Eight Words

Jonah stands alone in the accounts of the prophets of Israel. While all the other books of the prophets are comprised of the words of the prophets often interspersed with personal accounts of their lives Jonah is a third-person account of one prophecy and Jonah’s reluctance to give it. That prophecy is eight words in total, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown.” What made it so difficult for Jonah to say these words and why was he reluctant to speak them, we ask? The text tells us because of fear – the fear that the people of Nineveh would hear the words and repent. Jonah had his mind made up about what God should do to Nineveh. God should utterly destroy them. They were enemies of Israel and deserved it. But Jonah also knew that God is, “A gracious God and merciful,” and that mercy extended to all people. That is why he fled from his call to speak God’s words. We note that he was not a vicious man. When his attempt to flee endangered the lives of others he offered his life for their safety. (We note here that by his words and example he brought the sailors to offer sacrifice and vows to God.) But Jonah was narrow-minded and could not see forgiveness for those who wronged Israel. Actually it was not the people of Nineveh who wronged the Israelites, it was their leader.

We find that in our lives as well. We have our minds made up. We usually “know” what God should do. We have our own enemies and see many others as not worthy of what we have. The emotions around this are so strong that we, like Jonah, shirk our call from God. While we do not run away physically, we just ignore God’s call and convince ourselves that what we are doing, what we like to do, is what God is calling us to do. But Jonah’s experience reminds us that you can never flee from God’s call. God is relentless in pushing us on. Look at Jonah, God saved his life from drowning so he could complete his task. And when it was done and the result was what God had hoped and Jonah had dreaded, Jonah wanted to die. If God spared his enemy what was the use of living?

We do not know anything else about Jonah. Was this the only task that God called him to? Did he proclaim other prophecies? If he did, was he reluctant to speak them too? We only waste our time in these speculations. The message to us is that God call us to work in the world, proclaiming Jesus as the salvation of the world. Leave the safety of your boats and the mending of nets and take up your call. Do not be a Jonah and fight it. Be Simon, Andrew, James, and John and put down the ways of the world and pick up God’s call and tell the world the story you know so well.