What a
strange prophet is Jonah, God’s word bearer sent to the people of Nineveh. In
the Old Testament story we all know [Jonah 2, 3], he boards a ship going in the
opposite direction to flee from God! Was
he afraid the Ninevites would kill him? Perhaps not, because he asks no less
than three times for death! He falls
overboard and is swallowed by a whale!
The whale
spits Jonah on the shore and for a second time he’s given his commission as
prophet to preach God’s word of conversion to the Ninevites. We don’t know what Jonah says really. I imagine after asking the people on the beach
for directions, he told them their whole land would soon be destroyed by God. His unhappy and unwilling presence, his
uninviting personality didn’t bring hellos and smiles from the Ninevites, but
to his surprise conversion was totally embraced. Even the king says, ‘let everyone renounce
evil behavior and the wickedness they have done’.
Could Jonah
have skipped his short walk, his overreacting to God’s never-ending mercy,
which triggers a new wave of anger and another request to die? Could it have been the people on the beach who
saw Jonah come forth from the whale and who went to the King saying someone
eaten by a fish just came out alive on our shore? Did they interpret his damp arrival as a sign
from the God of Israel: Behold my best prophet Jonah who is for you a ‘sign of
life’ if you change?
Jonah will
ask only one more time to die. Then he gets it together enough to realize that
he has a long walk back home. No ship
would dare take him. ‘Jonah’, the
captains said shaking their heads. His
story traveled fast, and so it goes even to this day. But he really didn’t ever want to go anywhere
on a boat again.
In the end
Jonah, perhaps an old, grandfatherly figure matured in faith who can laugh,
realizes he was the indeed the message, God’s sign of life. God even enjoyed
his ‘creative alternatives’ and his acting out. Apparently, they invited God’s
playfulness with a prophet in the true Spirit of Israel, one of the least who
was chosen. “How better to demonstrate to the simple Ninevites that God is a
God of life, a God who brings life from the dead. What better way to show hope
than for God choice of this hopeless prophet”? Jonah laughs. “God said he
enjoyed praying with me. I said, ‘playing with me’? God said, “no, Jonah, all
was prayer between you and I. Ours is a story of lavish mercy, of new life.
Thanks for playing!” Jonah concludes: “I tell you as a prophet, my story only
points to a greater story yet to unfold”. God’s Word doesn’t return to God empty. It bears fruit; it fulfills its mission.
The story of
Jonah is an ancient one. Like a lot of
old movies and television shows from the seventies, eighties and nineties,
perhaps a “remake” of the familiar tale would be something like this:
Father Jonah,
a very fine preacher in New York, was praying for his relatives in
Ukraine. His father and mother had come
to the states in the latter part of the 20th Century and had been successful at
settling in and becoming successful with green cards and, gradually,
citizenship. Through the years they had
filled their children with a deep love for the “old country” and took them to
visit grandparents and aunts and uncles on both sides of the family. Unfortunately they had also handed on their
anger and hatred at the people and leaders of Russia.
During Fr.
Jonah’s prayer he heard the Lord ask him to go to Moscow and tell the people of
that great city that unless they repent of their evil God would destroy them in
forty days. The last place in the
world that Fr. Jonah wanted to go to preach the good news was to Moscow. With the war going on his parents’ homeland,
and with the general dismissal of religious teaching, this was an impossible
task. Besides, he was very busy with the
line-up of preaching engagements in the US this lent. So, he boarded the plane for San Francisco to
do just that. But a terrible storm came
in off the Pacific Ocean and made it impossible for the plane to get the West Coast. They landed with some difficulty in a small
airport in South Dakota and John tried to take a bus to the coast to get there
in time for his preaching engagement. The bus ticket he secured was the last sold
and the bus set out, but the storm, now a raging blizzard, swerved north, and
all the roads were quickly closed. The
people on the bus, recognizing his Roman collar begged him to pray for safety
but the storm only became worse. Jonah
got off in a small town in Colorado realizing that he was blessed to still be
alive after the harrowing trip they had, so he grumpily gave up and told God if
he wanted him to go to Moscow God would have to make it possible.
A semi-truck
driver was heading to Denver and offered to take Jonah to the airport there and
Jonah was able get a ticket to Moscow, but he didn’t have enough money to pay
for it. A gentleman near him at the
counter visited with him for a time and then offered to pay his way. He was Russian and longed for his people to
hear someone courageous enough to bring a faith message to them.
Father Jonah
reluctantly arrived in Moscow; certain he would be arrested. Even more, he worried that God would end up
being “soft hearted” and forgive the Russian people for their sins – which Jonah
was not enthusiastic about. He had spent
his life hating the Russians and didn’t want his God loving them!!! He would much rather see them going to hell!
Well the
rest of the story was like the biblical tale –Jonah preached, the people
listened and expressed their repentance by undertaking penance and by demanding
an end to the war. Jonah was angry at
God because of His great mercy to Jonah’s enemies. Why should they be allowed to repent, and why
would God require him to be God’s agent for that repentance?
Both stories
sound a little crazy, but as I was praying with Scripture today, I was struck
by the question of exactly what the “sign of Jonas,” that Jesus is speaking
about in Luke’s Gospel, is [Luke 11:29-32] .
Is the “sign” the three days that Jonah was in a big sea creature’s
stomach (a tomb)? Or was it the three
days he traversed the city and announcing the end times unless people repented? (Lots of three’s here to remind of us death
and resurrection). Was it the fact that
the people heard his preaching, and their hearts were challenged? Or is the Sign of Jonah, that we’ve received,
simply the mercy of God for a “faithless generation”? Or is the sign – that is no sign according to
Jesus – all of these? God loves, calls
to repentance through His agent, and then heals the wrongdoing of enemies. The condition of reception, because humans
have free will, is that we acknowledge and accept God’s grace, not only for
ourselves and our beloved, but for our enemies, despite the seeming
impossibility of that.
This is a
good way to start Lent. To consider that
we imitate God most perfectly when we grasp the sign of Jonah, God’s compassion
for His enemies – for those who hate Him.
During these days may we find the freedom to pray for our enemies –
desiring the very best for each one. I
feel called to ask God in prayer who He wants me to announce forgiveness
for. May God begin with me – but may I
become His partner in sharing that compassion among friends and enemies as
Jonah did, and perhaps as my imaginary Fr. Jonah the preacher might have done.
Oh God,
in the greatness of your compassion wipe out my guilt . . . [Psalms 51]
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