September 13, 2009 - Jonah 4:1-11

Problem solved

It’s been about ten or twelve years since I told my first plumbing story from this pulpit.  Through the years I’ve shared various experiences involving water and tools.  I will not review all of them, except to say that no one has ever asked me to join the Handyman Ministry at Corinth as a volunteer plumber. 

About two weeks ago I tackled two toilet tank jobs.  The one downstairs in the half bath wouldn’t fill properly – at least not every time.  You’d have to take the lid off the tank and tap the fill valve.  And sometimes when it did run, it would leak and refill too often. The other one, upstairs in the master bathroom, wouldn’t fill all the way.  When I went to adjust the fill valve, however, it broke off and water started bubbling uncontrollably.  Worse yet, the cutoff valve did not cut off!  This was late one night, so I had to cut the water off at the road overnight.  Plumber Bob loves a new challenge.

The next morning I replaced the flappers and fill valves in both toilets.  (You have to be an experienced plumber like I am to know what these technical terms mean.)  I also bought a new cutoff valve and supply line for the upstairs toilet.  I carefully used plumbers tape to reconnect everything, and I know enough to know you are not supposed to tighten plumbing too tight.  I didn’t.  Everything was fine, and Linda was proud.  Plumber Bob likes it when Linda is proud.

The next morning I got up and walked into the study, which is under our bathroom.  There was water on the floor.  I am a brilliant plumber, so I knew immediately this is not good.  Especially since there is no plumbing in the study at all.  I looked up, and there seem to have developed a small sac in the sheet rock above.  It was wet and it was dripping.  This is not good.  When I poked a hole in it, it was like Moses in the wilderness.  Water came forth – fortunately into a bucket I had placed in the study.

My first thought was that I had, indeed, tightened the supply line too much.  I pictured a cracked pipe or joint somewhere between the floors.  I had plans to remove a large section of sheet rock.  It turns out the problem was simpler.  I hadn’t tightened the supply line enough.  All it took was a few more turns of the wrench.  Two weeks later, no further drips.  Only a small ceiling repair job awaiting.

Have you noticed that I usually only tell my plumbing stories when the problem has been solved, when the crisis is over?  I think I learned my lesson early on when I shared a story in the middle of the ongoing battle against the forces of water and someone said, “Why don’t you just hire a plumber?”  It’s hard on the ego.

The same is true with other life lessons.  Most of us share the embarrassing moments of our lives after we’ve come to some closure.  We share our failures when they have turned to successes.  We talk about conflict when we have found some peace.

That is how I see the book of Jonah.  Very little in this book puts Jonah in a good light.  He runs away from God, sleeps while other people panic, expresses a self-absorption to the point of a death wish not once but three times, delights in a city going to hell, explodes at God with a temper, pouts and sulks like a little boy who can’t get his way, and cares for his own comfort more than anything or anyone else.  There is no closure in this book.  At the end Jonah is still a jerk.

We do not know for sure who wrote the book. Whether or not it was the prophet whose name is on it, Jonah had to tell the story.    Why?  Because he had learned his lesson, and he thought it was worth sharing.  Writing his memoir shows spiritual maturity.

A Story of Fear and Anger

Everybody knows something about this story.  I would guess 90% of the American public could complete the sentence, “Jonah and the ______.”  There is more to the story, though, than most know.

Jonah prophesied when King Jereboam II ruled in the northern kingdom of Israel during the eighth century before Christ (2 Kings 14:25).  His reign of four decades was the final span of prosperity and security for Israel, even though he was an evil king.  After Jereboam II, the nation spiraled downward and eventually was overthrown.

The rising political and military power of the Middle East during Jonah’s lifetime was Assyria.  They would become the first superpower, an aggressive empire bent on world domination.  They were already gaining a reputation for terror.  A half-century after Jonah’s time, Assyria would not only push back the borders Jereboam had expanded, they would conquer Samaria, disperse its people, and resettle the land with foreigners.  The capital of Assyria was Nineveh.  Everyone in the fertile crescent hated Nineveh.

It is, therefore, not surprising that when the call of God came to a small town Galilean prophet, “Go east to Nineveh and preach against that wicked city,” Jonah went west to the port city of Joppa and hopped a boat going the other direction.  Wouldn’t you?  Heading solo into Nineveh in 765 B.C. would be like preaching in Tokyo in 1943 or Baghdad in 2002.  “Hey, listen to me!  You guys had better repent of your aggression or you’re all going to die!” 

In the best-known part of Jonah’s story, the cargo ship he hops heading to Tarshish is pummeled by a Mediterranean storm, and Jonah admits to the crew that he is running from the God who made the sea.  Reluctantly they throw him overboard, where he is swallowed by some sort of sea creature and miraculously preserved for three days.  From inside the belly of the fish he thanks God for saving his life and then he is vomited on to dry land.

As soon as he walks on terra firma, the call of God comes again.  “Jonah, go to Nineveh.  Preach what I tell you.”

“Yes, sir.”  Not without fear, mind you, and not without residual inner resentment.  I don’t think I’m reading too much into the story to suggest that his preaching is sarcastic, loud, and angry – sort of like your worst image of a street preacher.  “You’re all bound for hell.  The God of sea and earth is going to destroy this place.  And you deserve it.  You’re cruel, aggressive, and evil.  You have forty days, and then time’s up.”  I hear nothing of compassion, nothing even of an invitation to change.   Doomsday, period.  For three days he walked in, around, and through the city neighborhoods.

I rather suspect Jonah thought this preaching trip was just like being thrown into an angry sea.  He would not live to see the destruction, but when God did his thing Jonah would be vindicated posthumously.  They would burn and die and think to themselves, “Well, that weird, angry Hebrew was right after all.”

In the biggest surprise of the short story, the people of Nineveh listen, respond, and humble themselves.  It may have had something to do with an 8^th century B.C. plague – worse than a swine flu pandemic?  It may have had to do with a solar eclipse known to have occurred about the same time as Jonah’s ministry.

From the king to the homeless beggar, they hear God’s voice.  People don sackcloth, like wearing a burlap bag, as a symbol of their penitence.  They even dress their animals in sackcloth.  It is an unprecedented communal transformation.

Jonah is furious – at God!  “I told you so!” he screams at God.  “Now look what you’ve done.  You should have just wiped them out without warning.  I didn’t want them to repent.  I wanted them dead!  Annihilated.  End of empire, end of threat.  You are too good, and I knew it all along.”

Then follows this whole sulking, pouting, death-wish, scene on the edge of Nineveh that we read about in chapter four.  As the desert sun beats down day after day, a “magic tree” grows up like Jack’s beanstalk overnight and dies just as quickly.  It all makes Jonah only madder.  Most of us get mad at God if bad things happen to us “good people.”  Jonah gets mad at God because bad things don’t happen to bad people.  But God has the last word. 

“What’s this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can’t I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than 120,000 childlike people who don’t yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?”  (Jonah 4:10-12, The Message)

The lesson

That’s it.  No word on how or if Jonah responded.  My theory is that, like the story of a plumbing disaster, Jonah told the story

There are many.  There are lessons of obedience, of faith, of second chances, of God’s love for the unlovable, of hypocrisy, of anger, and more.

But if I had to choose just one lesson, and one line from Jonah’s story to take with me, I would go back to a verse in his prayer from the belly of the fish in chapter 2:  “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs” (Jonah 2:8, NIV).

If you read a dozen different translations of the Bible, this verse will come out a dozen different ways.  The problem is that it’s only five words in Hebrew –

·         שמר shamar – the ones grasping

·         הבל hebel – idols

·         שוא shav’ – of nothingness

·         חסד chesed – their mercy (perhaps the Old Testament’s richest theological word – comparable to agape, love, or charis, grace, in the New Testament)

·         עזב `azab – abandon

Every one of these minor prophets seems to leave us with at least one memorable line.  This is Jonah’s.  “Those who grasp idols of nothingness abandon their mercy.”  For English, you can’t improve on the NIV:  “Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit the grace that could be theirs.”

Jonah felt this deeply in the belly of the whale.  He thought he had learned his lesson, but he had only partly learned it.  He had learned lesson 1.  Don’t run from God; he’ll getcha.  Don’t rebel against God; he’ll have the last word.  He is, after all, God.  And when you decide you don’t like his way, you are no better than the pagan sailors.  You are running to the worthless idol of self-direction, of self-reliance.  “God, I know what you want, but I know better.”

After that prayer, you it will be a humble, contrite Jonah inviting fellow sinners to repent. Instead, an angry, arrogant prophet yells, “Burn, sinners!  You deserve it!”  Perhaps the most amazing part of Jonah’s story is God’s ability to bring transformation through a half-hearted, reluctant, resentful, bigoted jerk.

If God can use Jonah, he can use me.  He’s not looking for polished saints to carry his message.  He is looking for people who are aware they are just as much in need of grace as those to whom they minister.  He wants people who are aware of their own brokenness, who are simply passing on the grace they have received.   Dan Schmidt says, “The recipients of grace are to be the announcers, demonstrators, and distributors of it” (Unexpected Wisdom, 27).  I want to know grace so that I can pass it on.

What Jonah learned in chapter four is that he himself was clinging to worthless idols – self-justified anger, bitterness, and superiority. He was like a little boy so determined to hold on to a broken matchbox car that he can’t open a present that contains a remote control Ferrari convertible.  The worthless idols aren’t “out there,” they are inside the heart.

The lesson of Jonah is that you lay claim on god’s grace by telling your stories of failure.  You drain the worthless idols of their power when you admit to them.  “I’m Bob – I’m a lousy plumber.”   “I’m Fred – I’m an alcoholic.”  “I’m Sally – I’m controlled by resentment.”  “I’m Ray – I’m addicted to pornography.”

Telling our stories of failure enables us to claim the grace that can be ours.  That is the lesson Jonah learned.  Amen.