he’s a terrible person. His prayer isn’t particularly good. But, there are ways we can all identify with Jonah. At times we feel totally connected to God and at others, we may feel disconnected.
The ending is uncomfortable, it ends in a strange place, without resolution. It leaves us to wonder how Jonah responded. The story is about Gods grace and compassion and also Jonah’s self centeredness and arrogance.
Jonah’s story invites me to:
1. Challenge my view of others. Jonah interacts with foreigners throughout the story, the sailors and the Ninevites. His lack of concern for other people is contrasted to the pagan sailors who try to save him. He doesn’t want to go to Nineveh nor does he care about the sailors. He’s very disconnected from God, completely oblivious to the damage he is doing to everyone in the story. On the other hand, the sailors eventually pray to Yahweh, Jonah’s God, to save them. Jonah doesn’t seem to want to do anything. 2 Kings 14 is during the time of Jonah but if we go to chapter 13, we can see how Jonah was affected, as it says in both chapters that the kings did what was evil in God’s sight. Jonah has a very skewed sense of reality. The northern kingdom’s history is laden with evil and unwillingness to repent. We see the danger of religious arrogance in Jonah. We also see the king of Nineveh do what Jonah’s kings never did – repent in sackcloth and ashes.
2. Confront my own evil. Nineveh repents. God is focusing on Jonah’s evil. He seems oblivious to his own failings. When God questions him he says yes, I am right to be angry about this. Seriously? It is easier to confront someone else’s evil than my own, to see the changes others need to make but not those I need to make. Jonah doesn’t see his selfishness. In his world, the world is all about Jonah. Everything is fine as long as he is comfortable. He is rebellious and stubborn and refuses to go and talk to other people who are rebellious and stubborn. Ironic.
3. Celebrate God’s sovereignty and resulting grace, faithfulness and patience. God controls nature, speaks to animals and He alone controls the outcome. God confronts evil, not just Nineveh’s but also Jonah’s. Jonah felt worse about the loss of the plant that he had nothing to do with, than he did about thousands of people.
Praise God that He controls our destiny and not the Jonah’s of the world, even though sometimes we may go through difficulties, where the lesson is for us to learn we may need to change.
4:2: I knew that you were a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, relenting from disaster.
We can learn from Jonah. Maybe we’re too caught up in ourselves and need to consider things from a different perspective.
Sermon by Brent Moody
