Preacher: Pastor Nathan Hosler, PhD

Date: January 21, 2024

Scripture: Jonah 3:1-5, Jonah 3:10, Mark 1:14-20

The fish was huge!

It was, at least, big enough for us to keep and eat—(I didn’t really like it as a child).

If I say, “Jonah and the….” How do you fill in? Jonah and the big fish or Jonah and the whale, I presume. I am not a fishing person (the catch just referenced was perhaps the only time I have fished) however, culturally we have the tradition of the “one that got away.” Fish described are likely bigger than the actual fish—it was huge! Jonah and the big fish is similar. It occupies a larger-than-life place in cultural awareness and imagination. It’s the sort of story that The Economist—a decidedly secular magazine might reference for literary point and expect readers to get.

Despite this current awareness, biblically speaking, the person of Jonah only shows up at one other point in the Hebrew Bible—2 Kings 14:25.

Both Jenn and I typically write our sermons at home rather than here at church. This is largely, but perhaps not solely because being a preacher has not been our primary work but something in addition to our primary work. Because of this, our extra books are mostly at home rather than in the church building. Additionally, I write early in the morning before others awake so I need to gather the books I need the night before. We have a set large reference books which group the books of the Bible by section or genre.

As I reached for the book with Jonah in it, I paused, “wait…is Jonah a prophetic book or something else?” It doesn’t seem like a prophet. Prophetic books are usually very wordy. Almost all words and little action (narrative). They often have colorful speech, visions, and imagery and are almost all words of the prophet—or rather, the words of God as conveyed by the prophet.

Incidentally, the book I was reaching for and read the next morning starts with this same observation. “The book of Jonah is unusual among the prophets because it recounts a story about the prophet himself rather than mainly preserving the words that he preached.(Dictionary of the Old Testament Prophets, D. Stuart, 455)” While there are Jonah’s  words to God and to the sailors, his actual preaching/prophetic words to the people of Nineveh are only recorded as 5 Hebrew words—“Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.”

Our official passage today is chapter 3 verses 1-5 and 10. In these short verses we have the 2 themes that are recuring throughout the entire (short) book. They are the call of God and the mercy of God. The call of God and the mercy of God.

A scholar notes that the book indicates that he, like many of is fellow Israelites of his day, was “an ardent nationalist, pro-Israel, antiforeign, and particularly anti-Assyrian. (Jonah, Dictionary of the Old Testament Prophets, D. Stuart 456).” The Ninevites, to whom he is sent are these Assyrians. They are the enemies.

 While there is disagreement on when the book was written in relation to the person of Jonah, there are some good indicators that it was written a good bit later. For example, the writer gives hint to the outsized place of Nineveh in the memories of the people. The Assyrians and Nineveh played large and negative role in the life of the Israelites (Hosea-Micah, Interpretation, James Limburg, 150). These were the enemies and Jonah knew it and the readers/hearers knew it. They were the enemies.

The Ninevites loomed large in the imaginations of the hearers. Jonah and the whale loom large in our imaginations. The book is, however, rather short. I knew it was short but when I opened to the passage earlier this week, I was a bit surprised when reminded just how short. In my new New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition it is less than 2 physical pages. We are going to read through. Keep in mind the two themes I highlighted—the call of God and the mercy of God.

There are a number of additional subthemes, turning points, or theological observations in the text that I named:

Call (by God of Jonah)

Agency/ability to decide how to respond (Jonah runs)

Provision (big fish “provided” to rescue Jonah)

Symbolic death (going into the big fish for three days)

Symbolic resurrection (getting spewed out of the tomb/fish)

Response and repentance (Jonah’s second call)

Response and repentance (of the people in response to Jonah’s 5 word sermon)

Mercy (of God)

Anger (of Jonah)

Provision/mercy (of a plant to shade)

Anger (of Jonah when plant dies)

Valuing (of the people of Nineveh by God)

Watch for these but also pay attention to the call of God and the mercy of God throughout.

1 Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, ² “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.” ³ But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

⁴ But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up. ⁵ Then the sailors were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold of the ship and had lain down and was fast asleep. ⁶ The captain came and said to him, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up; call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.”

⁷ The sailors^[a] said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. ⁸ Then they said to him, “Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?” ⁹ “I am a Hebrew,” he replied. “I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” ¹⁰ Then the men were even more afraid and said to him, “What is this that you have done!” For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so.

¹¹ Then they said to him, “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” For the sea was growing more and more tempestuous. ¹² He said to them, “Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you, for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.” ¹³ Nevertheless, the men rowed hard to bring the ship^[b] back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. ¹⁴ Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood, for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” ¹⁵ So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea, and the sea ceased from its raging. ¹⁶ Then the men feared the Lord even more, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

^17 [c]But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

2 Then Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish, ² saying,

“I called to the Lord out of my distress,
    and he answered me;
out of the belly of Sheol I cried,
    and you heard my voice.
³ You cast me into the deep,
    into the heart of the seas,
    and the flood surrounded me;
all your waves and your billows
    passed over me.
⁴ Then I said, ‘I am driven away
    from your sight;
how shall I look again
    upon your holy temple?’
⁵ The waters closed in over me;
    the deep surrounded me;
weeds were wrapped around my head
⁶     at the roots of the mountains.
I went down to the land
    whose bars closed upon me forever;
yet you brought up my life from the Pit,
    O Lord my God.
⁷ As my life was ebbing away,
    I remembered the Lord,
and my prayer came to you,
    into your holy temple.
⁸ Those who worship vain idols
    forsake their true loyalty.
⁹ But I with the voice of thanksgiving
    will sacrifice to you;
what I have vowed I will pay.
    Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”

¹⁰ Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out onto the dry land.

3 The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, ² “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” ³ So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. ⁴ Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” ⁵ And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

⁶ When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. ⁷ Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. ⁸ Humans and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. ⁹ Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”

¹⁰ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them, and he did not do it.

4 But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. ² He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning, for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment. ³ And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” ⁴ And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” ⁵ Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

⁶ The Lord God appointed a bush and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort, so Jonah was very happy about the bush. ⁷ But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. ⁸ When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

⁹ But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” ¹⁰ Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. ¹¹ And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals?”

—-

The call of God and the mercy of God. God called Jonah to go and preach to the people of Nineveh. Jonah, prophet of God, balks and runs. The idea of preaching to his enemies and opening the door to repentance and God’s mercy is too much. He spends a great deal of time and money going as far as he can the wrong way.

 He knows that God is a God of mercy, and he does not want his enemies to get a chance. In fact, in anger at God’s mercy he states this—That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning, for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment. –I knew it! So predictable.

Along the way, the sailors who are from a variety of religious backgrounds, go out of their way and endanger themselves in order to spare this fellow who brought the storm upon them. Eventually they relent, asking for mercy, and throw Jonah overboard. God then, in mercy, “provided”—some translations say “appointed”  a great fish to save him from certain demise in the open sea.

From the belly of the sea creature Jonah cries out to God. And God spoke to—calls (in a manner)—to the fish and the fish delivered (which the text less diplomatically says “vomited”) the soggy prophet onto the beach. And again, God calls Jonah. This time Jonah goes, albeit seemingly with little enthusiasm.

Arriving in Nineveh, which the writer highlights and emphasizes as exceedingly large, Jonah preaches—proclaims the call of God. “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” Surprisingly, everyone, even the king, even the animals repent, fast, and put on clothing of mourning.

It may be that the sailors had come back and recounted what happened at sea. It may have been that God in some mysterious way had prepared their hearts. It may be, as one scholar noted, that given the religious inclinations of the day, a strange person arriving suddenly carried significant power of conviction.

Whatever the case, “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed [God’s] mind about the calamity…and did not do it.”

God’s call and God’s mercy. The book does not tell if Nineveh stuck with this change of course or if Jonah went on to more readily answer God’s call in the future. The book ends with Jonah being reproved—a reaffirmation of God’s mercy.

⁹ But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” … “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. ¹¹ And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left and also many animals?”

God shows mercy to the enemies of God’s people. We are called to experience this mercy of God and we are called to share and live it—the call to mercy applies to ourselves and inner life, to our interpersonal relationships, our neighborhoods, and even to how we think of geopolitics. In the Sermon on the Mount, it is the rationale that undergirds the call to love your enemy. It links God’s character to our character.

⁴³ “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ ⁴⁴ But I say to you: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, ⁴⁵ so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good and sends rain on the righteous and on the unrighteous.

This is our call from God—to experience God’s mercy and to live this mercy.

Image: 1960 Marc Chagall Bible Series Jonah And The Whale Limited Ed