Sermon: Jonah and repentance

When there are hard lessons to be learned, the bible has an uncanny way of using ludicrous stories of outrageous behaviour to get us to face reality. The trouble is, that we take them so seriously that we miss the sheer daftness of the stories and nod piously rather than laugh loudly only to find the tables turned and that we are laughing at ourselves. I think it is like that with today's stories.

Take Jonah, for instance. We heard part of the rather bizarre Old Testament book that bears his name. It's all  bit of an enigma, scholars aren't sure what to make of the book which appears to date from quite late in the history of the Old Testament period, and no one knows who Jonah is or what the book is really about. So I suggest it is best to take it as a story, which it clearly is, and see where that leads us.

It has all the hallmarks of a comedy, if not a pantomime. The word of the Lord comes out of the blue to Jonah, who is living somewhere near Joppa. The story starts in mid sentence as we are pitched into the middle of and argument with no explanation of why Jonah is furious with God about something to do with the city of Nineveh, the capital of th enemy Assyrians. For no apparent reason, at least to us, he can't cope with God being merciful to that city and so doesn't just ignore God's command to go and preach to the city so it can repent, but does the exact opposite. So when God says, in effect, "Turn right and keep going overland for about 600 miles to Nineveh" Jonah turns left and heads off by sea for about 1500 miles to Spain, as far as he can get from Nineveh. That's not a promising start for a prophet. God is cross and hurls a great storm into the Mediterranean, the ship threatens to sink, and the sailors throw the cargo overboard. Meanwhile Jonah, who has already told the sailors he is fleeing from God, sleeps on peacefully until the sailors wake him up. He suggests they throw him overboard which they do, the storm immediately stops and a big fish swallows Jonah. A later editor of the story decides that Jonah ought to pray at this point so adds in a prayer, and whether he prays or not, three days later God speaks to the fish which spews him out on dry land.

That's where we picked the story up, effectively in the middle of a full blown battle of wills between God and Jonah. God is persistent and so the word of the Lord comes a second time to Jonah with the same instruction to go to Nineveh. This time, somewhat unwillingly, Jonah does so. Round one to God. When he gets there he cries out that the city will be destroyed in forty days. And, astonishingly, there is an instant reaction - from the king down to the animals they repent, fast and put on sackcloth, crying to God for mercy. It's a preacher's dream reaction: if even half a dozen of you took this sermon to heart I'd be delighted, but one word from Jonah who doesn't even believe his own message and the whole city, animals and all, is down on its knees praying for forgiveness. It is totally over the top, but then so is the rest of the story. You'd think that Jonah would be thrilled at his success - this surely is the preacher of the year.

But as the last verse of our reading told us, in fact he is furious. We'll never know what was going on between him and God and why Jonah is so implacably opposed to Nineveh getting the chance to repent, but something is drastically wrong with Jonah himself to put him so out of sorts. And there's more to come, he lashes out at God saying that he knew all along this would be the result, in fact his reason for fleeing to Spain was that God is forgiving and ready to relent from punishing. So, please God, take away my life because I can't cope with all of this mercy for sinners.

And then in an episode worthy of Jack and the Beanstalk, God takes him on, growing an instant bush to provide him with shade and thus making Jonah happy for the first time for a long time. But next day God sends a worm which attacks the bush and it withers, seemingly as fast as it grew, then God turns up the heat of the sun and sends a nasty sultry wind to make it worse. So Jonah is cross again, and again complains to God, who asks him if it is right for him to be angry. To this Jonah says yes it jolly well is. And God gets the last word by saying that you are upset about a bush which I gave you then took away, so shouldn't I be upset about a great big city which is full of people who don't know the way, and is also full of animals.

And there the story suddenly ends, just as suddenly as Mark's gospel ends. The storyteller is obviously an animal lover since we've had a big fish, herds and flocks who fast when told to by the king, a worm with extraordinary munching ability, and the last word being God worrying about the welfare of animals. But the storyteller also loves exaggeration used to comic effect, the whole thing is so over the top and appears to be told just for the fun of telling it; on the face of it, it is not told because there is some profound message.

But, there's something pathetically lonely about Jonah and I was reminded of it when our Ash Wednesday speaker drew our attention to Elijah's loneliness when he fled from Jezebel's wrath. When I read today's portion of this story, I was struck by two phrases. It began with "The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time" and it ended with "But this was very displeasing to Jonah". For me the reading is not so much about Nineveh as it is about Jonah in his lonely rage and reluctant discipleship, and the opportunities God gives him to change as he faces him with his anger and disobedience.  Jonah has two chances to obey God and preach so that an enemy city repents, and he does it with bad grace, having an unsettling experience with a big fish in the process. And when they do repent, he is furious and goes on to make a fool of himself over a bush. In fact, we never hear what happens to Jonah in the end, we leave him sulking in the desert. Did God ever get to the bottom of Jonah's anger and absolute resistance to the idea that the people of Nineveh should have a chance to repent? And why on earth did God choose Jonah in the first place, wouldn't it have been easier to find someone less stubborn?

Then there's the gospel, a parable from Jesus about two men praying. Again one is officially the servant of God and one is despised by the religious establishment, not an enemy city as in the Jonah story but a tax collector, someone who had sold out to the hated Romans. And again we have an over the top story - the good faithful religious person parades his credentials in front of everyone and the tax collector is miserable in a corner. But God hears the wrong one, and justifies the outcast but ignores the religious person. Maybe that sheds some light on why God persists with Jonah.

I don't believe we should press what are very obviously stories to seek refined points of doctrine or detailed descriptions of ‘what it means.' Stories are stories, and we need to let them be heard as stories. So, if we put these two stories together and let them comment on each other, and on us, without trying to force meaning from them, I find myself thinking that God has an uncanny way of undermining our religious trappings to get at what is really underneath. Never mind if on the surface we are faithful disciples, what about our underlying motives and driving forces: anger or self-righteousness, or whatever our own besetting sin is that we manage to keep covered up most of the time?

We're at the beginning of Lent, which is why the lectionary has given us two readings about repentance. We can nod sagely at the responsive example of the people of Nineveh and the honesty of the tax collector. But what about Jonah, resisting God who wouldn't let him get away with his anger, his stubborn resistance in turning left instead of right, and his sheer self-centredness with his concern for what is best for him, what keeps the sun off his head? And what about the underlying loneliness and rebellion that drove him to act in this way? We've got six weeks of Lent, perhaps it's time to stop doing what suits us and let God ask us a few questions about our discipleship; to be honest about our own driving forces - what is our equivalent of Jonah's simmering then raging anger? How does God put a finger on it, as he put a finger on Jonah's basic problems? We're stunned by Jonah's behaviour, but Lent is really a time to be outraged by our own behaviour.

The Psalm this morning had a succinct way of putting it, "Thy hands have made me and fashioned me: O give me understanding that I may learn thy commandments." That makes a good prayer for Lent. I don't think Jonah ever understood God's commandment which was driven by compassion for the people of Nineveh, he just saw it as an imposition and thus he missed God's mercy for himself as well. We are human too with all the perversities and complexities of human nature, but St Benedict reminds us, we should never despair of the mercy of God. That's where we can differ from Jonah and that, in essence, is what Lent is about: facing our own outrageous stories and never despairing of the mercy of God.