Sermons

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Heartless Obedience
May 28, 2000
Second of two sermons on Jonah
Pastor Dan Baumgartner

Jonah 3 & 4

This morning we return again to the Old Testament story of Jonah…Jonah and the whale, Jonah and the big fish. And again this morning, I would encourage you not to get bogged down by whether you are to read this as story, allegory, parable or factual history. Instead, let’s listen to what God might teach us this morning.

Last week as we looked at the first two chapters of the story, we learned from Jonah’s failure. And just to remind you of what we talked about, I’ve chosen three quick snapshots.

The first picture is of Jonah’s back, because he’s running away, robes flapping behind him. He was running away from God’s assignment to go to Ninevah and preach. Instead, he ran diametrically opposite, across the Mediterranean on a ship bound for Tarshish.

The second picture is totally dark. It looks like you messed up with the camera. But the picture is black because it was taken in the belly of a whale. Jonah had been unceremoniously dumped off of the ship, and God provided a big fish to swallow him. And we saw that God used Jonah’s three days and nights in that unpleasant place to shape Jonah, to change him. In fact, he ended his time in the whale with a hymn of thanks.

And finally, the third picture is of Jonah lying on a beach. Not in a chaise lounge with a margarita in his hand…but literally lying on the beach where he has been spit up by the whale. Yecchh. And with that pleasant picture in our minds, let’s pray as we come to the scriptures.

Jonah 3:1-4: Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city -- a visit required three days. On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.”

So after Jonah’s long trip, we’re right back where started. Jonah is the only Old Testament prophet to be given the same assignment a second time. God tells him virtually the same thing as the first time, except He doesn’t give Jonah the words to the message. Jonah is to go to Nineveh and preach what God gives him.

And guess what? This time Jonah obeys! Now, you may think, “Great! Last time we had to learn from Jonah’s failure, but this time we can learn from his success!” Don’t hold your breath. Jonah’s obedience is strictly the obedience of duty and obligation. It’s not what God desires for their relationship. Imagine another relationship. Let’s take my marriage with my wife, Anne. Imagine if I said, with all the enthusiasm in the world, “Honey! I am SO in love with you! Marrying you was the greatest thing I have ever done!” And imagine if Anne replied (in a flat, dull monotone): “Yes, honey. I love you too.” That’s not the way it should be. It’s not what God wants for a relationship. Not what he wanted from Jonah. God wanted Jonah’s heart.

And so God says again, “Go to Nineveh,” Go to the capital city of Israel’s worst enemies. When the scripture says here that Nineveh was an “important” city, it means “large.” Archeologists have discovered walls that are nine miles around the outside. Historians think there were 120,000 to 300,000 people living in the vicinity, or province, of Nineveh. And God wants those people! He wants them to know Him. I’m told that there is an outdoor mural on a wall in a German town that depicts this Jonah story. And much like a stained glass window somewhere, the mural shows various scenes from the story: the ship, the fish, the plant, Jonah on the beach. But the interesting thing is that the city skyline in the background of the mural is not Ninevah, but a neighboring modern city in Germany. And underneath the mural are these words: “Nineveh is the city nearby that needs to hear the…word.” God wants people to know Him. This could be the Seattle skyline in the background. It could be the silhouettes of houses in YOUR neighborhood. God longs for people to know Him.

So Jonah goes just part-way into the city, just sort of sticks his big toe in the water, and then stops. He proceeds to deliver the shortest sermon ever, way shorter than I have already talked: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned.” Overturned as in destroyed. You’ll notice there’s not much grace here. Not much hope, either. When I first read it, it made me wonder if Jonah had really given the whole message. He KNEW the whole message. After all, we just read about him being saved, about God shaping him in the whale’s belly. We just heard his song of thanksgiving for God’s faithfulness and salvation. But maybe he wasn’t supposed to say more right here. The message to Nineveh was: 40 days to decide, to change.

And guess what? Much to Jonah’s surprise and chagrin…it works! Jonah’s word gets amazing response. He can’t believe it. It’s really something of a comedy here. Jonah is trying his very best to thwart God. And finally, in a full pout, he says, “Fine, God, fine! You want me to go, I’ll go. Fine. Hey Nineveh: 40 days and you burn! There, I said it. How was that, God?” It’s like Jonah has knocked over the front domino, and all the others begin to fall. The next thing Jonah knows, all of the Ninevites are busy repenting. The KING himself sits down in the dust of the street, not on his throne. He wears not the royal robe, but sackcloth. The whole city is called to repent. And they start this Great Confession, a confession in three parts. It’s a wonderful model for confession:

First, they hear the truth, the word from the prophet…and immediately admit they are wrong. The king calls everyone to acknowledge and give up their evil ways, and rid the city of its violence.

Second, they participate in a ritual of humility (fasting, confession, sackcloth). It’s the sense of outward signs showing the change going on inside of them.

Third, they put it in all in God’s hands (the kings says, “God may have compassion…who knows?”).

What a great model this would have been for Jonah. Imagine how the story would have changed if Jonah had:

1. said “yes, Lord, I was wrong. I ran, I have a hard heart.”
2. stopped running, turned around (which is what repentance means) and
3. given God control, not himself.

Jonah does everything God says…BUT…his heart is not there. He drags his feet, and obeys only because he has to. The fact is that Jonah to some degree represents God’s chosen people Israel. But they can’t hold a candle to these Assyrian non-God people in terms of repentance. God’s chosen ones have the hard hearts, they have no desire for forgiveness of their enemies. But they are missing the one thing God wants the MOST…for ALL people to know Him! We can’t read this story without seeing that it is the story of God’s desire to reach out. God’s people shouldn’t be hardened by arrogance. Not His people Israel. And not us in the church.

Yet it happens to us. We can come on Sundays, experience God, be touched, go home, come back in another week for another dose, and just kind of hoard it for ourselves. But what God wants most if for ALL people to know Him: cynics, skeptics, fallen, broken people. And those of us who have experienced God’s presence and compassion are to be giving it away as fast as we can…to be light in darkness and salt in the world. “Shouldn’t,” Dallas Willard asks, “a quarter pound of salt be having more impact on a pound of meat?” At the end of chapter 3, God has relented, honoring the heart-felt repentance of the Ninevites.

Jonah 4:1-3a: But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” But the Lord replied “Have you any right to be angry?” Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city.

Finally we get to see why Jonah fled in the first place. There may be two reasons, actually. First, Jonah was afraid of exactly what happened. He pronounced the warning, Nineveh repented, God changed His mind…so Jonah looks like false prophet. He pronounced doom, now it wasn’t coming. No one likes to look bad in the public eye.

But second and most important, Jonah’s worst fears are realized: The enemies of Israel are forgiven and spared.

“I knew it, God, I knew it. That’s why I bought one-way ticket in first place, I knew you’d be like this.” And Jonah proceeds to show us he knows God, knows exactly what He is like. Jonah pulls out a great confessional hymn of Israel, once which appears in many places in the Psalms, Joel and Nehemiah. Jonah says, “I knew it, God. I knew you were a god who was:

• Gracious, who includes the humble and needy, who exercises power on behalf of the weak.
• Compassionate, who protects and sustains like care a mother cares for a child.
• Slow to anger, who is patient, delays reacting at impulse.
• Abounding in steadfast love, and perhaps Jonah does not realize quite how true this is…that God is loyal not just to Israel, but longing for all people.
• Relents from calamity, who is a god who says, “Talk me out of it, talk me out of it…who longs for repentance.

Jonah knows, says in essence, “God…I want your grace, I know I need it. But give THEM your justice. Grace for me, justice for them. Jonah thinks his enemies should be God’s enemies. Anne Lamott wrote: “You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”

God LOVES repentance, loves it when his people will admit they are wrong, and turn around. Jesus said, “There is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than 99 righteous who do not need to repent. Jesus, in fact, in the gospels applauds the Ninevites in this story for their repentance. I don’t think we can read this story of repentance, and the lack of it…without looking also at our own hearts.

For the last month, I have been reading through The Spiritual Exercises of Saint Ignatius. St. Ignatius is very concerned with examining one’s own heart, with confessing and repentance. Last week as I followed a meditation, the image of an old boss of mine from business days popped up. I realized that he is someone I need to find, talk to and set things right with from years ago. But my very first response was, “I don’t want to.” But God loves the soft heart. My second response was, “I don’t need to. Whatever happened was more his fault than mine.” No. God loves a soft heart. I realized I will have to track down my boss and talk with him.

Jonah is so mad over God’s soft heart, he would rather die than see his enemies included in God’s circle. And God is so gentle with Jonah. He just asks him one question, and puts the decision to respond back on Jonah. I wouldn’t be so calm. I wish I was. I probably would have just shouted, “YOU HAVE NO RIGHT TO BE ANGRY!” But God quietly asks “Have you any right to be angry?”

But Jonah can’t see it. He is so focused on himself at this point, he has blinders on. In this little speech at the beginning of chapter 4 Jonah says nine times “me, me, me and I, I, I.” The welfare of an entire city is at stake, but Jonah sees only himself.

It reminds me of when I used to have to travel to Las Vegas for business. Every year I had to make one eight-day trip (which is 7½ days too many to spend in Las Vegas). I was always struck by how the city encouraged you to focus on yourself. Certainly there are obvious ways, like the gambling and booze. But the thing I always noticed was that there are MIRRORS everywhere in Vegas. You go in an elevator, there are mirrors. Walk in your bedroom, there are mirrors all over the bathroom, the walls, the ceiling. Walk down the hall and no matter where you go, you are looking at yourself. Unbelievably self-focused.

Jonah doesn’t even answer God. He just stomps off to the edge of the city and parks himself. Jonah builds a booth, a little wooden structure without much of a roof. Jonah has made his mind up he is going to be an observer. Now, there were plenty of things for him to do with God in the city if he wanted. The dominoes were still falling, and there was great ministry to do everywhere as people turned to God. But Jonah decides to be an observer. He is going to watch for change in city. But God wants the change in Jonah. He wants his hard heart to soften. Ray Bakke imagines Jonah sitting at the edge of town and getting up early for his devotions. He pictures him reading Genesis 19, the story of the destruction of Sodom & Gomorrah, and praying, “C’mon Lord, you wiped out Sodom and Gomorrah, you can do it again in Nineveh!” But God wants those people…and he wants Jonah’s heart.

And so God provides a kind of object lesson. God provides for Jonah. Last time God provided for Jonah, he provided the fish. Now he provides or appoints some other things.

First God PROVIDES a plant that will give shade. Scholars think it was the castor oil plant (castor oil brings back bad memories from my childhood which we won’t get into). This was a plant that grew to 10-15 feet tall. It grows very quickly, and also dies very quickly from a small root base. In Jonah’s case, it gives shade for his hot head, and Jonah was very,very happy. But then God provides, appoints, a worm, which borrowed in and killed the plant. And then He provides a hot wind, and Jonah is miserable. It’s interesting, isn’t it, that the things God PROVIDES for Jonah do not always seem positive for him?

God repeats His question. “Do you have any right to be angry about vine?” “Angry enough to die,” Jonah says. And then the heart of God comes out…God’s passion emerges, and maybe now a little impatience with Jonah as well. God matches Jonah word for word. Jonah’s little speech at the beginning of chapter 4 has 39 Hebrew words, and God’s speech here at the end also has exactly 39 Hebrew words. Word for word, God responds to Jonah’s hard heart.

Jonah 4:10-11: But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”

God shows Jonah the tremendous contrast between his own trivial comfort, or the lives and needs of an entire city, of 120,000 people. Jonah’s compass spills out on a plant, but God’s compassion wants to spill out on a city that does not know him.

Some of you know that a few weeks ago I was in a car wreck. Just one block from our house (so you should believe those statistics about how close to home wrecks occur!) somebody hit me and knocked me into a very unforgiving telephone pole. It totaled my car. So we had to research, find, negotiate and buy a car, a used car. The second day we had it, I went to start it...and it sounded like a 747 about to take off. It was LOUD. There was obviously something wrong. And you know, that contributed to sending me into something of a two-day FUNK.

I was immediately worried that I would look silly for spending money on a car that was a lemon. And then I was just out of sorts in not having a car for a few days. A little later in the week, I realized that I had spoken with probably 10-12 different people who had MAJOR things going on in their life. Illness, family members sick, God teaching something very powerful, people not knowing where they would sleep that night. None of those stories had the impact on me that worrying about my stupid car did. I was so self-focused.

God asks Jonah, “Should I not be concerned for these people?” Should I not care, literally “Should I not CRY? Should there not be tears in my eyes?” No matter where we turn in this story…the ship, the whale, the plant…we see God’s compassion spill over onto people, we see His desire to draw people to himself. And always the unexpected people, people outside of the chosen Israelites, Assyrian people, outside of the church. And God LONGS for soft-hearted people to use…people like Jonah.

I’m reminded that when we look at Jesus, we see God’s soft heart spilling out. Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem, he cried over his friend Lazarus. Jesus’ compassion spilled out on people who didn’t know their right hand from their left: Pharisees, Samaritans, poor, sick, people who didn’t know the living God.

That gracious compassion desires still to spill out on us…and the people around us. People at our jobs, our neighbors, our family…unexpected people. I want you to think for a moment: Who are those people in your life? Who are the people God would bring to your mind as wanting to reach?

And are you willing to have God love them? That seems like a silly question, but after reading Jonah we have to ask it: Are you willing for God to love these people? And will you be available for God to use?

This is a story that is left unfinished. Some scholars think that there used to be an ending, but it got lost somewhere. I don’t think so. It’s part of the genius of the story. It really is left up to us to finish. I would encourage you to think, perhaps this week, of how God would want this story to end. Here’s what I wrote down:

“And Jonah stood up, and for the first time he saw the city, for the first time he saw the people of the city, and his hard heart broke, and he walked back into the city to see who God would lead him to.”