Reflection
Deuteronomy 7:7 quotes the profoundly intimate words that God spoke to Moses: Moses, do you think I chose this people because they are the greatest of nations? No, quite the contrary, they are the least among the nations of the world. I chose them because my heart has fallen in love with them. This chosen people will be a light to all people. God’s Word is never fruitless. It bears fruit; it fulfills its purpose.
What a strange prophet is Jonah, the one who carries God’s word to the people of Nineveh. He boards a ship going in the opposite direction from Nineveh in order to flee from God’s proposal! Was he afraid that the Ninevites would kill him? Perhaps not, since he asks no less than three times for death to take him! Fear of death doesn’t seem to be a problem. Poor Jonah, he sleeps through God’s response to his desertion, and then how he must have been embarassed at the reverence of the pagan crew who cannot believe that he would do such a thing as to refuse God’s command .
When the whale spits Jonah onto the shore, for a second time he is given his commission as a prophet to preach God’s word of conversion to the Ninevites. We don’t know exactly what Jonah says. I imagine that after asking the people on the beach for directions, he broke the news to them that their whole land would soon be destroyed by God. His unhappy and unwilling presence among the Ninevites and his melancholy personality did not bring hello’s and smiles from the Ninevites, but to his surprise they totally embraced conversion.
Even the king says, …let everyone renounce evil behavior and the wickedness they have done.
After Jonah’s short walk into Nineveh which resulted in the conversion of the City, Jonah reacts to God’s never-ending mercy with a bitter anger and another plea to be allowed to die. Jonah considers that the people on the beach who saw Jonah come out of the mouth of the whale might have been the ones who took their tale to the king, and they, not Jonah were the reason for the king’s conversion. Did the people of Nineveh find in this nearly drowned prophet the sign from the God of Israel that they might save their lives by changing their ways?
Retreating from Nineveh into the outlying desert, Jonah will ask one more time to be allowed to die. God reveals to him that his life is treasured by God; with his confidence restored, he sets out for home. Not surprisingly, no ship would dare take him. Not “Jonah”, the captains said shaking their heads. His story had traveled fast, and continues to our own day. Jonah probably felt relieved he wasn’t going to have to set sail again, and set off on foot.
At the end of his life, Jonah, perhaps an old, grandfatherly figure, mature in faith, and perhaps with a restored sense of humor, realizes that he was the indeed the messenger and the message. He was God’s affirmation of life. God may have even enjoyed Jonah’s creativity in trying to escape from God’s instruction. It appears that in choosing Jonah, God was choosing for a prophet someone who embodied the nature of Israel—one of the least but beloved by God.
“How better to demonstrate to the simple Ninevites that God is a God of life, a God who brings life from death? What better way to demonstrate hope than by God’s choosing this hopeless prophet?”
Jonah laughs out loud to his grandchildren: “God said he enjoyed praying with me. I said, ‘you mean playing with me’? God said, “No, Jonah, all was prayer between you and me. Ours is a story of lavish mercy, of new life. Thanks for playing!” Jonah concludes: “I tell you as a prophet, my story only points to a greater story yet to unfold”. God’s Word does not return to God empty. It bears fruit; it fulfills its mission.
