"God Is God. We Are Servants of God." January 22, 2006 Epiphany 3

“God Is God. We Are Servants of God.”
Jonah Epiphany 3 January 22, 2006


The entire book of Jonah is only four chapters long. It tells a story about God and about human foibles. It’s a story with surprising twists. (In other words, it’s a story that’s true to life!) The point of the story is how God works with us, and here’s how. God is God. God calls us. You and I are servants of God.

I am quite sure that you know what it’s like to resist a call! Maybe you didn’t conceive of it as a call from God, because that sounds too high-falutin’. But think of a time when you were asked to do something, something important, and you tried as hard as you could not to say “yes!” It could be that you resisted the call for a period of weeks or even months or years. It could be that you ended up saying no, and stuck to it. But if it is God who is calling you to do something, resistance is futile. God is going to get you.

Fortunately (unless you have dramatic stories to tell that I haven’t heard), God hasn’t asked any of us to do anything as soul-shaking as Jonah! Jonah is a Biblical hero who doesn’t act with much heroism. (He establishes a standard of heroism that any of us can achieve!)
Jonah’s squeamishness, actually is quite understandable, considering what God calls Jonah to do. God tells Jonah to warn the people in a large city named Nineveh that, because they’ve been so evil, God is going to destroy them all!

That would not be a pleasant task for Jonah, would it? In fact, Jonah may have considered folks’ predilection to blame the messenger who brings bad news.

But God is God, right? And so, Jonah responds – by running away! We read that Jonah went down to Joppa (which is where the port is), found a ship going to Tarshish (which is a long ways away), and sailed, to flee from the presence of the Lord.

Poor Jonah. God is God! Can you run away from God? No, you can’t. And, so, here’s what happens next in the story: 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. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god…

“Each one cried to his god.” You’ve seen the same thing, haven’t you?

For instance, what do some people do when they’re depressed? They go out and buy something! (In their depression, they are crying to the god of consumerism. From its pulpit, in the mall, the god of consumerism proclaims the message that you really can buy happiness.)
What do some people do, when they’re anxious? They eat, or drink, or abuse medication! (They’re crying to the god of physical gratification. This god has several pulpits throughout the house – the refrigerator, the liquor cabinet, the medicine cabinet – but it proclaims the same message at each location: “Don’t worry! Make yourself feel good, and your troubles will go away!”)

What do other people do, when they’re anxious? They work harder! They go in early and stay late. (In other words, they’re crying to the god of accomplishment, whose sacred message is: “Yes, you can earn salvation and security and happiness. What? You don’t feel that yet? That’s because it comes with the next promotion, the next glowing performance review.”)

When you and I remember the First Commandment, we remember this truth: there are many competing gods, but only God is God. Indeed, in the story, the pagan ship’s captain witnesses to that. The ocean is roaring and foaming, and the mariners are crying to their gods, and the captain says to Jonah: "Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish."

In fact, it is not long before the sailors suspect that Jonah himself may be the cause of all this danger. 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?" "I am a Hebrew," he replied. "I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." (Jonah says the right words, at least. He is confessing that God is God.)

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.

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. 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."

So the sailors throw Jonah over the side, into the angry ocean – and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord even more, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.

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.

Now. Think of when you’ve been in great distress – because you have not acted, but you know that you need to. Do you know the special suffering you feel at those times?

I am convinced that such periods of turmoil come from God, because God has decided that we’re not using our talents to their fullest, and that there is a situation or need that we must do something about.

Here’s the thing. You only discover what such a time of turbulence means when, instead of running away, you enter into the turmoil. (In the story, what does Jonah enter into? Of course! The belly of the giant fish!) In all of this turmoil, what’s going on? You receive the answer, in God’s time, when you turn back to God, in prayer, open to discernment, smack dab in the midst of the deepest darkness.

In the story, having entered into his greatest distress -- symbolically, in the belly of a fish! -- Jonah acts out that repentance. He speaks a prayer that could easily be included in the book of Psalms. The prayer takes up almost all of chapter two, which ends with these words: Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land.

That may be all you know about the story of Jonah. It’s certainly the most famous part. But chapters three and four are just as funny as the first two describing the way we human beings and God act together – and I think the last two chapters contain what’s most interesting in the story.

The fish burps Jonah onto the beach. And lying on the sand, Jonah decides that, the next time God asks him to do something, he’s going to say “yes!” (God is God, right? The realization is finally dawning in Jonah’s brain that he is a servant of God.)

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you." … Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. Jonah began to go into the city,… Buckle your seat belts. Get ready for twists and surprises!

Jonah begins to go into the city, and he’s only gone a third of the way across, [crying] out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" And here’s what happens. [T]he people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth (which is the clothes the ancients wore, when they were in deep mourning or repentance).

So, here’s the first twist: that the people actually listen to God’s warning, and they change their ways! (How often does that happen?) In fact, the king of Nineveh even orders that every animal shall wear sackcloth, and that every human being shall plead with God for forgiveness. “Who knows?” the king says. “God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish."

Which leads to the next surprise: 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.

But now listen to what happens. Jonah becomes furious! He forgets (again) that God is God, and that God can do whatever God wants to do. And Jonah forgets (again) that he is God’s servant. And so, in hot, self-centered anger he asks God, “Why did you put me through all of this, if you were just going to change your mind?”

This story is such a hoot! You see, God has forgiven Jonah. God has been willing to take Jonah back. But now, when God treats the citizens of Nineveh in the same way, Jonah is furious! And so he goes off, by himself, to nurse his self-centered anger. (I’m sure no one here would do such a thing!)

Do you know how much grace God has? God still does not give up on Jonah! But the story ends in a very strange way, with God trying, once again, to remind Jonah who is God.
You see, it’s hot out there, where Jonah is nursing his anger. So, 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.

But God is going to use this plant to make the point – again: that God is God. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 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."

But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die." 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. 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 end! Really! That’s how the story ends: with that question from God; that abruptly.

Here’s what I think the author of the book of Jonah tries to do: to persuade us to see through God’s eyes. God acts in ever-renewed mercy and forgiveness! And so, as we read, the story, we come to think: “How trivial, how minuscule are your concerns, Jonah! What tunnel vision you have, when you’re wrapped up in yourself! How petty is your anger and your grudges. God is God! You are a servant of God. So – simply do the work that God gives you to do!”

It’s a great story, isn’t it – all you Jonahs out there? (Of course, there’s a Jonah up here in the pulpit, too!)

Thanks be to God, then, for God’s never-ending grace and mercy and forgiveness, as God continually calls us to our work.

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.


Pastor Andy Ballentine
St. Stephen Lutheran Church
Williamsburg, Virginia