Jonah Was a Man of Faith -Epiphany 3B -2018

Albert Einstein said: The only thing you absolutely have to know, is the location of the library. I would say, once at the library, the only book you need to read is the Book of Jonah.  If even half the population of the world embraced the lessons, the truth- the gospel- in its pages, the world would be like living in the kingdom of God.

The book of Jonah explains the purpose and direction of life: it calls people to repentance and reminds people of God’s extravagant mercy and forgiveness.

Before looking at the part of the story we read earlier, let us take a look at Jonah and his understanding of God.

Jonah grew up in a culture, as a member of a group of people, who were in covenant with the LORD.  There were times when the people were faithful to God’s Law and times when people were not. The Law, if you remember, was given to Moses on Mount Sinai.  God made a covenant with a people. Moses meets the LORD on the mountain, stone tablets in hand for the Law to be written on. Before writing, the LORD passed before Moses and proclaimed:

The LORD, the LORD, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, yet by no means clearing the guilty, but visiting the iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children to the third and fourth generation.

The people remembered these words, often reciting, The Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. We have read these words throughout the scriptures; we sing these words in hymns, and pray them in prayers passed down from one liturgy to the next.

The words, if you will, are part of Jonah’s, and part of our DNA.  They are an ancient creedal statement. A statement of comfort.  A statement of faith.

The second part of the passage, not repeated in following years, about visiting iniquity of the parents upon the children and the children’s children, illustrates the complexity of forgiveness and judgement in God’s character.  This is a sermon for another day.

Jonah was a man of faith, not that this is the quality blatantly expressed in the telling of his story. We hear of Jonah as a reluctant guy, not even referred to as a prophet, who tried to flee from God, and the mission God gives him to do.  In running away, he is swallowed by a fish, sits in its belly for three days, only to be coughed up in the very place he said he would not go.  Dragging his feet, he goes into the city that he did not want to go to, asks people whom he does not like to repent, and when they do, much to his chagrin, he goes and sulks about it.   Yet, all parts of the story hinge on the fact that Jonah is a man of faith.

You see, Jonah truly believes the ancient creed of his people. He believes that the LORD is a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

This is wonderful. This is Gospel, but, Jonah doesn’t want to extend this promise to people whom he deems his and his peoples’ enemy.  Nineveh is the Great City of Jonah’s day, home to Assyrians and Assyrian power.  The Great City is to the North and controls much of the known world.  The Assyrians have in fact ransacked and overthrown the Northern Kingdom of Israel and are a constant threat to their way of life.  As the Assyrians fade, Babylonians move into power, bringing harmful force, and offering the same threat. These people are not to be trifled with. These people are not to be given a chance. These people are not to receive mercy.

Jonah has so much faith, that he believes that the message God has given him to deliver, Forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown, will sound like truth to the Ninevites ears and hearts; and they will repent and, heaven forbid, God will have mercy.  In Jonah’s understanding of justice, the world will be right, if and only if the Ninevites are smote – you know fire and brimstone; wiped off the face of the earth with great torment, weeping, and gnashing of teeth. Jonah knows, his faith tells him, that God’s justice is not his justice; the people will hear truth, repent, and receive mercy.

For Jonah this is too much.  This is why he tries to run away.  This is why he sulks. Because he is a man of faith.

Today we are celebrating being people of faith. Through the affirmation of the Apostles’ Creed and by transfer we have people joining this community of faith this morning.  Through the sacrament of Baptism we have two people entering into the family of faith. For all of us, a day of welcoming new members, reminds us why we are here, why we have chosen to be people of faith. Jonah’s escapades remind us that we are called to repentance and assured of God’s extravagant mercy and forgiveness.

Through the ages, the ancient creed has been passed down from one generation to the next: the LORD is a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

Included in the Scripture Canon of the Eastern Orthodox Church is a book called: third Maccabees. This book is fictional story about Egyptian Jews in the time of Ptolemy IV (around 215 BCE). The story was popular among Jews who lived in the Diaspora  (that’s outside of Israel.) The story speaks of great dangers that threaten the Jewish community, the people of faith. The situations in the text are addressed in one of two ways, either mitigated by the action of a human hero or by the direct intervention of the divine.

In the book, there is a prayer offered by Eleazer, a famed and wizened priest. The prayer includes this comment on Jonah: and Jonah, wasting away in the belly of a huge, sea-born monster, you, Father, watched over and restored unharmed to all his family. And now, you who hate insolence, all-merciful and protector of all, reveal yourself quickly to those of the nation of Israel – who are outrageously treated by the abomination and lawless Gentiles.

Eleazer the priest is praying for retribution, for judgement to come to the Gentiles who are the enemies of the faithful.  Eleazer is like Jonah.  Instead of running away like Jonah did, he stands and prays for human destruction of the people whom he and his people hate. He has missed the entire point of the Jonah story!

I wonder if Eleazer was asked to go to the Gentiles and proclaim, Forty days more and the Gentiles will be overthrown? And if he had the guts to do it, would not the Gentiles have repented, just like the Ninevites – put on sackcloth, sat in ashes, along with their animals? But then, Eleazer probably would have sulked, for God would have shown mercy to the Gentiles, their animals, their land.

Jonah is also mentioned in Second Esdras. This book was written by an anonymous Jew in Israel at the beginning of the second century CE.  Esdras tackled the theological question: how could a just God allow such misfortunes to happen to God’s chosen people?  So this, would have been reflecting on the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in the year 70 by the Romans; it would include an angst against the Roman Empire who persecuted, tortured, and crucified Jews.  In the book, hope is expressed with a promise of a return of the people of Israel to their land, to the Holy city of Jerusalem. God speaks:  Ezra look with pride and see the people coming from the east; to them I will give as leaders Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob…then the 12 minor prophets are listed, among them, Jonah.  Curious, that Jonah would be mentioned as a leader.  Jonah was a man of faith.  Jonah did walk into Nineveh and said the words God asked him to; despite his hate, despite the fact that he sulked about God’s mercy afterward.  Jonah believed:  the LORD is a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.

The Gospels of Matthew and Luke recount the Pharisees coming to Jesus asking for a sign, of which none will be given accept that of Jonah. for just as Jonah was three days and three nights in the belly of the sea monster, so for three days and three nights the Son of Man will be in the heart of the earth. The people of Nineveh will rise up at the judgement with this generation and condemn it, because they repented at the proclamation of Jonah and see, something greater than Jonah is here!  Jesus is calling God’s people to repentance and reminding us of God’s extravagant mercy and forgiveness.

This morning I categorize us as Jonah.  People of faith.  People who believe and confess that, the LORD is a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness. The question comes to us as it did to Jonah, God is on a mission, and asks us to be part of it.  Can we set aside our notions of retribution and justice, enough that we can proclaim the words God gives us to proclaim?  Will you be bold and share with your least favourite person, even your sworn enemy, Forty days and you will be overthrown – knowing that the words will ring of truth and God will have extravagant mercy on those for whom your heart is cold?

Despite your prejudice, pent up anger, hostility --- you are a person of faith.  You have been baptized in the waters of grace, empowered by the Holy Spirit to speak, to be about God’s mission…

Go to ALL, especially those whom you despise, and invite them to open their heart to the LORD for the LORD is a God who is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness.