JONAH, THE SURVIVOR SERIES

Part 1 “God Is Calling”

By Dr. Eric C. Stumpf, Senior Pastor

St. Paul’s Ev. Lutheran Church – Munster, IN

17 February 2010 + Ash Wednesday + Jonah 1:1-3

            Let us pray: Loving Father, hold me close and forgive my rebellion.  If I try to slip away, please block my path.  Rescue me from my folly, and restore to me the joy of salvation.  Amen.

            [Cell phone rings.  Pastor in pulpit answers the phone] “Hello?”  [pause] “Who’s this? It can’t be!” {Turn to the congregation with a surprised look] “It’s God!”

            It would really be something if God gave us a call from time to time. 

            Does it irritate you at home when someone says, “The phone is ringing” but they don’t get up to answer it?  It seems like people don’t want to waste their time answering the phone.  The popularity of caller ID on telephones is reflected in Pacific Bell’s announcement of a 500% increase in subscribers last year.

            If we continue with the idea of answering the phone, when you do answer it and you say to someone in the family, “It’s for you,” they will often say, “Who is it?”  People really want to avoid calls.

 Jonah and His World

            The text for today is the first verse of Jonah.  Who was he?  He was a prophet, son of a man who name translates as “God is faithful.”  He lived in the northern Kingdom of Israel under the reign of King Jeroboam II.  The king was notoriously wicked and idolator.  In spite of this God had great patience with Israel and continued to bless Israel.  Consequently Israel was enjoying a time of national importance.  Their boundaries had extended almost as far as the golden days of David and Solomon.  It was the best of times and it was the worst of times.  The elite were wealthy, the rest were the struggling poor.  There was a prevailing sense of spiritual bankruptcy, living life for the momentary pleasures it gave.  There was also an extending shadow over Israel.  Assyria to the north was gathering its strength and had their eye to the south for future expansion and conquest.  Nineveh was its capital and the center of crimes against humanity.  They were a blood thirsty people who impaled conquered people when they breached a city, but off the heads of prisoners and stacked the skulls in tall pyramids along the road.  Their mighty warriors would wear the severed heads of vanquished around their necks like trophies.  I think you get the picture, they were not nice people.

            Into this world and to a man call Jonah the call came from God.  Go to Nineveh and call out against their evil.  That’s quite an assignment.  Nineveh was 500 miles away, the ruins of the city lie across the Tigris River from modern Mosul, Iraq, the scene of many car and suicide bombings.  So what did Jonah, son of faithfulness do?  He ran the opposite direction.  He rose up, alright, but headed for Joppa, the only port city in Israel, to catch the first boat to go as far away as possible.  It was just his luck that the only boat ready to go was going to Tarshish.  Tarshish boats are mentioned four other times in the Old Testament.  Each mention is linked with disaster.  It was like booking on the Titanic.  But Jonah is fixated on leaving.  He literally buys the boat and tells them to get going.  Why is Jonah fleeing God?

            God’s call was a call he did not want to answer.  Its like the call from the great aunt who wants you to come by now and check her mail box…for the third time today;  or because you are behind on the mortgage and the car payments, you dread the telephone ringing, or the call in the middle of the night – you know this is not going to be good.  Jonah’s call was like telling a New York Jewish rabbi in 1942 that he must go to Berlin and tell Herr Hitler that he is doing bad things and he must repent.  The Rabbi will take a train to San Francisco and then a ship to New Zealand.  Jonah hung up on God.

Why?

            Now you would think that any man of God would trust that God would empower and protect him on such and errand and give him great success.  That is exactly what Jonah did not want.

            Jonah translates to “dove,” but there was nothing gentle about him.  He was more of a hawk.  What he wanted was fire coming down from heaven and destroy the proud, arrogant, cesspool, Mecca of a sin city of Nineveh.  He did not want their redemption at all.  And that’s the problem.  Jonah knew God was merciful and kind.  He had been that and more to Israel in their sinful behavior.  He just knew God would do the same thing to Assyria and that was the last thing Jonah wanted.  For Jonah it was clear.  God was only for the righteous descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, not for those filthy Gentiles.

Are We Runners Too?

            God calls.  God sends.  He doesn’t limit his calling to prophets, but he will call you, his holy people.  You are holy.  You are holy not because you are perfect, far from it.  Like Jonah you are a saint and a sinner at the same time.  You are holy because God in his grace for Jesus’ sake has set you aside for his special purpose.  If we run away from God because of our sinful pride or stubbornness, we live apart from God, we refuse to serve him, to do God’s will.  Like Jonah we want to do our will, however we have imagined it.

            Today’s text sets the stage.  I assure you God’s grace will win, in spite of Jonah, in spite of sin.  Just look at your life and you know what I mean.  God has chosen you and brought faith into your life.  This faith accepts the promises of God, sins forgiven, and the joy of service to the Heavenly Father.  This faith empowers your trust in God’s will and conviction it is best in your life, whether you fully understand it or not.  God raises up his people with grace so others will be raised up as well.  In Christ our sins are atone for, we hear the call to repent and we do.  God quickly grants us forgiveness and the Holy Spirit to lead us to live in Christ and in His mercy.  If God can forgive Assyrians and a disobedient prophet like Jonah, he has plenty of forgiveness and strength for you and me.  Amen.

SDG