"Jonah: Overturning Expectations"

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

The First United Presbyterian Church

“Jonah: Overturning Expectations”

Rev. Amy Morgan

September 20, 2020

Jonah 3

The word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time, saying,

 2 "Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you."

 3 So Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the LORD. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across.

 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overturned!"

 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

 6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.

 7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: "By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water.

 8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.

 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish."

 10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

Here we go again. The story of Jonah starts over, in a sense, in the third chapter. The narrative repeats, almost verbatim. God says, “arise,” “go,” and “proclaim,” the very same command given in the first verse of chapter 1. But if this repetition leads us to believe that the story is going to go the same way as it did at the beginning, our expectations are quickly overturned. This time, instead of getting up and going in the other direction, Jonah’s actions mirror perfect obedience to God. He “rises,” he “goes,” and he “proclaims.”

Jonah’s actions may mimic God’s commands, but if that leads us to expect him to suddenly fulfill the role of the ideal prophet, our expectations are once again overturned quickly. We are told that Nineveh is a great city, 3-day’s journey across. This is a very specific detail in this sparse text. And then it says that Jonah “begins” to enter the city, and he only goes one day’s walk into it. He then utters what may be the briefest recorded Hebrew prophecy: "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" In Hebrew this is a mere 5 words. He doesn’t follow the typical prophetic formula of “Thus says the Lord,” or give any reason for why the city will be overthrown, though God has told him it is because God has seen their wickedness. We get the sense that Jonah really doesn’t have much invested in the fate of the Ninevites. 

We also get the sense that the overturn of Nineveh is, for Jonah, a prediction of destruction. He offers no invitation to or instructions for repentance. He doesn’t even say that God might be merciful and spare them if they reform. He offers them no hope, just a timeline for their doom. 

But, as often happens to us preachers, the Ninevites hear something different in Jonah’s prophecy. They clearly hear the possibility of deliverance and a call to repent. The word Jonah uses that is translated as “overturned,” can be passive, as it’s translated in the version we read today, or reflective, as in “to overturn oneself.” 

And this is exactly what the Ninevites do. They overturn their evil ways with acts of penitence, cries of lament, and reforming their violent and criminal behavior.  This is clearly the turning point of this chapter, as the repentance of the people and their king comes square in the middle, right at verses 5 and 6, of this 10-verse chapter. 

And the Ninevites’ response to Jonah’s prophesy overturns our expectations, and Jonah’s, in its immediacy, its progression, and its scope. 

It seems that the words have barely left Jonah’s mouth, and though he failed to mention God in his proclamation, the Ninevites believe God and waste no time proclaiming a fast and putting on sackcloth. They don’t wait for a committee to discern whether or not Jonah is a true prophet or whether or not his God is more powerful than theirs. They don’t wait for the king’s edict to get down to the business of repentance. They don’t even wait until the weekend, when they’ve finished their work and it might be more convenient to fast and more comfortable to wear sackcloth. All the Ninevites, young and old, dive into repenting with an unexpected urgency. 

Their urgency means that repentance is not something that develops from religious or political leaders. It is a grass-roots movement. The people begin repenting without any authority figure urging them to do so. And it’s only after the people have begun the work of repentance that the king becomes aware of the situation and takes action. In this story, the leadership follows the people. 

When the king does learn of Jonah’s prophecy, there is this pattern of action that clearly illustrates the overturn of the Ninevites. The king rises from his thrown and sits down in ashes. He takes off his royal robes and puts on sackcloth. The language and action here are meant to display a complete transformation of this society. 

The king then commands an outsized repentance that contrasts starkly with Jonah’s paltry prophetic effort. The penitent activities are extended even to animals, they must cry out to a God who is not their own, and they must dramatically and immediately alter their behavior. A city described by the prophet Nahum as the “City of bloodshed, utterly deceitful, full of booty – no end to the plunder!” will now “turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands.”

And this turnaround is decreed and, it seems, accomplished, without any guaranteed outcome. The king says, “who knows?” Maybe God will relent. Maybe God’s mind can be changed. Maybe God won’t be as angry with us. Maybe God won’t overturn us. But “who knows?”

What kind of faith is this? Far more than most of us have, I’ll wager. Many Christians practice their faith as a transactional agreement. “I’ll do what God wants so God will give me what I want.” Or, “I’ll do what God wants so I don’t go to hell.” Be good and get good in return. That’s the way it works, right? 

Not in Jonah. Not in this book that overturns all our expectations. If that’s the way it worked, Jonah wouldn’t be in Nineveh and Nineveh would be toast. The Ninevites are wicked, and instead of getting what they deserve, they get a second chance. The Ninevites are not part of God’s chosen people, but this great city matters greatly to God. Repentance doesn’t guarantee deliverance, but it does transform a society. And God can change God’s mind about anyone and anything. That’s entirely God’s prerogative. 

The faith of the Ninevites is not transactional. They know God’s mercy isn’t inevitable, and it can’t be purchased with penitence. But that only serves to underline how deeply hopeful their faith is. There is no point in transforming your society if its doom is absolute. The most amazing thing about this story is that the Ninevites don’t despair at Jonah’s prophecy. They reform. They overturn themselves. 

And God overturns, too. When God sees how the Ninevites have overturned, God repents of the violence God had intended for them. God holds back the divine wrath. 

This is not the God we encounter everywhere in the Hebrew scriptures. Nahum, the prophet I quoted earlier, celebrates the destruction of Nineveh, saying to that city of bloodshed, God will “throw filth at you and treat you with contempt, and make you a spectacle.” Israel’s history is accented with God’s wrath being poured out on the enemies of God’s people. While God may be characterized as “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,” God also doesn’t hold back often when the divine temper has been raised. 

The prophet Nahum was writing after the actual, historic fall of Nineveh, as all those who had been victimized by that bloodthirsty metropolis rejoiced over its destruction. The book of Jonah was written even later, after the Israelites had lived in exile and returned to Jerusalem, after they had seen more of the world and lived among people who didn’t share their beliefs and practices. It was written after they had learned that good and evil aren’t always as easy to separate as we would like. It was written after they’d seen how people, and even whole societies, including their own, could be overturned and could overturn themselves. 

That is how they came to know the God we see depicted in Jonah. A God who can withhold wrath and show mercy, who can bring about transformation with only 5 words reluctantly proclaimed, who can change plans midstream, who cares about all people in all cities. 

Reading Jonah, it might feel like God has changed. Jonah certainly felt that way. And he resented it a good deal, as we’ll see in the conclusion to this story next week. In this story, it seems like everybody changes, except Jonah. 

But, in fact, perhaps what we see is not so much change as revelation. We see the true character of God. We see the true capacity of humanity to constantly grow, evolve, mature, develop, and transform. And we see the true character of Jonah, as a fixed, inflexible, hopeless prophet. And we see our own tendencies to follow Jonah’s lead. 

The good news is, the God revealed to us in Jonah, who is truly the God of the Hebrew scriptures, the God of Israel, and the God of Jesus, that God is a God of second chances. In the most excellent Veggie Tales film about Jonah, there’s a really catchy song about this, which involves a gospel choir of singing asparagus. Asparagii? Anyway, the vegetables in the movie are singing, not about the Ninevites getting a second chance, but Jonah. Even when we fail to live into our calling, even when we follow our calling reluctantly and perform it half-heartedly, the God of second chances gives us opportunities to try again. 

God also gives second chances to those people we think are incapable of change. Not because they deserve those second chances or because they get their act together and do what they’re supposed to do. God gives second chances, and third and fourth and fifth chances, because God doesn’t give up on anybody, even if we do. God knows that we are all made in God’s image and therefore contain immeasurable goodness. And even when that goodness is obscured by horrific evil, God knows we are capable of change, even when we don’t know it ourselves. We can’t earn or negotiate for God’s second chances. God’s plans are God’s alone. But the prophet Jeremiah claimed, God’s plans are always “for your welfare and not your harm, to give you a future with hope.”

And so we do have hope. That we can overturn ourselves. That we can be overturned, for the better. That our expectations can be overturned. 

Biblical scholar Phyllis Trible writes about Jonah, saying that this narrative “prevents faith from succumbing to cynicism and despair about the world. It models the corporate and social salvation that faith wills to claim for all the cities of the earth. It addresses systemic concerns.”

As we struggle with the systemic evil so apparent in the world around us today, as we despair over racism and violence and corruption, as we worry about conflict and greed, Jonah might just be the most hopeful story for us to read right now. Because it shows us that we can change. Quickly and dramatically. 

An AP poll from the end of July revealed that 80% of Americans feel like the country is going in the wrong direction. This means people of all political affiliations, people of different races and religions, urban and rural, wealthy and poor, all feel like we need to overturn ourselves, or be overturned. And lots of those people are hoping that religious or political or business leaders will be the ones to turn us in a better direction. They are placing their hope in elections or policies or products or preaching. 

But the Ninevites, whom Jesus himself lifted up as an example for us to follow, show us that leadership follows the people. Repentance is a grass-roots movement. If we want change, it starts right here, with our belief in the power of repentance, with our commitment to penitence and change. With our hope that God will be the God revealed in Jonah, a God of second chances. 

To whom be all glory forever and ever. Amen.