Don't make God send the big fish.

A sermon preached at Faith Episcopal Church, August 7, 2005

Jonah is the most reluctant prophet in the Bible. Others had been hesitant, like Moses who tried to get out of confronting Pharaoh by pointing out to God that he was “slow of speech.” God said “Not a problem.” Moses went. Jeremiah thought being a boy disqualified him for prophetic service. But he set about to do God’s work. The prophet Amos told the king – I’m not a prophet or a prophet’s son, I’m a herdsman and a dresser of sycamore trees. But the Lord told me to speak, so here it is… Then we have Jonah.

As his story opens, we know nothing about Jonah except his father’s name – and we know that God has a plan for Jonah. Right off the bat, God says, “Go to Ninevah and tell them that I know what they’ve been up to and I’m not happy.” Now very often in the Bible, when God’s begins a conversation with someone, they respond with “Here I am, Lord.” Not Jonah, he runs out the back door, down to the harbor and hops a freighter to Tarshish. He’s trying to run away from God. Silly man.

God, not easily fooled, sends a storm to remind Jonah of who’s who and what’s what. The poor sailors are getting bounced around by this storm and the boat is about break apart. So they throw their cargo overboard to lighten the boat. Jonah meanwhile is managing to sleep through the excitement until the captain wakes him up and asks him to call upon his god to help them. In desperation, the sailors take out something like a ouija board to figure out what – or who – has brought this storm down on them and low and behold, it spells out Jonah. They drag him up on deck and say “who are you?” He says, I’m a Hebrew and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land.” The sailors realize that they are the innocent bystanders caught in Jonah’s personal problem with God. Jonah at least has the good graces to suggest that they throw him overboard. The sailors consider the strength of the storm and figure that they don’t want this god mad at them so they try to row out of trouble but as you might expect, they can’t. Finally they figure that Jonah has to go but first they cry out to God saying “just know that we don’t want to do this, but we have no choice, please don’t hold it against us.” And over the side he goes.

Now every kid in Sunday School knows what happens next – cue the big fish! Jonah spends three days and three nights in the belly of the fish – praying up a storm. Eventually, God has a word with the fish and it hurls Jonah up onto the beach. I’m picturing Bill Murray in this role as God bends down and says, “Let’s try that again. Go to Ninevah.” And Jonah, who doesn’t need to be swallowed by a fish twice to figure things out goes to Ninevah. It would appear that God has an interesting take on that gift of free will.

Once in that fabled city, Jonah he begins to shares God’s plan to destroy the city within forty days unless they quit being so evil and violent. The greatest miracle of Jonah’s story is that the people of Ninevah, from the king on down, listened and did exactly what God wanted – they repented of their evil ways. Since God’s desire was for the people to change, once they had, God was satisfied and commuted their sentence. Jonah, however was furious at this turn of events and says “This is why I didn’t want to do this; I knew that you would do this. You drag me all over creation and then you don’t even obliterate them. Just kill me now!” God’s lesson of obedience and mercy falls on deaf ears and a stubborn heart. Jonah remains the only truly successful prophet in the Bible and he can’t stand it.

At some point Jonah would have done well to remember Ps. 139. “Where shall I go from your Spirit? Or where shall I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there! If I make my bed in Sheol, you are there! If I take the wings of the morning and dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me.” Bottom line – you can run from God but you can’t hide.

We do have free will, and God will let us exercise it. But when God wants your attention, your free will is not the last word. Free will doesn’t mean that God has to play by your rules. God’s usual tactic is to see to it that the places in which you chose to hide, become inhospitable to you. If you’re ignoring God, storms will rage around you and your surroundings might begin to resemble the insides of a big fish. The smartest thing you can do is to exercise your free will and go along with God.

This weekend marks my one year anniversary of coming to California and to Faith Episcopal. I learned to quit running from God a long time ago. It hasn’t always made my life easy, but it’s certainly never dull. How else would one get from a gothic cathedral in Paris to a store front church in Orange County and know that that’s a good thing? In some ways, the ministry at the Cathedral had become to easy for me, while there was good that I was doing, it was time to be somewhere else. I tried to ignore God, just at I had ignored God when I denied the pull in my heart to go to seminary. I remember saying, “God, you big kidder, I’ve got other things to do!” God’s next move was to see to it that all of those other things that I thought were so important, suddenly weren’t there any more. My work, my hobbies and eventually my carefully maintained illusions. As I lay there on the beach gasping for air, God said, “OK, Let’s try that again. Go to seminary.” Like Jonah, I got up and went.

Not everyone has that kind of direction changing encounter with God. There are much more subtle ways to ignore God and God’s will. There’s been much written about what attracts young people to violent ideologies. I saw an article last week about the pervasive European rejection of traditional religion – mainly Christianity and the difficultly that has created as they struggle to live with a thriving, growing Islamic population. When people no longer come together in some sort of community of faith there is no regular forum to be reminded of love of neighbor, ethics and a connection to Spirit. The void that that creates will be filled with something – whether its despair or an alternative philosophy either positive or dangerous. I witnessed it in France and know that it is also true of England. When people turn their backs on relationship with God, souls get hungry.

While God is the ultimate mystery, God is not that mysterious. God loves you and wants to have a relationship with you. God loves everybody else too and wants you to remember that and treat them as if they were God’s beloved. When you think about it, that’s pretty much the message God asked Jonah to take to Ninevah, minus the threat of annihilation.

We’ve all got a little bit of Jonah in us. Little moments in which we cover our ears so we don’t have to hear what God would have us do or be. But take heart, God is persistent and will find lots of creative ways to get you to Ninevah. Listen to God and spend some time considering what God’s will might look like, lived out in your life. Then don’t wait, don’t make God send in the big fish. Go willingly, because when God’s purpose for your life is served, the coming of the Kingdom is just that much closer.