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Week Forty-Seven, Day Five

Jonah

Right after the least known book in the bible we find one of the most popular: Jonah.

Every child knows a bit of the story of Jonah and the whale, but, like so much of the Bible, we seem to know the story but not the point. I mean think about it, what was the lesson of this story? If you know then I suspect you have a preacher or Sunday School teacher to thank.

The book is actually about Jonah, not by Jonah. No one knows who the author actually was. The story is a great parable, but, since Jonah doesn’t come off looking like the best or even brightest person, it is unlikely that it is meant to be autobiographical. It is also not intended to be historical/factual. Perhaps we have spent so much time wondering how Jonah could get swallowed by a whale and live because we really don’t like the point that the story is trying to make. It wasn’t a popular lesson then, and it isn’t now.

Like Obadiah, the book actually addresses a foreign country, but the point was probably aimed at the people of God. Jonah is called by God to go to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire. Assyria was a military empire centered in what is modern-day Iraq. They existed for three centuries and were hated by their neighbors who they raided and kidnapped and abused at will. The city of Nineveh seems to have been across the Tigris River from the modern city of Mosul.

God calls Jonah to go and preach to this hated city and call them to repent. That isn’t Jonah’s idea for retirement or a career change, so he flees to the city of Tarshish. No one knows for sure, but it is possible that Tarshish was meant to represent Tartessus, located in southwest Spain. In general, the Hebrews were not seagoing people, so the point of this in the parable is that Jonah decided to flee from God by going to the very end of the earth.

That alone is a valuable reminder to us of the lengths to which we sometimes will go to avoid being who God calls us to be or doing what God has called us to do. This is especially true when the call of God seems to violate our own prejudices or strong feelings. We will go to Spain before we will forgive someone who deserves our anger or even hatred, yet we all know that is what God calls us to do. We will go to the end of the earth to avoid being a servant, though that is the identity Jesus modeled. We flee behind all our rationalizations rather than answer God’s call to be generous, compassionate, merciful people.

This is not really the point of Jonah, but if it were the book would deserve a place in the Bible.

Blessings, Michael President, Hope for Peace & Justice

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