My wife shared with me recently she read the story of Jonah in her quiet time. As she relayed the story and I thought I about it I felt the familiar feeling of discomfort or exasperation with the story of Jonah. Of course, if God told us to do something directly we would do it. Silly Jonah. I love the VeggieTales version, by the way, when the Asparagus runs away with the "pirates who don’t do anything". It begins so perfectly with “A message from the Lord” where Jonah the Asparagus piously tells everyone else what God wants them to do -until he receives a message from the Lord for himself which gives him pause. He must go to the people of Nineveh (enemies of the Jewish people) and tell them to repent. He refuses and runs away.
But my exasperation at the story comes from the thought that, “aren’t I already doing what I am supposed to be doing, God? I tithe. I (used to) teach Sunday school. I go to church, I do all the things, don’t I? Its almost a defensiveness with God. Aren’t I doing enough?
I think maybe that defensiveness I feel in my soul betrays a deeper feeling for me and reveals the meaning of the story of Jonah itself. Let me explain.
The story of Jonah means that the thing that you know you most ought to do, but don’t want to do is the thing you most need to do. Sit for a moment and ask yourself, maybe even ask God, what am I not doing right now that I should be doing? Or what am I doing that I should not be doing? For me there is always something that comes to mind. This quiet voice is God gently nudging us. (It's not ALWAYS gentle as the story of Jonah tells us, by the way).
These things that we ignore are where we need to focus. This can be small (from that little file on the side of your desk you’ve been ignoring for other pressing things, or returning that phone call), or sometimes even as simple as doing the dishes. But it can also be huge things. Life altering things.
For me there are many. I know I need to not be so selfish with my time and attention, be forgiving, let go of the grudge, I need to get my social media time under control, I need to be more responsible with how I use alcohol. Or this one, which I know my kids will know is true, I need to stop losing my temper with my kids, this one… this one hurts. This is what I most know in my heart I need to handle well. . .
But the story gets even more confusing. Jonah gets eaten by a fish. What?!? Why?! What does that mean for us? Well in the story this happens immediately after Jonah takes responsibility for his own disobedience. He says I am the cause. He says, “It's me, hi, I’m the problem its me.” (sorry couldn’t resist laying out a Taylor Swift reference).
I believe this is a fulcrum point for a good life. When you can take responsibility for your own life. “Its my fault.” That is when you can change. That is when you can root out those incongruent parts of yourself and become better. And sometimes it’s unreasonable! Sometimes it’s just storming outside!
We, like Jonah could often say, “I don’t control the rain! GOD DOES! Why is he doing this to me?!” (When we do this we're forgetting even if we didn't control the immediate circumstance we absolutely made choices that placed us there). I think maybe because God wants us to take radical responsibility for our lives because he wants us to become more like Him. He wants us to be better and take responsibility for our own lives. And when we do that, when we say, "I am responsible, I am wrong", something incredible happens.
Jonah is then in the belly of the fish for 3 days. The book of Matthew has truly baffling commentary on this, it compares Jesus being dead for three days and coming back to life to Jonah being in the fish.
WTF. What the fish.
What could this possibly mean? What does Jonah have in common with Christ? To me the answer is this: it’s not that Jonah is like Jesus, but that we are like Jonah. We like Jonah, have been called into following Christ (I know this is pre-Christ, but hang with me). Jesus calls us to follow him. Not only that but to take up our cross and follow him. And not only that our baptism symbolizes our death burial and resurrection with Him. So, we like Jonah surrender. We say, "its me I’m the one that’s wrong and sinful". And we die. We are thrown into the water. We are swallowed up with Jesus in his death and through Him we are saved and resurrect with him as we come out of the water. We are no longer a slave to these things which hold us down. I’m no longer a slave to sin. I am a child of God. The Story of Jonah is the story God’s future redemption of the individual and of the world.
Romans 6:4-7 says,
“We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.”
In Jonah’s prayer, like our prayer, he cries out to God in his distress, “The waters closed in over me to take my life, the deep surrounded me the weeds were wrapped about my head… yet you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God. When my life was fainting away I remembered the Lord.”
God then saved Jonah and He will save us. We acknowledge our brokenness and sin and turn it over to Him and He saves us.
The end of the story is still puzzling, but maybe it shouldn’t be. God saves Jonah. Jonah obeys and God saves the City. But Jonah is angry at the lack of justice. He wants Ninevah to be destroyed. He does not want forgiveness for the city. He is so angry he wants to die. We, even after we have been saved and forgiven, want Justiceon others. We forget we were once there too and also deserved God’s justice. The Bible ends the story with a call to Jonah from God to have empathy for those people.
We, even after we have been forgiven so much, can let anger and bitterness sour our lives, our work. When this happens maybe we should take that bitterness and do the thing we know we should do, but don’t want to do ... forgive. Forgive like Jesus forgave. Because we have been forgiven. Maybe the end of the story is like that to tell us we are in a process, maybe even a cycle, of redemption and sanctification. Keep going. There will be times that will be hard and you might even be so angry you want to die. And that’s ok. We have a path to eternal life and peace. Keep on that path.