Jonah 3: 1-5, 10 (links validated 1/9/24)

There once was a little Scottish girl whose parents died, and she was sent to live with an aunt in England. Now, she didn’t quite fit in—Scottish girl in an English village—but her aunt cared for her, she had a relatively normal life, and she had her own room. Her name was Amelia Pond, and she was seven years old. In her room, there was a large crack in the wall and sometimes it seemed like she could hear voices coming from it. It scared her a bit, so one night she prayed to Santa Claus—as that was the only benevolent being she actually understood that could do something—that he would send someone to fix the crack in her wall. Suddenly, she heard a loud noise outside. She looked out the window and saw a large blue police call box had smashed the garden shed. She was a rather brave little girl, being Scottish after all, so she decided to take a look. The call box was on its side and the doors opened up to the sky and light shone out of it, like a big present. And then, human hands emerged over the side of the box, and out came a rather disheveled young man...

("My parents had a dear friend who had been called to preach as a teenager. He was just the type of candidate that you would go after, if you were God. I knew him when he was in his forties and he was still good looking and personable...")

("This scene reminds me of Bill Murray's character in the movie Ground Hog Day. His character wakes up every day on February 2. He is trapped in that day until he gets it right. At one part of the movie he tries every way imaginable to kill himself, but always wakes up the next day on February 2...")

In his October 3, 2015 blog, “Review of ‘Charles Williams: The Third Inkling’,” Bruce Charlton notes, “The playwright and poet Charles Williams was one of the four main Christians of the mid-twentieth century Anglican revival, which was the most recent significant Christian revival in England (the others were CS Lewis, TS Eliot and Dorothy L Sayers, who were all friends and very strong admirers of Williams). “So I have the highest regard for some of the novels and his theology… [Yet] Williams was in love with Phyllis Jones, and … had a warped kind of interaction with Lois Lang-Sims, and … there were other rather vague rumours about ritual magical-sadism with others – the sheer extent of Williams’s activities along these lines was never before clear … CW [also] had intense love relationships with both his main biographers Anne Ridler and Alice Mary Hadfield...

("In 1994 I was traveling through the Netherlands and happened to be in Amsterdam. I came around a corner and saw a historical marker on the wall of the building. The plaque said that the little house was once the clock shop of Corrie ten Boom, one of my childhood heroes..." and other illustrations)

("A friend told me about something that happened during a flight from Johannesburg, South Africa, to London, England. A woman with a thick European accent got on the plane. She came down the aisle to the tourist section and discovered her seat assignment put her right next to a man with, shall we say, an African accent...")

Some of you may know the name of Will Campbell. He was a Baptist from Mississippi who went to Yale Divinity School. His family’s home church had Bibles with the symbol of the Klan inscribed on them, but the adult Campbell became known for his civil rights activism, so much so that he received death threats. It was dangerous for him to return home, but at one very low time in his life, he did. His 12-year-old nephew had died, after being hit by a car while riding the bicycle that his Uncle Will had given him. The tradition was that someone would keep vigil with the body, and that task fell to Campbell. He sat in the funeral home after the calling hours had ended, alone with his grief. At about 3:00 in the morning, another person moved out of the darkness, poured coffee from a thermos and handed it to Campbell. It was Will’s favorite uncle, a man he had not seen for many years, because the uncle had become Campbell’s most severe critic about his activism. Campbell looked at his uncle’s face. He saw there compassion mixed with hurt and misunderstanding and the two men sat together for the rest of the night. Looking back on it, Campbell wrote, “Until the dawn, I sat in the redemptive company of a racist Jesus.”...

("One of the unforgettable figures of the 20th century was Princess Diana. Diana set out on a course to becoming queen of England but ended up becoming a world acclaimed queen of hearts...")

("Johnny Moses, a Nootka Indian from the remote Pacific shores of British Columbia tells a story about an English missionary priest who came to his tribe in the 1800s. It took the priest years to learn the language, Moses said. 'And when he did, he began to preach. The people were sorry..." and other illustrations)

("Aside from the book that bears his name, Jonah does not crop up much in the rest of the Bible. But the most important part of the Bible where Jonah is very much present is a passage where he is not named. It comes in Acts 10 when Peter receives the famous roof-top vision through which he was taught not only that just maybe the Kosher food laws were being overturned in the New Covenant but so was the Jews-only nature of salvation...")

From Frederick Buechner in Peculiar Treasures: "Jonah had a disposition that was enough to curdle milk. When God ordered him to go to Nineveh and tell them there to shape up and get saved, the expression on Jonah's face was that of a man who has just gotten a whiff of a septic tank...

Jonah is a man of prayer, sometimes thrashing around in utter anger and selfishness, at times bubbling over with praise and hope. Yes, in many ways he's like us, and we often resemble him. His best prayer is at his worst moment, and moreover, this best prayer is nothing original, but phrases so familiar to him that they seem like second nature. The use of these phrases helps transform his nature. During his sojourn in the fish's belly, this crank gives praise to God. The belly of the fish takes different forms for different people. In her book, Reaching Out Without Dumbing Down, Marva Dawn recalls his ministry with residents of convalescent homes. She writes: "Several Alzheimer's patients resided in these homes, some whose minds were totally gone. Yet among those patients were some who, as soon as I began to sing "'What a Friend We Have in Jesus,' would join in and sing all three verses without a missed word. They could pray the Lord's Prayer, say the Apostles' Creed, and sing other hymns with me, before their minds wandered off."...

I can’t resist spending time with Jonah this week for I found echoes of this ancient story in the exchange I had with a ‘wise beyond his years’ second grader last Sunday. Here was his question: “What would have happened if Jesus had never been born?” For once I did not miss a beat, “Well, Carter,” I said, “Then God would have found another way.”

("One of the ways I've introduced this theme is to have a phone and a tape player at the pulpit hidden from sight. When the prayer before the sermon is finished, I push the 'play' button and the sound of the phone ringing begins...")

("One of my favourite cartoons is Family Circus. One day the Mom is waling along the street and an older woman asks, 'How do you divide your love among so many children?' She replies, 'I don't divide it. I multiply it'...")

("Do you ever feel like a loser? Ever watch Seinfeld? The hit show owes a lot of its success to a twisted sense of humor and a charming cast that could make even horrible behavior seem amusing. The character of George Costanza is the 'loveable loser' in the bunch..." and other illustrations)

("The call of Jesus was described by Albert Schweitzer in this way, 'He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, He came to those who knew Him not. He speaks to us the same word: "Follow thou me!"...")

This place is not Nineveh, not Judah, not Iraq—it is Uganda and there is a war. This is a war of particular savagery. The Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) focuses its military effort on soft, civilian targets. They rape and loot, they burn down houses, and they indulge in wanton, gratuitous acts of cruelty before they kill their victims, often with the families looking on. And most horrific is that these soldiers are children, almost all of them. Many are seven, eight or nine years old, barely taller than the automatic weapons they haul along. This is not a war over land or water or oil. It is not a war pitting one race, religion or political ideology against another. It is a war of children against their own families, their schoolmates and their very best friends. Its weapons include the most intimate knowledge of families and communities—who grows what crop, who walks what path to the well, who is strong and will be able to kill. The Lord’s Resistance Army is led by Joseph Kony, a madman who believes that the Holy Spirit directs him. He relies on abducted children from the Acholi tribe to carry out his madness. But, this war has nothing to do with the power of the Holy Spirit. But it has everything to do with power, and the lack of it. The civil war has its roots in ethnic and political conflict...

On the sea wall of the Old City of Acre (Akko), Israel, is a sculpture in the form of a whale. The sculpture is a memorial to those who have lost their lives at sea or, as the inscription says, those who remained in the lap of the sea. It is not meant to be a depiction of the Jonah story, but the hole in the middle of the whale - large enough for people to crawl in - may remind us of Jonah's time in the belly of the fish. From there he prayed to God for deliverance, concluding with the promise, "What I have vowed, I will pay" (Jonah 2:9b). And to be fair, Jonah does pay his vow. Though he doesn't appear to have really learned the truth of God's love for the people of Nineveh - even at the end of the story.

I wonder if the message of Jonah's story is that every one of us is called by God to go to some sort of Nineveh, and we are fighting it. Our Nineveh might be a place; a job change to a distant city and you don't want to go. I hope I'm not overstepping my bounds here, but I remember the struggle Royanna Stratmoen had when Todd was offered the position that would require them to move to South Dakota. "Brookings!" Royanna said. "Can you believe that; Brookings?" Nineveh? Nineveh? I'm not going to Nineveh! But to their credit, the Stratmoen's went, and I think one day they will look back and say "God called us to be here." Our Nineveh might not be a place; it might be a people...

("One of my favorite movies is a slapstick comedy titled Gone Fishin starring Danny Glover and Joe Pesci as two fools whose only passion in life is to fish. They do some fishing, they battle some alligators, they wreck some boats, but the interesting thing is they never catch a fish the entire movie!...")

("On New Year's Day 1929, Georgia Tech played the University of California in the Rose Bowl. During the first half of the game a player by the name of Roy Riegels recovered a fumble for California on his own thirty-five yard line. In evading some of the Georgia Tech tacklers, Riegels became confused...")

Mr. James Boggs died a few weeks ago. He was my Little League Baseball coach. He taught me many lessons; one in particular has stayed with me through the almost half-century that has passed since those days. I was at bat. I don’t remember all the details, but I know that we had at least one runner on base, there were two outs, and the count was in my favor, which means that there were two or three balls and one or no strikes. Mr. Boggs hollered, “Take a pitch, Mike.” (We weren’t advanced enough to be receiving signs, but he meant that I shouldn’t swing.)...

("There is an old story told by William James in his Varieties of Religious Experience of a man who found himself sliding down a precipice on a dark night. Finally, he caught hold of a branch which stopped his fall, and for hours he remained clinging to the branch hanging over space in misery...")

("Years ago, when the Robert Bork confirmation was going on, I got interested in reading court decisions. And the recent court nominations have me back at it. Bork was a proponent of the death penalty. At the time of Bork's nomination, American historian William McFeely wrote on the history of the death penalty. McFeely cites Robert Bork as saying..." and other quotes)

("A wealthy businessman hosted a spectacular party in which he had filled his swimming pool with sharks, barracuda and other assorted dangerous fish. He announced to his guests that he would like to challenge any of them to try swimming across the pool, and he would offer a prize of either a new home in the mountains, a trip around the world for two or a piece of his business...")

("One spring day a mother and her six-year-old son were out in the garden. Mom was absorbed in her work while the little boy explored the miracle of growing things exploding everywhere. All at once he picked a daffodil bud, sat down on the ground and studied it. Then with his two little hands he tried to force it open into full blossom..." and another illustration)

("For example, if you give a 4-year-old two small pieces of cake, and a 10-year-old one big piece of cake that amounts to the exact same amount, the 4-year-old will surely protest...")

("This kind of immediacy was captured in a TV show I used to watch called Early Edition. The basic concept of the show is that an average guy with a good heart and modest prospects receives an early edition of the Chicago Sun Times every morning that tells not the news of yesterday, but what is actually going to happen today...")

Here’s how I like to think of Jonah’s story. This is Homer’s Odyssey of an epic adventure if it was written by Woody Allen, played by Billy Crystal or John Stewart. This should be the next big epic Bible movie, we’ve had Russell Crowe as Noah and Moses played by Batman, so why not Billy Crystal as Jonah. Imagine the scene when Morgan Freeman (God, of course) tells Jonah to go prophecy to Nineveh and tell them they are doomed: “Nineveh? No! Are you crazy, there are bad people there. They will put an apple in my mouth and slowly roast me. It will be worse than going to a bar mitzvah on a blind date. No, I’m getting on the ferry and going far away from here, or at least to Staten Island.” You can imagine the scene where the storm hits and the boat is being tossed in the waves, and Billy Crystal saying, “It's my fault. I never listen. Toss me overboard and save yourselves. With my luck I won’t even drown, I’ll get swallowed by a whale and spit up at Battery Park and have to go to Nineveh anyway.” Jonah should be read as satire in service of theology, more like Andy Borowitz in the New Yorker or The Onion. I love the line that says even the animals are to be dressed in sack cloth to repent...

Thomas Carlisle wrote a little book of poems that convey the message of Jonah better than any giant commentary. For example, this poem entitled “Tantrum” captures Jonah’s response to God’s mercy. The generosity of God Displeased Jonah greatly And he slashed with angry prayer At the graciousness of the Almighty. “I told you so,” he screamed, “I knew what you would do, You dirty Forgiver. You bless your enemies And show kindness to those Who despitefully use you. I would rather die Than live in a world With a God like you. And don’t try to forgive me either.’

The theologian Steven Paulson tells the story of one of his seminary students who took his first church out in the hinterlands of Minnesota. After a few weeks, the newly minted pastor called Professor Paulson to update him on his new parish. "How do you fire a volunteer?" he asked. Dr. Paulson asked him what he meant, and the rookie pastor replied, "There's this old widow in the congregation. She's here every day sweeping the hallways with her straw broom. She's mean and rude, and she does a terrible job of sweeping and cleaning." "Maybe there's a reason she needs to be there day after day. Try finding out what it is, and if it is, don't waste any time. Give her the goods. Lay the Gospel on her," the professor said. Paulson says a few days later the student called him again. "Dr. Paulson, Dr. Paulson, I did it. I asked her why she spent so much time at church, but seemed so miserable doing it." "And?" "And she told me, 'Forty years ago, I cheated on my husband with another man, and twelve years ago he died without ever knowing I had betrayed him.' So, I did what you told me," the student told the professor, "I said to her, 'In the name of Jesus Christ and by his authority alone, I absolve you of all your sins.' And as soon as I gave her the absolution, her whole countenance changed and she said, 'I have been here Sunday after Sunday, day after day, week after week, for forty years pushing this God-forsaken broom, waiting to hear God say that to me.'" The professor laughed and said, "Amen." "Wait, it gets better," the student added. "No sooner had she told me she'd been waiting to hear God speak, she threw the broom down on the floor and said, 'I don't have to do this anymore,' and she walked out the front door. Free."...

We are living in a time of uncertainty, and it reminds me, believe it or not, of a baseball story. I’m a Cardinal fan, and it’s been a long time but I may have shared the story of Cardinal pitcher Jouquin Andujar. Jouquin was a colorful character. When he took his practice pitches before each inning, the last pitch he would throw wildly and like a bullet, about 20 feet up on the screen. Besides just plain orneriness, he did this to send a message to the opposing players that his fastball just might get away from him. He didn’t want them getting too comfortable at the plate. A reporter once asked Jouquin to describe the game of baseball in one word. He was from the Dominican Republic, liked to be known as One Bad Dominican, and his English wasn’t perfect, but he had a wonderful response. The one word to describe baseball, he said, was “YOUNEVERKNOW.“ It was an inspired answer. And it’s true. You head to the ballpark and it could be a no-hitter or an 18-17 game. Youneverknow. YOUNEVERKNOW actually applies to a lot of things. If you were asked to describe the story of Jonah in one word, a good answer would be: YOUNEVERKNOW...

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