Some thoughts on the Book of Jonah

This sermon was first preached at our Sunday morning service on 7th November 2021. The Old Testament reading was Jonah 3:1-5,10.

Our readings today are odd readings to have at this time of year. In fact, for those of you whose memories are particularly good, you may well recognise them from back at the end of January. Of course, due to covid, back in January, we were only holding services by Zoom, so only read the Gospel lesson on that particular Sunday. I’m not entirely sure why we’ve got them again today; the lectionary is a strange beast sometimes!

But actually, I’m delighted that this morning we had a chance to hear these readings again – mainly for the opportunity that we did not get in January to hear from the book of Jonah for our lesson from the Old Testament this morning.

I love the book of Jonah. We all know it of course from Sunday school, with the famous story of Jonah being swallowed by a whale; but there is more to the story. If you’ve never read it, I recommend it. First up, it’s incredibly short; it’ll honestly only take you a few minutes to read, and then you can impress people by casually telling them that you’ve just spent your morning reading one of the books of the Bible from beginning to end – no biggie.

The second reason I love this book, is, it’s funny. We don’t often think of the Bible as a funny book – and, granted, nuance is lost in the translation into English – but Jonah is a funny tale that is trying to tell a serious point. I mean – the whole thing about the guy being swallowed up by a big fish should give us a clue that there’s humour in this story; it’s the original fisherman’s tale. If anglers are telling each other about the one that got away, just wait until Jonah weighs in…

Let me give you a bit of background as to the story so far; the precursor to our Old Testament reading for today. The book starts with God calling Jonah and telling him to go from his home to the city of Nineveh to proclaim their wickedness to them.

For context, Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire; and they are the bad guys in this story. Proper bad. They had already attacked the Northern Kingdom and taken the Israelites who lived there captive, and also besieged and captured Israel’s capital, Samaria. These guys were absolutely the enemy, the oppressors who have crushed the Israelites in war, and enslaved them. Small wonder that Jonah felt disinclined to stroll into the city and give them what for. One does not simply walk into Nineveh.

So, Jonah runs away. Here’s the part of the story we all know; he finds a boat, going in the opposite direction and promptly hops on board. But then – in an epic demonstration that you cannot run from God, a huge storm engulfs the boat, and – realising that he is the cause of it – Jonah tells the sailors to throw him overboard, resigned to drowning for his disobedience of God. But, as we all know, Jonah does not drown. Instead, he is swallowed whole by some form of sea-monster, and is then carried inside the belly of the beast presumably straight to the shores of the river Tigris, where the fish/whale/mega sharksaurus deposits him on its banks, ready for Jonah to walk into the very city from which he was trying to run.

That’s where we join our reading today. Now Jonah has been literally spewed up on the shore, God tells him again to go into Nineveh and prophesy against it. So, realising he cannot escape this, in strolls Jonah, covered in seaweed and fish bile, and tells the inhabitants of Nineveh, in no uncertain terms, that they are doomed.

And then – in our reading – we miss out a bit. We are told that everyone in the city suddenly believes Jonah; and God, but the book has more. The king sends out a decree to his entire kingdom – a national fast is called. Nobody is to eat or drink – and he does mean nobody. All the people and animals in Nineveh join in the fast. And, not just that, but everyone puts on sackcloth and pours ashes over their heads and repents. Everyone. People, cows, sheep, dogs, they all put on rags and cry out to God to save them.

Jonah has done it; he’s turned the hearts of an entire nation – this is a national revival that your millionaire televangelists can only dream of. Jonah has hit the spiritual bigtime for sure.

And that’s where our reading this morning ends, but there’s one more chapter for Jonah. Because, far from being ecstatic about his achievement, Jonah is absolutely livid. He prophesied the destruction of the city, with no bones about it. This prophesy did not start “unless you repent of your sins…”. It was cut and dry – forty days, and then you’ll be overthrown, no ifs, no buts. But… it didn’t happen. As our reading states, God changed his mind, and Jonah was having none of it. He’s so cross, he goes off to have a sulk under a bush and prays for death.

And this last bit (not Jonah’s sulk, but the last part of our reading) is the third – and major – reason I love the book of Jonah. Four words from the final verse of our reading – God changed his mind.

There are a lot of different theologies, or ways of thinking about God, in the Bible. There’s bound to be – As Fi said in her Bible Sunday sermon the other week, the Bible is a collection of different books written by many different people with different ideas about God. I’d like you to think about this one today; the fact that God can – and does – change his mind.

It’s not just in the book of Jonah where we get this idea, by the way – there are other examples throughout the Old Testament of God changing his mind. And it’s a weird thing for us to think about. But I love the idea. You see, there’s only ever one reason why God changes his mind in the Bible, and it’s this: people. (Well, ok – animals too if you count the book of Jonah, but I’m sure they’re just in there for the humour.) It’s people. We often talk of God changing us, but the book of Jonah tells us that people are able to change God.

And not just the saints either. The ‘saints’ of old in the Bible who changed God’s mind were – like all of us – flawed. If you read the stories of the prophets and the patriarchs, you will see that they are not all heroes, and not all good. And here, in the book of Jonah, it is clear that these Ninevites were not good people. They had done some seriously bad stuff – to the extent that God was ready to get behind an army coming to overthrow them. But these people changed God. If they could do that, then… well…

That blew my mind when I first realised it; the fact that God values us so highly that he is willing to let us change him, to change his mind, to change his plan. I can do that. You can do that.

And that’s why I love the book of Jonah. It’s not for the grumpy prophet who tries to escape God. It’s for the people – the flawed people who can change the mind of their creator by calling upon his name. I hope you remember that the next time you pray; just think of the impact you could have…

Amen.