God, You Can’t Make Me!

Sermon Jonah 3:1-5, 10 January 25, 2015

God, You Can’t Make Me!

So friends here we are in the middle of the whale tale that we heard as children. We have heard the Scriptures tell us this morning that the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time… “Go to Ninevah…and proclaim the message I told you”.

Jonah is a fabulous tale of the human response to God’s grace. We all imagine ourselves as wonderful followers of God and as ones who appreciate God’s grace in all circumstances and for all creation.

Yet, Jonah puts some comical truth to our own responses, should we be the ones to live in his shoes.

Jonah demonstrates his reaction to serving God with great exaggeration

through flight from reality,

the holding of himself and others hostage in his anxiety,

and his resistance to the fullness of grace and love.

Jonah is called by God to get on a ship to Ninevah to cry out to them that God is aware of their wickedness.

Well, Jonah is no fool.

The Ninevites are the worst enemy of the people of Israel.

He would be putting his life on the line.

He would be walking into a death trap and would probably be burned alive, as these Ninevites were in the habit of doing.

To help us understand his position, who are the people we imagine as our worst enemy?

Who is the person we cannot fathom ever showing love to?

This story is so unlike the stories of the disciples who jump out of their boats and come running to Jesus when he calls them to a life of discipleship.

That is the idea we hold in our minds and hearts when we think of responding to God’s call.

But here in the story of Jonah we discover the raw reality of fear.

 And the rapid response of running away.

In psychology this is known as the flight or fight response in the presence of danger.

And for Jonah the presentation of his call to be a prophet in a foreign land puts him in the face of danger.

He responds with a defiant, “God, you can’t make me go!”

And seriously folks don’t you think our first reaction to this idea of following God or even believing in God is more like Jonah than Peter?

 Because this turn around new way of living for God can either catch us by surprise with a falling down on our knees in awe of our maker or it can scare the bergeebers out of us.

SO in the face of what was before him Jonah decided that his best solution was to go in the opposite direction. He rushes down to Joppa and jumps on the first cruise line headed to the Spanish coast. The Tarshish beaches are most appealing and so is the scenery in that part of the Mediterranean. Can you see him already kicked back on a beach chair soaking in the warm rays of the sun?

He has no idea that his flight away from his troubles does not free him from danger but puts him and now others in the direct path of disaster. His actions have caused others to become hostages to his anxiety. The storm rages and the waves crash across the deck of the boat. The ship is tossed in all directions and is taking on water and it appears that it will sink unless some of the cargo is tossed overboard to distribute the weight and keep it afloat. Jonah who has carefully kept himself hidden from the crew recognizes that God is the one who has sent the storm.

The crew fear God and don’t want to throw Jonah overboard even though he insists. Finally they relent and do as he asks and immediately the storm stops. The crew fall on their knees in awe of God and believe. Jonah becomes the instrument of God’s salvation. They are no longer held hostage by Jonah’s fears.

But God now holds Jonah captive in the belly of the fish that swallowed him up after he was hurled into the sea.

There he is in a three day, dark, damp, smelly, time out set by God for him to have a ‘think it over again’ opportunity.

Now the Scriptures say that he repented and that he sang hymns and psalms and prayed and raised his voice in thanksgiving knowing that God is the One who saves.

It would appear as we arrive at our text for today that Jonah was now in full swing of God’s claim on him.

The fish has spit him out just one days journey from Ninevah.

How convenient.

He will go and do what God has called him to do.

He enters the city of Ninevah and with a loud voice calls out to the people, “Forty days more and Ninevah will be overthrown.”

Wow!

That felt good.

Just one sentence is all it took.

He didn’t have to fear so much after all.

He yelled out the doom and gloom God told him to do and that was it.

Perhaps he could still go back to his people and bring grand news of the end of a wicked people. ‘Ok, God,’ he thinks, ‘perhaps you can make me do it if this is all it takes.’

I know for a fact in my own life, even with profound faith in God and earnest prayers to God I have prayed for God’s justice to prevail on people who I knew and still believe are wicked. But much to my dismay and especially to my serious frustration, God has not honored my prophecy of destruction.

As a matter of fact often I still remain hostage to my anger, my fear and my anxiety over these things. And rather than being helpful it becomes like the storm that pervaded the ship and affects way too many people, more than I could ever have imagined.

God honor the depths of Jonah’s desire.

As soon as the king hears the news he jumps to action.

He is so repentant and ready to turn to a new way of life he orders the entire city of 120,000 people to put on sack cloth and ashes and turn their hearts to God.

Not only does he want God to know how serious he is about his change of heart and his faith in God he does one more thing.

He makes sure that all the animals all of God’s creation are included in this act of repentance and facing God in love.

So there you have it, cows, sheep, goats, camels, pigeons, and people all covered with soot from head to toe.

An entire city sitting in a heap of ash, and shouting out to God that they will not only believe but will no longer live in wickedness.

The people were not destroyed at all.

God’s mercy rained down on them. God’s grace flooded the city over all of the creatures of the land.

This is where the story of our childhood stops.

This is the point that most sermons stop. Jonah preached God’s word and the people repented and everyone went home and lived happily ever after.

But, Scripture doesn’t make it that simple.

None of the stories are Cinderella fables.

The most important chapter of this book is the fourth chapter. It is the ‘Paul Harvey’ twist to the ‘rest of the story’.

Jonah is MAD! He’s like, “Why’d you even bother with me in the first place-you could have done all this without me-I could have stayed on that sunny beach in Spain and all this love of yours would have happened anyway!”

He’s so mad he tells God to, ‘just let me die!’

His defiant words are his way of saying, ‘God, you can’t make me appreciate your love for others!”

This riptide of resistance is what catches us!

Everything about God’s grace runs counter to Jonah’s intent! God keeps gushing forward with love for the most unlovable and Jonah keeps running up against that love with anger.

But it only gets worse for Jonah.

He stomps out of the city and sits on the hill overlooking it and waits. He still hopes that God will destroy the city!

As he is pouting God provides a plant that brings him shade and comforts him.

But when God causes the plant to die exposing Jonah to the hot sun and a miserable desert wind kicks up, Jonah cries and whines at the loss of this precious plant.

And here is where God leaves Jonah and the story open ended, with the same question God had asked Cain, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

You are upset about your losses, your comfort, your circumstances…and here is an entire city at a loss and where is your mercy?

We can yell at God telling God you can’t make me in the way we live,

the way we treat others,

the way we do church,

the way we work,

the way we share the gospel message,

 but God’s mercy is greater than any riptide that tries to run counter to God’s intent.

Grace wins, it always wins, and it will keep on winning.

In the end, if God calls on us to share the gospel and we decided to run in the other direction,

look out for storms,

big fish and

shriveled plants.

Amen.