third sunday after the epiphany

Shepherd of the Hills Ev. Lutheran Church (WELS)

Stubborn and Persistent

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

¹ Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: ² “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”  ³ Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. ⁴ Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”  ⁵ The Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth. ¹⁰ When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. (NIV)

Now that is how it’s supposed to work, isn’t it?  Here we have a textbook, picture perfect example of how the relationship between God and man should work out.  The Lord gave Jonah his marching orders to go to Ninevah and preach the message of repentance. He did just that.  The Ninevites heard the message, repented, and were spared from destruction at God’s hand.  It couldn’t have worked out any better.  This is an example of the ideal.  God speaks, we listen, carry out his will, and everything plays out just as he promises.  We all live happily ever after, just like Jonah and the people of Ninevah.  End of story.

Except that this was the sequel.  The original, you recall, didn’t turn out so well, which is why the sequel was necessary.  It’s often said that the sequel rarely lives up to the original.  But in this case, it was the original that had gone horribly wrong.

Note the first verse of our Lesson from Jonah this morning: “Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time.”  That word needed to come a second time, because the first time it didn’t play out like it was supposed to.  This was take two, for in the first take our main character misread his lines and didn’t act according to God’s script.  Here’s a quick recap of how it worked out the first time: “The word of the LORD came to Jonah, son of Amittai: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.’  But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish” (Jonah 1:1-3a). 

There was nothing picture perfect or ideal about the prophet’s response to God’s command the first time.  It would have been bad enough had Jonah merely argued with God or questioned his orders, or even gone about his work half-heartedly; but instead Jonah took off running in the opposite direction.  If you are a parent or grandparent with a little one, you know how much it makes your blood boil when you shout out, “Come here,” or “Time to go,” and the little one takes off in the other direction sprinting away from you as quickly as possible.  And that was essentially how Jonah was acting – like a two year-old child.

Behavioral psychologists speak of a “fight or flight” response.  The phrase refers to that moment when a person or animal is threatened and must make a split-second decision of whether to stay and fight, or flee to safety.  Fight or flight?  Jonah did both.  His chosen response to the Lord’s directive was to fight him on it by fleeing from him.

What did Jonah have against the Lord’s marching orders?  As the book of Jonah later indicates in the fourth chapter, he seemed to take issue with the very real possibility of God showing any compassion whatsoever to the Ninevites.  They were, after all, Gentiles, and they had quite a wicked reputation.  Jonah may then have been quite intimidated by the prospect of having to openly rebuke such widespread wickedness, the same way we don’t get too excited today about vocally calling out any number of sins that have become so commonly accepted and prevalent in our day and age.  Such rebukes are rarely appreciated, and are often met with open hostility.  Jonah likely wasn’t too excited about being a punching bag in that respect.  Whatever the reason, he dropped the ball on following God obediently.

And that’s about when we look at Jonah and realize we see a lot of similarities between his childish behavior and our own at times.  God expresses his will for us – he gives us the script in his Word – and rather than reading our lines and playing the part we’re supposed to, we improvise and think the scene will play out better if we take it in a different direction.  The Lord says to trust in him above all things at all times no matter what the circumstances, and we take that to apply only so long as there is plenty of food in the fridge, money in the bank, and security in the workplace.  But the second any of those start running dangerously low, trust in God is thrown out the window, we go into panic mode, and assume this must mean it’s time to take matters into our own hands.  In such cases, do you see yourself running from God in the other direction, just like Jonah did?

God encourages us to love and serve one another, especially believers, and to assume the best of others, always taking their words and actions in the kindest possible way.  But we narrow that down so that the call to love and serve refers only to those who share the same views on things that I do, or only those who are kind to me in return, or only those who are deserving of my loving service as I determine.  Rather than putting self second and others first in every situation, we pick and choose when and if our need for loving service applies.  When that happens, do we see ourselves running from God in the other direction, just like Jonah did?

Don’t worry if you don’t initially recognize it, because if you don’t, God has a way of getting our attention and helping us recognize it, just like he did with Jonah.  Jonah did end up finding a ship and setting sail as he continued in his endeavor to thwart the Lord’s plans.  He didn’t get very far, as the account tells us: “Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up” (Jonah 1:4).  How do we know this got Jonah’s attention?  He indicated as much to the other sailors.  “‘Pick me up and throw me into the sea,’ he replied, ‘and it will become calm.  I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you’” (1:12).  

And then… it happened.  The part of the story that put Jonah on the map.  “But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights” (1:17).  Though the “great fish” is usually the first thing we think of when we hear the name “Jonah,” let us not be awestruck so much by a man being swallowed by a fish as we are by a man being rescued by grace.

What Jonah deserved for running from God in sin was to sink lifelessly to the bottom of the sea.  What he deserved was to have the Lord turn his back on him, just as he had done to the Lord.  But God didn’t.  Instead he graciously chose to rescue Jonah and spare his life.  Then he graciously chose to come to Jonah a second time and give him another opportunity to be a part of his grace in action by going to the Ninevites.  Finally, even after the Lord brought the Ninevites to repentance and Jonah expressed his extreme frustration and displeasure – even then God didn’t give up on Jonah, but used a vine and a worm as object lessons to  demonstrate that he is in the soul-saving business, and that means extending his grace to whomever he wants, whenever he wants to, regardless of what Jonah or anyone else wants.

We, like Jonah, are so stubborn by nature.  But the Lord is persistent, isn’t he?  He is so persistent in wanting to dole out his grace and forgiveness in the richest measures, even when we do all we can to sidetrack him.  He so wants his grace and forgiveness to be known in our lives and the lives of others.  We run the other direction, but he has already anticipated it and lovingly chases us down with his grace.  He wants us to recognize and acknowledge when we are running the other direction in sin, only so that he can appropriate the proper means of his grace in order to restore our guilty and regretful hearts.

The Lord encourages us to let his Word dwell in us richly for the very purpose of showing us how persistent he is in blanketing us with his grace.  “Give my Word proper place in your home,” he tells us, not to make us feel guilty when we don’t, but to showcase his grace in Christ all the more when we do.  “Don’t give up meeting together on Sunday mornings,” he reminds us, so that we can read and study and grow in that grace collectively with fellow believers.  “Don’t forget your baptism,” he reminds us, so that we recall that the garment of grace and Christ’s righteousness that he adorned us with then is still draped around our shoulders today.  “Take and eat; take and drink,” he invites us, so that Jesus’ body and blood, in, with, and under the bread and wine, might tangibly assure us that peace has been restored and that each and every time we’ve ever run from God, his grace has left no record of it.  It has been forgiven and forgotten.  God’s persistent grace and his unlimited forgiveness far outlast our sinful stubbornness.

And isn’t that what this account is really all about?  So many want to make Jonah primarily into an example of what happens when we disobey the Lord.  His story is used by many Christians to moralize and encourage obedience by showing what happens when we ignore God and try to do things our way.  Learning the lesson that it’s necessary to obey God certainly has its place, but this whole account has much less to do with learning from Jonah’s disobedience, and much more to do with being knocked off our feet by God’s persistent grace – grace that he patiently showed Jonah repeatedly, but just as much the grace that he ultimately was so determined to show to the people of Ninevah.  Really, Jonah was simply the subplot.  The main storyline was God wanting to show how gracious he was by extending his grace to the likes of wicked Ninevah. 

The season of Epiphany is about God revealing his salvation to the world, including Gentiles like the Ninevites and Gentiles like you and me.  Though we may remain stubborn sinners until the day we die, our gracious God will remain persistent, doing whatever it takes – even sending storms at sea or swallowing sailors with huge fish – to see that his persistent grace wins out. Amen.