Jonah: Trying to Run from God

 

     Today we are starting a sermon series in the book of Jonah. And it begins with Jonah being called to the city of Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a little bit Northeast of Israel and would be traveled to by land, so what does Jonah do? He gets on a boat and seeks to travel as far West as he possibly can by sea. Basically, he’s trying to go in the exact opposite direction from Nineveh. The last thing he wants to do is go to Nineveh. So, he sought to flee the command of God by traveling to Tarshish, a city in Spain. You have to remember that at this point no one in Europe or the Middle East knew about the new world of the Americas, so Spain was literally the furthest west point that Jonah knew of that he could possibly travel to. 

        Have you ever felt God calling you to do something that you really didn’t want to do? To give up something in your life that you’d rather keep? To befriend someone you’d rather avoid? To do something that felt scary or out of your comfort zone? I think all of us can empathize somewhat with Jonah in wanting to flee from the commands of God and to do things our own way instead. 

        But Jonah, more than most of us, has some really good reasons for feeling this way. I think that often when Jonah is preached on that we don’t get quite down into the nitty gritty of why exactly Jonah was so opposed of going to Nineveh. So let me tell you why. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria. And Assyria was the warmongering empire of the time, trying to expand its power and influence through military might. With superior siege technology they laid waste to many cities, deporting those whom they captured. To give you an idea of just how violent Assyria was, archaeology has shown us that the royal palace in Nineveh was lined with carved images depicting their military exploits. These images often depicted the cruel violence and torture they committed against their enemies which included impaling, flaying, gouging, and more. Not only did they do these acts, but they were proud of them! And they left many written inscriptions of their violence that are too gruesome for me to read aloud in church. 

       So, I think there are many good reasons that Jonah does not want to go to Nineveh. To go to Nineveh and preach against their wickedness, that feels like it would be about as smart and effective as traveling to Moscow to preach against Vladimir Putin and the evils of the war in Ukraine. It seems like the best case scenario from doing that would be that they just ignore you, but you would certainly risk being imprisoned, tortured, or killed. Jonah’s natural instinct for self-preservation wants him to be as far away from Nineveh as possible. 

       And yet we know that Jonah should have listened to God and obeyed God. That’s just what you’re supposed to do: obey God. But why in the world should Jonah listen to God if he’s given such a dangerous and seemingly foolhardy command? You see, God doesn’t even give Jonah any assurances of safety or success. God merely says, “Go, preach against their wickedness.” Tim Keller says that the analogy of a General and a common soldier is helpful here in understanding why to listen to God. Because if you’re in the midst of war and your general tells you to charge, what do you do? You don’t have time to question the general’s battle tactics. You can’t say, “Excuse me, Mr. General, but from my point of view you are sending us on a suicide mission with very little upside. Could we discuss all the pros and cons of such a decision before I charge ahead to my possible death?” In the heat of the battle, the general doesn’t have time to explain his decisions, and he has to make decisions quickly. Stalling on doing as you’re told could bring disaster for your squad, and disobeying the general could bring about a court-martial. The soldier must simply obey the General. The soldier has to trust that perhaps the General has far more information than he does about the situation, and the he really is making a decision that is in the best interest of the army. The soldier has to charge. 

       If that is the type of trust and respect we give to human generals, how much more trust and respect should we give to God? When he says go, we should go. It doesn’t matter if it seems suicidal, it doesn’t matter if we haven’t been given a full explanation of the situation. God has a bigger and more expansive view of what is happening than we do, and we have to trust that God has a plan. If we are to avoid the sin of Jonah, then we better be willing to obey God even when his commands seem crazy to us. It doesn’t take much faith to trust God when things are easy. It is the real test of faith to trust God when things seem incredibly difficult. 

       There is always the opportunity to obey God, but at the same time, there is always a ship leaving for Tarshish. The devil makes sure that there are always abundant temptations of different routes where we can get off of God’s path and find ways to try and flee God’s will. And if we’re like Jonah, and if we operate out of fear and out of our limited perspective, and if we don’t trust in the greater plans of God, we will try to flee from God. We will go as far west as we can go to Tarshish and Spain. 

       The truth is that trying to flee from God is nothing new. Adam and Eve tried to do it in the garden after the first ever sin. They thought that some leaves and branches could hide them from God. Now, of course that didn’t work. Over time, us humans have gotten more and more clever about ways in which we think we might be able to hide from God, and yet none are any more effective. In Psalm 139 from our call to worship, the psalmist realizes that even hiding in darkness doesn’t work. Neither does sailing to the farthest limits of the sea. Jonah was going to soon figure that out himself. God is everywhere, and everything is known to God. 

      So, let’s see what happens to Jonah on his journey away from Nineveh to Tarshish. And the first thing I want to note here is that we have already gone into great detail about how unsafe Nineveh would be. But Jonah makes an interesting assumption here when he chooses to disobey God. Jonah assumes that it is safer to disobey God than to obey God. He feels so safe that he was fast asleep in the ship. But the truth is that it would be safer to be with God and to be living in Palestine right now where bombs are falling than it would be to be without God and living in all the affluence of Beverly Hills. And we see this in how not long after Jonah is on this ship to Tarshish that a great storm comes upon the sea that threatens the lives of everyone on the boat. Disobeying God is a serious thing. The wages of sin are death. To disobey God often has serious consequences, if not in this life, it can in the life to come. As scary as the violent Ninevites are, we need to realize that, as Jesus said in Matthew 10:28, we should not fear those who can kill the body, but rather should fear Him who is able to destroy both body and soul in hell. As scary as following Jesus can be, it is even scarier to choose not to follow him.

       Now interestingly, as this mighty storm hits, the sailors suddenly become extremely religious. And sailors are not typically thought of in popular consciousness as those who are very religious. There’s a reason we have certain phrases like speaking of those who “curse like a sailor.” But danger has a way of making us suddenly religious, even the most irreligious of us. As I often say, “there are no atheists in the foxholes.” Danger makes all of us pray. And the sailors were very utilitarian about prayer here. They weren’t trying to pray to a specific God, they were trying to pray to as many gods as they possibly could in hopes that maybe one of them would pray to the right God who could help them out. 

      But nothing was working to stop the storm. So, being the utilitarians that they were, they decided to cast lots. Think of this as something like having 20 straws that people draw from and whoever gets the short straw is the guilty one. Now, I don’t think this story is trying to say that we can always discern God’s will by casting lots or rolling die. These men were just desperately trying to do anything they could to figure out God’s will, and God chose to work through the casting of lots in this specific instance. Nor do I think that a storm or natural disaster is always God trying to punish someone. I’m sure the sailors had faced many naturally occurring storms in their lives. But in this instance the storm was caused by God. How did they know this? Maybe there was something seemingly miraculous and different about this storm that made the sailors think it was so certainly supernatural. Or maybe through their superstitions they just happened to be right this once. 

      But I do find the process of casting lots interesting here. Every man on board took part. I think this possibly shows that they all knew that any of them could have rightfully been the culprit for the storm. None of them had lived such an innocent life that they could say, no, no, no, there’s no way the storm is my fault. The sailors weren’t separated between 15 people who seemed righteous enough and 5 people who seemed suspicious and untrustworthy and who alone had to pick lots because the storm was probably the fault of one of them. No, we are all sinners, even the seemingly respectable ones among us. All of us have things in our lives that we could be justly punished for. Now, God was focusing on Jonah’s sin specifically here in this moment with this storm, but all on board were sinners, none were guiltless. We all need God’s grace. 

       But the lot falls on Jonah and he confesses how he is fleeing from God. And after Jonah suggests the idea, they eventually agree that the only way for the ship to be spared is for Jonah to be tossed overboard, that way God’s wrath can fall upon Jonah alone once the ship reaches a safe distance away from him. Now to the men’s credit, they tried to do everything possible to spare Jonah’s life also before they would abandon him. They tried to throw cargo overboard to lighten the ship. They tried to row hard to bring the ship back to land. But nothing was working. After praying that they would not be held guilty for Jonah’s life, they tossed him overboard and suddenly the storm ceased. 

       Fascinatingly, this miracle caused the men to worship Jonah’s God, the true God, the Lord. I find this fascinating because God’s original purpose for Jonah was to have him go and potentially save some people from among the Assyrians. But even when Jonah is on the way to Tarshish, going in the opposite direction from where God wants him, God is still working powerfully through him. It shows us that God can work through our obedience but also through our disobedience. Even in his disobedience, Jonah helped many sailors find faith and salvation. So, if you ever worry that after a period of discerning God’s will for your life that you worry that you chose wrong and that you might not be in the spot where God is really calling you. Guess what? God might still be working powerfully through your life wherever it is that you find yourself right now. God can work redemptively even through our mistakes and our disobedience. Neither assume that just because you are facing difficulty and trials and opposition that you are thus not where God wants you. Sometimes God calls us straight into the lion’s den like with Daniel. Sometimes God calls us to be amidst the violent and warmongering Ninevites.

     But then chapter 1 of Jonah ends with Jonah thrust overboard and Jonah suddenly being swallowed up by a large fish. Now some people make a huge point about how the text here doesn’t say whale, as we often picture it in our popular consciousness, it says large fish. But guess what? Ancient Israelites didn’t have the same scientific classification system as us where we distinguish whales from fish because whales are technically mammals. No, it’s very plausible that they could have called whales big fish. Well, either way it’s kind of an unimportant detail.

      But what is important is that the whale or big fish, it represents the grace of God giving Jonah a second chance. God could have let Jonah die in the stormy sea that day. Jonah would have deserved it. But the storm from God was not meant to destroy, but to reclaim. This is so often the case when we face consequences for the sins we commit. God is not trying to punish us so as to destroy us, but he’s trying to reclaim us and steer us back to the right path. 

      So, we end here on a cliffhanger. Jonah sought to flee from God, but his escape attempt failed. He could not escape the inescapable and ever-present God. And God is giving him a second chance for our God is a God of second chances. When we come back to Jonah we will see if Jonah takes advantage of this second chance. But I want to end by doing something fairly interesting. And I want to real quick just compare and contrast Jonah here to Jesus. 

      Jonah fled from the command of God because he was worried that God’s call may be leading him towards torture or death. Jesus, on the other hand, knew that God was calling him to bear the cross. Jesus nevertheless courageously marched forward to Jerusalem, even knowing that the violence of Rome lay before him. Jesus was faithful even unto death. Jonah made a sacrifice of some good in that he willingly let himself be thrown overboard to save the rest of the crew from the storm, even though it was his fault and his sin that had caused the storm in the first place. Nevertheless, a lesser man would’ve still failed to take responsibility and would’ve brought the whole ship down with him instead of sacrificing himself for the others. But the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross was so much greater than that of Jonah’s, for Jonah was ready to die for his own sin, but Jesus was sinless, and yet Jesus was ready to die for the sins of all others.

      And check out these similarities: Jonah, before he was tossed overboard, the sailors prayed that they would be innocent of this man’s blood. Similarly, Pilate, when the Jews cried for Jesus to be crucified, washed his hands and declared himself innocent for this man’s blood. And whereas Jonah spent three days and three nights in the belly of the fish before being spit out onto dry land, Jesus spent 3 days dead in Hades, in Sheol, in the land of the dead, before he rose again from the dead.

      What fascinating similarities and differences between Jonah and Jesus. And may it remind us of this good news: that who among us would dare to go to violent Nineveh and risk our lives on the off chance that some of the most violent and wicked people might be saved. And yet Jesus willingly left the safety of heaven and came and dwelt among us in this violent and wicked world, and was willing to die, that we undeserving sinners might have a chance to live.