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What about those heathens? John Stewart's homily at the Community of Christ, 25 Jan 2009 Readings: Prayer of the Day The story is familiar. An Israelite prophet is commissioned by God to cry out against the people of Nineveh, whose wickedness is so great that it has come up before him. Before continuing, I want you all to know that Nineveh was not a mythical city, invented for the purpose of this story, but was the very real capital of the Assyrian Empire. It was the Assyrian Empire that destroyed the Northern Kingdom of Israel in the years 722-721 BCE. It was over a century later that in 612 BCE, Nineveh itself was destroyed by the new empire of Babylon, which then went on to destroy the Southern Kingdom of Judah, carrying off its elite to exile in Babylon. What this means is that God was commanding Jonah (that’s the prophet’s name) to intervene in history to save the very empire that would, in a few decades, destroy his own country, Israel. Jonah, of course, did not know this, but all who hear and read this story should know that God’s purpose was to save the very people who would do the most monstrous evil to God’s own “chosen people.” So reasons unrelated to the above, instead of delivering the message, Jonah decides to take a ship to Tarshish (which is usually taken to be Spain, at the western extreme of “The Great Sea”, that is at the western extreme of the world), to get as far away as he can. He does this even though he is well aware that God is, well, God. And since, as Jonah tells the sailors, God is “the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land,” there is no place that God has not already been. Jonah is the only prophet that ever said “no” to God. Well, he doesn’t exactly say no; he just splits. He goes as far west as he could, until he runs out of land, coming to Joppa, on the shore of “The Great Sea.” He finds a ship bound for Tarshish. He pays his fare and gets on board to get as far away as he could, over the sea, at the far end of the Earth. Did I mention that God made the sea? Well, one should think that God would know all about the sea and all natural phenomena that are connected to the sea, that is to say, what we call “acts of God.” Well, a storm comes up. Not just a squall, but a great storm, the “perfect storm” that threatens to break up the ship. For reasons I don’t fully understand, Jonah sleeps through it all until the boatswain wakes him up and chews him out. Well, they are so desperate that they cast lots to find out which person has angered some god, and surprise, it is Jonah, and he confesses to everything. What happens next? If you said, they throw him overboard, you’d be wrong. You would think they would say, so you’re the one who brought this on us, to Sheol with you! No, they ask him, what are we to do to you, to make the sea grow calm? So Jonah says, take me and throw me over, since it is all because of me. That’s his first death wish. But note that he doesn’t jump in himself in order to save the crew and the rest of the passengers, at the cost of his own life. He isn’t going to make things easy for these heathens. What is he thinking? If I die, it will be at the hands of these heathens. Maybe intending to justify his low opinion of those pagans worshipping foreign gods. Anyway what can you expect from that sort of people? What happens next? If you said, they throw him overboard, you’d be wrong. No, even though they now know that they could just give him the heave ho, and it would be smooth sailing from here on out, they don’t do that. Instead, they row harder and harder, they gave their all to keep Jonah alive, but the harder they row, the worse the storm gets. What happens next? If you said, they throw him overboard, you’d be wrong. No, they prayed. They prayed, “O Lord, do not let us perish for taking this man’s life; do not hold us guilty of innocent blood; for you, Lord, have acted as you have thought right.” Do you see what is happening here? These heathen sailors, these unbelievers, are acting as the very model of religious piety. At the same time, of course, Jonah is providing a counterexample for Peter Kropotkin. Not exactly inspiring. What happens next? If you said, they threw him overboard, you’d be not too wrong. However, there is a midrash that first they dip him in up to his knees, and the storm abates, but when they bring him back, the storm starts up again. So then thny put him in up to his navel, and the storm abates again, but when they bring him back, the storm returns. Then they realize them must throw him overboard, and the storm abates the final time. What happens next? The heathen sailors offer sacrifice and make vows as thanksgiving. Jonah, meanwhile, has been swallowed by a fish and recites a psalm that, though pious, doesn’t exactly fit his situation. Among other things, the psalm makes promises of sacrifice. Meanwhile, the sailors are actually doing it. After 3 days God tells the fish that she has suffered enough, so Jonah is vomited back onto land. So, we get to the action in today’s reading, where Jonah gets with the program, goes into Ninevah, and delivers the message. The Ninevites repent, the king of Nineveh puts on sackcloth, but instead of rejoicing, Jonah sulks. For the second time he expresses a death wish and whines bitterly to God. He is upset that God is merciful. Then he goes outside the city to sulk. He finds shade in a fast-growing castor-oil plant, which on the next day withers. So for the third time he expresses a death wish. So God says to Jonah, “Are you right to be angry about the castor-oil plant?” He replies, “I have every right to be angry, to the point of death.” The Lord replies, “You are only upset about a castor-oil plant which cost you no labor, which you did not make grow, which sprouted in a night and has perished in a night. And am I not to feel sorry for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, to say nothing of all the animals?” That, by the way, is a poetic way of saying young children. 120,000 young children. With that question, the book ends. There are so many ways to understand this story. Here’s an allegorical understanding suggested in the Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible: One may see Jonah’s flight from God as an allegory of Israel’s flight from its divine calling before the Babylonian conquest, turning its collective back upon God and the justice he demands, embarking upon the sea of world politics in the ship of diplomatic intrigue. The storm which broke up Israel (Jonah) and the Gentile world (the sailors) when the center of power shifted from Assyria to Babylon, was followed by the exile in Babylon (the big fish). Delivered from exile by Cyrus, Israel, like Jonah, has the task of proclaiming the kingdom of God to the pagan world in Palestine (Ninevah). As history, maybe? Jonah son of Amittai was, in fact, a historical figure, mentioned in 2 Kings 14.25. But if one takes the book of Jonah as literal history, there are certain problems. For example, Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, so there was no such person as the “king of Nineveh”. That would be like saying the “king of Paris,” wouldn’t it? Archaeological research at the ancient site of Nineveh has shown a size of about 1.5 miles by 3 miles, 8 miles in circumference, hardly a vast city 3 days journey across. Did I mention a fish? There is so much that is unique or different about Jonah, starting with the fact that nowhere in this narrative is he actually called a prophet. Jonah is the only prophet in the TNK that is mentioned in the Koran. Jonah is the only prophet whose message is heeded. It is the shortest prophetic message ever given, five words in Hebrew. “In forty days, Nineveh will be destroyed.” Jonah is the only classical prophet sent to a foreign power. (Elijah and Elisha were earlier.) Jonah is the only prophet commissioned twice. He was disobedient the first time, and not fully compliant the second time. And look! He is the only one in this entire story that is not obedient to God; the storm is obedient; the sailors were very models of religious piety and morality, showing heroism in trying to save this man’s life; the fish was obedient; all of Nineveh was obedient; the castor-oil plant was obedient; the worm was obedient. All followed the will of the Lord, except Jonah. Jonah’s values are misplaced; he doesn’t even appear to value his own life; he wants to die because God is merciful; he looks forward to the destruction of the great city, Nineveh, in much the same way as modern-day Darbyites look forward to seeing the destruction of the world after they are safely raptured away (or whatever the right verb may be—MS Word tells me I’ve got it wrong); yet he is put out because a fast-growing (and therefore short-lived) plant suddenly dies. He seems clueless; he tries to flee from a God that he knows is universal and is already there in every conceivable place of refuge, even in Tarshish; he is asleep in the midst of the violent storm that is about to destroy his ship. He wants the wrong things for the wrong people and at the wrong time. He gives God lip service, praying in the belly of the fish, “but I, with a song of praise, will sacrifice to you.” Whereas, in fact, it is the pagan sailors who offer real sacrifice and make vows to God, not before, but after their deliverance, as acts of thankfulness. It is not recorded whether Jonah actually made any real sacrifice himself; maybe he neglected that, too. In spite of all that, he seems to be a sympathetic character taught in Sunday schools around the world, and there is at least one feature-length film about him (although I must admit that he was played by a stalk of asparagus). How can that be? Just how skewed are his values, and if he is so sympathetic to us, what is it about our own values that may be skewed as well? What are the obvious lessons? God cares for all his children, not just those that consider themselves to be “chosen”, be they Hebrews, Jews, Christians, Muslims or non-theists. Gentiles can be righteous. Gentiles as horrible as those that wiped out the Northern Kingdom can, in fact, repent and become righteous. These lessons contrast with the xenophobic policies of Ezra and Nehemiah, after the return of exiles from Babylon, which caused Jewish men to divorce their non-Jewish wives. Ethnic cleansing it was. They said that the root of their woes was intermarriage with foreigners. God was angry, they said. That is so wrong, one said, and told a beautiful love story to show why. That is the book we call Ruth. That is so wrong, another said, and told a humorous folk take to show why, and did so very skillfully. Throughout the tale, gentiles are righteous, and foreigners teach compassion, just as in the real world, still, to this very day. God’s “chosen person,” the Israelite Jonah, had no privileged understanding of God’s will, even to the point of being the only one disobedient to God’s command! Jesus saw this clearly, noting that tax collectors and sinners are getting into the Kingdom of God before religious leaders, something which continues to this day. And a recent experience suggests to me that atheists may show God’s love better than we do. The American Humanist Association recently had a bus advertising campaign with the slogan, “Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness’ sake.” Is it really true that the only reason we show compassion, for example, is to ingratiate ourselves with the cosmic policeman? Or maybe we are fulfilling the contract in Matthew 25? If so, then the atheist cooking in the soup kitchen is a much better Christian than I am. Regardless of the literal historicity, this Israelite Jonah is unmistakably a portrait of the narrow and intolerant Hebrew of Ezra’s day, as well as the narrow and intolerant Christian of our own day, who refuses to face the universalistic nature of God and God’s will for the world. Moved neither by the words nor by the works of God, he peers out upon the world from his tiny sanctuary, seeing only the other, He becomes a forlorn, self-centered figure, clutching his Bible to his bosom, while ordinary humanity, with its many likable qualities, waits ready to respond to the message of God’s salvation, which his religious dogmatism makes him unwilling to share. The story of Jonah ends with a question, a question from God, “And am I not to feel sorry for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, to say nothing of all the animals?” Across two thousand years of Christian history, the question is still waiting an answer, personally, from you and me. When a text ends with a question, we have to ask ourselves that question. How would we react to the repentance of Nineveh? Do we really want the repentance of our enemy? Or would we rather sulk? ** I am highly indebted to A-J Levine’s Teaching Company lecture on Jonah for most of this homily. Thank you.
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