Epiphany 3B

Sunday, January 22, 2012

The Rev'd Lloyd Prator

New York City

From time to time the lectionary gives us little snippets of information about characters it would be better for us to know more completely. Jonah is one of those. He was an Old Testament prophet, known chiefly for the story of his having been swallowed by a large fish and living in the belly of the fish for three days. The Christian church, on reading this story, found parallels between this three-day excursion in the fish and the three-day sojourn in death endured by Jesus before the resurrection.

So Jonah became a star because of his parallels with the story of Jesus.

Jonah and the gospel are both about people who are called to do various things, and in this case, we look at the call of Jonah.

God called Jonah and told him to go to Nineveh, a town he was concerned about because it was a decadent, godless and sinful place.

Now, Jonah was a very unpleasant , bitchy, gripey sort of guy. So, he took off in the opposite direction and took a ship to a distant shore far from Nineveh. When God gave Jonah his instructions, he sort of turned up his nose in disgust and did the opposite.

Now, in the midst of the trip, the ship began to flounder nd by that time the crew had had well enough of Jonah and they pitched him overboard. A great fish swallowed him up — which was probably about as bad for the fish as it had been for the crew to put up with this unpleasant little prophet. One writer suggests that Jonah gave the fish the same kind of indigestion that he had been giving everyone else, including God. In any event, soon, up came the prophet and away swam the big fish resolving never to eat anything that big right before bedtime.

And Jonah decided to go to Nineveh as the Lord had demanded. Now, it is clear that Jonnah was such an unpleasant man that he really did not expect, or even desire, that the Ninevites should repent and change their ways. But, that they did. And they scheduled revivals, and started having daily Morning Prayer, and built a hospital for the poor, and generally became quite enamored of God and God’s requirements for being faithful.

The next time we see Jonah, he is outside town sitting in the sun. And the Lord caused a leafy castor plant to grow up to give him shade. And then God caused the plant to wither away, and Jonah sulked. “What is this all about?” said God to Jonah. “Was it wrong of me to have mercy upon thousands of people and spare them, while you are sulking just because a plant you did not plant or fertilize has died? What is wrong with having pity for a whole group of people who are going to hell in the proverbial handbasket unless they change their ways? You ought to be happy!”

There is little record of whether or not Jonah was ever happy, but at least he understood about the importance of the Ninevites repenting and that God could do things in other cultures if he wanted.

What are we to take from this story?

For one thing, consider that you do not have to be a well-tempered gentleman or lady to be used by God. God has plenty of use for everyone including the slow, the difficult, the intractable, and even the arrogant. There is room for everyone.

Second, the purposes of God are going to be fulfilled, no matter what it might take to do it. God even uses the ungodly as a way to fulfill his purposes. He just remakes them from the inside out before he sets about using them.

And, in fact, Jonah was, in a way, remade too. He was remade from the inside out, rom the inside of the belly of the fish. Sometimes God simply has to restart us and that involves beginning our live over again. In the resurrection, he promises just exactly that. In baptism and in our own death and rising, he makes it happen.

But probably more than anything else, God is calling us not to be afraid of that which is unknown. Jonah did not know the Ninevites and what he knew he did not like. But they proved to be open to the call of God. In fact, more open than Jonah, the faithful Jew, ever was. When we open ourselves to others and to other expressions of their faith, we may become instruments for God to make us better known to other people and a better source of their care, conversion and faith.

So, watch for the indigestion. What gives you indigestion and what gives other a pain in the — whatever.

Bless Jonah who shows the way.