Today's Meditation - Monday, October 26, 2020

 Today's Meditation

Read Jonah 1:1-17

Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, ²“Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” ³But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

⁴But 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. ⁵Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold of the ship and had lain down, and was fast asleep. ⁶The captain came and said to him, “What are you doing sound asleep? Get up, call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.” ⁷The sailors said to one another, “Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us.” So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. ⁸Then 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?” ⁹“I am a Hebrew,” he replied. “I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” ¹⁰Then 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.

¹¹Then 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. ¹²He 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.” ¹³Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. ¹⁴Then they cried out to the Lord, “Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood; for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.” ¹⁵So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging. ¹⁶Then the men feared the Lord even more, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. ¹⁷But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.

    This week we'll focus our meditation on Jonah.  We all probably know the story or at least we remember the part of the story where Jonah got swallowed up by a whale and lived to tell about it, but do we remember why?

    He was fleeing from doing what God wanted him to do.  Jonah was a minor prophet during a politically difficult time for Israel.  They had returned from exile, but faced many hardships, foreign influence and subjugation, and were nationally depressed when the promises that God had made them after returning from exile seemed to go unfulfilled.  

    Although this story seems to stand as an historical account, there are many scholars who believe it was written allegorically to help the Israelites understand their current situation/dilemma.  For example, God wanted the Israelites to be a beacon of light to the world regardless of their situation, to stand firm on the beliefs that God would see them through all difficulties.  But the Israelites continued to want more for their own personal fulfillment rather than to be an ambassador of light and love to the world.  After all, they had already suffered so much, why not want some stability and glory back?

    If we look at Jonah from both perspectives - as an historical account and as an interpretive story - we get a broader, more complex understanding of the book of Jonah.

    Jonah's personal disobedience to what God asked him to do can be seen as a stand in for the entire nation of Israel for lacking obedience to what God asked of them.  Harper's Bible Commentary says, "his disobedience is symptomatic of a theological view that questions the indiscriminate extension of God's mercy to the wicked, especially in light of Israel's suffering at their hands.  But simple justice is not God's way; God remains free to be gracious toward those who deserve nothing but punishment."

    Jonah believed Nineveh deserved nothing but punishment and simply refused to go there to preach and prophesy to the people in Nineveh.  God had other plans.

    Who are we to question God's justice, God's righteousness, God's mercy?