INTRODUCTION
Opening Statement: In his book, True Heroism in a World of Celebrity
Counterfeits, Dick Keyes writes that a celebrity is "one who is famous and well publicized," well known "apart from how they became known. Celebrity itself is indifferent to moral character," he adds. One can be famous "but still a thoroughly obnoxious person and menace." Keyes then contrasts celebrity with true heroism. A hero is someone who excels at something we prize and inspires us to try to emulate his achievements. But
this definition is incomplete, he says, because some of the people best at getting others to follow them have been dictators like Hitler and Stalin.
To distinguish heroes from these kinds of people, we have to include a moral dimension. We should identify as heroes, Keyes says, only those who "show qualities of moral character."
Transition: We’ve been doing this in our "hero/heroine series." The storytellers of the Bible selected details by two criteria when writing about people: they give us positive models (heroes/heroines) to follow and negative examples (in some cases, tragic heroes) to avoid. Today, I want us to look at a negative example to avoid. Ironically enough, it has to do with a reluctant Jewish prophet who refused to let go of his prejudices.
Title: The Story of Jonah - A Tragic Hero With a Fatal Flaw
Theme: The story of Jonah is a satiric masterpiece. The book of Jonah is unique in that it humorously recounts the adventures of a prophet who struggled against his divine commission. This really is a handbook on how not to be a prophet.
Proposition: God exposes the absurdity of human prejudice and bigotry as it is embodied in Jonah while God Himself emerges as a God of universal mercy.
Background: Jonah and some of his fellow countrymen had this idea that God was the exclusive property of Israel. They refused to accept the universality of God’s grace, especially when it meant extending this grace to the Assyrian city of Nineveh. The Assyrians were cruel and heartless people who thought nothing of burying their enemies alive, skinning them alive, or impaling them on sharp poles under the hot sun. The events of Jonah occurred before the Assyrian invasion of Israel in 722 BC. 2 Kings 14:25 places a very patriotic Jonah prophesying about expanding the borders of Israel under the reign of Jereboam II. The prevailing conditions under his reign are interesting. Politically, Israel was inclusive, trying to form alliances with other nations to ward off any attack from a larger nation, namely Assyria. Religiously, Israel was exclusive, believing that God really didn’t care about other nations besides Israel which prompted the people to be very antagonistic toward other nations.
Key Word: The story of Jonah has a very simple plot in FOUR successive chapters.
OUTLINE
I. Jonah’s Flight (ch.1) "But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the LORD… (1:3)."
A. Explanation: Unlike other prophets who proclaimed their messages from the safety of their homelands, Jonah was called to go to Nineveh. He didn’t want to preach to them, much less go there. Jonah thinks that he can run away from God and the obligations of his prophetic office. Bad things happened when he chose to go west toward Tarshish when God said to go east to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh 550 miles away to preach repentance to this pagan nation.
B. Illustration: For Jonah, going to Nineveh would be like a Jew who lived in New York during WW II going to Berlin to preach to Nazi Germany.
C. Exposition: He get’s on a ship, a storm approaches that the sailor’s interpret to be some kind of divine act, Jonah is awakened, confesses that he’s the problem, and he’s pitched overboard at his own suggestion. As a result, the whole maritime crew is converted to Jonah’s God. It’s amazing how God even has us testifying to Himself in our times of disobedience.
D. Observation: Note the downward motif: "down to Joppa, down into the ship to lay down, down into the sea, down into a great fish and down into Sheol." These are very "unideal" experiences. Are you getting the picture that disobedience doesn’t pay? That going south-west when God say’s north-east is a bad idea? Jonah is borderline suicidal. He has a subconscious death-wish.
E. Notation: The irony intensifies when Jonah continues to talk the language of religious orthodoxy in the very act of denying his prophetic office. Look at verse 9: 1:9 He said to them, "I am a Hebrew, and I fear the LORD, the God of the heavens, who made the sea and the land." He’s quoting a very familiar, popular theological cliché in the Bible (Ps.121:2; 146:6; Ex.20:11; Neh.9:6). Later on in chapter 3 he once again quotes a theological formula that occurs in nearly verbatim form six other times in the Old Testament (Ex.34:6; Ps.86:15; 103:8; 145:8; Joel 2:13; Neh.9:17): 4:2 He prayed to the LORD and said, "Oh, LORD, isn’t this just what I said when I was in my own country? This is why I took the initiative to run off to Tarshish, because I knew that you are gracious and compassionate, slow to wrath and abounding in loyal love, and one who relents concerning disaster. Jonah’s problem is not theological. In fact, his theology is impeccable. He knows how to mouth the right words. But he can’t stand the fact that they are true. His problem is not theological; his problem is prejudicial. He couldn’t stand the fact that God might show compassion on a people like the Assyrians. Jonah was reluctant to go to Nineveh because he knew God so well. He could not comprehend how God could blot out generations of iniquity by one sudden change of heart by one generation.
II. Jonah’s Rescue (ch.2) "Then Jonah prayed… from the stomach of the fish (2:1)."
A. Explanation: I couldn’t think of a better thing to do in the belly of a fish. It wasn’t your typical Holiday Inn type accommodations inside the fish. It stunk! It was fleshy, gritty, suffocating, and dark.
B. Observation: Incidentally, this is the most favorable light in which we see Jonah in the entire story and it comes while he’s in the belly of a fish. Jonah does repent, but it’s only when he has no other options and his repentance proves to be superficial. It’s ironic that here Jonah pleads for God’s mercy for himself, but later on in the story when God shows mercy to the Assyrians, he get’s mad about it! Jonah was eventually vomited (as I understand, many other milder terms could have been used to express this) out of the fish presumably on the Palestinian coast and God reissued the call to go preach to Nineveh. This time Jonah obeyed.
III. Jonah’s Sermon (ch. 3)
A. Quotation: The setting for Jonah’s sermon is the city of Nineveh. One author describes the stronghold of the city this way: "There were five walls and three moats (canals) surrounding it. The walls were one hundred feet high and allowed four chariots to be driven abreast (or about 50 feet wide) …. (H. Mears and John Hannah)." It was an impressive sight.
B. Amplification: John Hannah points out: Before Jonah arrived at this seemingly inpregnable fortress-city, two plagues had erupted there…and a total eclipse of the sun occurred just a few years prior to his arrival. These were considered signs of divine anger by these pagan people and may help to explain why the Ninevites responded so readily to Jonah’s message (BKC, p.1462).
C. Explanation: God had prepared these people for His message, but Jonah sure wasn’t going to make it easy. By the time Jonah reached the stronghold of this great metropolitan city, he is so mad and frustrated that he gives an eight-word sermon (in English; five in Hebrew). He went throughout the city proclaiming in Jonah 3:4: "Yet forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown." There were no illustrations or stories or motivational conclusions. He doesn’t even put a "Thus saith the Lord…" in front of it. One can tell that Jonah really doesn’t want them to repent.
D. Summation: Here is this little lone prophet in the heart of pagan, Sin-City Nineveh preaching an eight word sermon to a city known for it’s terrorism. He goes on the east side of the city, builds himself a little shanty and waits for 40 days to see what will happen. Much to Jonah’s chagrin, the whole city hit’s their knees. Not only does the entire city repent, but ironically even the animals fasted and were covered with the symbolic sackcloth (3:7-8). It was the greatest revival in history, surpassing even Israel’s revivals. Jonah is the most successful prophet in the land, but he hates it! Furthermore, he pouts like a child when he failed to get his own way and he wants to die.
IV. Jonah’s Rejection (ch.4) "But it greatly displeased Jonah, and he became angry (4:1)."
A. Explanation: As we stand at the threshold of the last chapter, it is obvious that the story could take two directions. First, it might become a conversion story in which the prophet reforms his attitude, stays in the city for a period of time doing follow-up work with the new converts and carefully teaching them in their new decision. OR second, it could reinforce the prejudice and satire that dominates the story up to this point.
B. Recitation: Let’s read Jonah 4:4-11 to see which direction Jonah took: 4:4 The LORD said, "Is it good that you are angry?" 4:5 Jonah left the city, settled east of the city, made a shelter for himself there, and settled under it in the shade to see what would happen in the city. 4:6 The LORD God selected a plant and it went up over Jonah to be a shade over his head to rescue him from his calamity, and Jonah was delighted about the plant. 4:7 God selected a worm at dawn the next day, and it attacked the plant so that it dried up. 4:8 As the sun began shining, God selected a hot east wind, the sun beat down on Jonah’s head, he was faint, asked to die, and said, "It would be better for me to die than to live." 4:9 God said to Jonah, "Is it good that you are angry about the plant?" And he said, "It is good for me to be angry, enough to die."4:10 The LORD said, "You have compassion for the plant, something that you have not worked over nor made to grow, a thing that lasted a night and perished after a night. 4:11 Now should not I have compassion for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who do not know their right from their left, besides many animals?"
C. Exposition: The book ends abruptly with Jonah still rebelling in his heart and God still showing mercy. Should I not have compassion? That’s the great question that God proposes to His prophet. God used the plant as an object lesson to teach Jonah that He was a compassionate God who longed to show mercy to all people. God is saying if you have the audacity to be upset over the loss of a plant to whose existence you contributed nothing, am I not justified in showing love and mercy for the people of Nineveh whom I have created?
D. Conclusion: The story ends with Jonah still in rebellion, still angry, still resisting, full of prejudice and hate. Prejudice was his fatal flaw.
E. Question: Did the story of Jonah really happen? Some want to dismiss it as mere fiction or imagination. Jesus certainly viewed it has historical in Matthew 12:39-41. It really happened. Let’s dismiss this question and spend our time applying the book.
CONCLUSION
Question: Why would God give us the book of Jonah? Remember, this story was originally written for Israel. A case could be made for at least four themes. First, Israel needed to see that God’s love extends to all nations and people groups. God has pity on all of the cities of the world. Second, Israel needed to see their missionary purpose for the world. Some refer to Jonah as the John 3:16 of the Old Testament. Indeed, it is. Third, they needed to see that God, who forgives wicked pagans, who know nothing of Him, would also forgive and spare His own people who know much about Him, if they would just repent. It was a kind of dramatic narrative rebuke. Fourth, Israel needed to see that obedience in all of these things was extremely important. Fifth, Israel was reminded of their free will and of God’s sovereign hand. God changed his mind about destroying Nineveh because they repented. At the same time, God did the miraculous to get his prophet where He wanted him.
Proposition: However, I see something even bigger than these themes. God is challenging your tendency to rest content with your prejudices in the book of Jonah. Jonah was angry. The reason for his anger was not that he was ignorant of God’s love and mercy. The reason he was so angry was that he hated Nineveh.
Application: Like Jonah, some of us have had numerous events in our lives that should have produced change in our prejudices but we push ahead with our own narrow-minded, uninformed, unbalanced, hateful agenda, and fail to ever learn the heart of what God is trying to say to us. Prejudiced people never learn anything new! "My mind is made up," they say. "Don’t confuse me with the facts." We become hardened in our ill-tempered bigotry. We become the archetypal "refuser of festivities" and the incorrigibly cantankerous person that will not rejoice in the good things that may happen because our prejudices stand in our way. Choosing to let go of your prejudices is a heroic decision. True heroes are those who refuse to prejudge prematurely on the basis of their preconceived ideas. Prejudice comes in many different ways. Some are…
1. Prejudiced toward religious groups. Some groups actually believe that their group has a corner on the truth, a monopoly on God’s grace. Some of us can’t stand to think that God might love and even use a Roman Catholic or a Zen-Christian or a Hindu or a Muslim or a Mormon to some way glorify Himself. God is bigger than your paradigms. He can even use World Religions to glorify Himself. Many world religions contain enough truth to serve as a prepatory step in receiving the gospel and bringing people to repentance. I’m not advocating World Religions, but you can find God in world religions. Our tendency is to want others to experience God exactly as we have. That’s impossible. Those raised in a World Religion from their birth will experience God differently. God’s mindset is to include, not exclude. Rev. 7:9 talks about a great multitude of Gentiles standing before God’s throne in heaven "from every nation and all tribes and peoples and tongues… clothed in white robes…" God isn’t prejudice. Paul talks about redemptive privilege extending to everyone in Gal. 3:28 "There is neither Jew nor Greek…slave nor free man…male nor female…" It’s conceivable to talk a great theology (mouth the words), but your life and heart can still be diametrically opposite to God’s plan of loving the whole world.
2. Prejudiced toward race and ethnic origins. The pain of personal rejection by reason of birth alone is one of the deepest pains a human being can ever experience. We read or hear often in the news of cases of discrimination, cross burnings, hate-crimes, and of anti-Semitic swastikas. Racism is not a "skin" problem; it’s a "sin" problem. We must decide to accept and appreciate the way God has made us and others. Let’s stay away from neo-Nazi and maverick militia movements. They breed hate.
3. Prejudiced toward certain genders.
a. Men: women are valuable people. I affirm their presence in our world, our nation, and in our church and in ministry. Their opinion matters. Can you believe that women couldn’t vote in the early part of this century? In some cultures, women can’t even testify in court. At he heart of mature masculinity is a sense of benevolent responsibility to lead, provide for and protect women.
b. Women: all men are not scum. Some women have projected on to all of the men in their life a bitter attitude because of one or two bums they’ve encountered. It’s time to stop resisting the leadership of godly men. Submit to those who have your interest at heart. Male bashing is a popular thing among feminists. There’s nothing wrong with being a male.
4. Prejudiced toward place and position. If someone has all the indicators of success, then they must be OK and are treated with favoritism. But a homeless person, an alcoholic, an addict has created their own problem and they must live with it. After all the old cliché says "God helps those who help themselves." A story here would help us, sent to me from an email buddy (see James 2:1-13). It was a cold winter’s day that Sunday. The parking lot to the church was filling up quickly. I noticed as I got out of my car fellow church members were whispering among themselves as they walked in the church. As I got closer I saw a man leaned up against the wall outside the church. He was almost laying down as if he was asleep. He had on a long trench coat that was almost in shreds and a hat topped his head, pulled down so you could not see his face. He wore shoes that looked 30 years old, too small for his feet, with holes all over them, his toes stuck out. I assumed this man was homeless, and asleep, so I walked on by through the doors of the church. We all fellowshipped for a few minutes, and someone brought up the man laying outside. People snickered and gossiped but no one bothered to ask him to come in, including me. A few moments later church began. We all waited for the Preacher to take his place and to give us the Word, when the doors to the church opened. In came the homeless man walking down the aisle with his head down. People gasped and whispered and made faces. He made his way down the aisle and up onto the pulpit where he took off his hat and coat. My heart sank. There stood our preacher...he was the "homeless man". No one said a word. The preacher took his Bible and laid it on his stand. "Folks, I don’t think I have to tell you what I am preaching about today."
5. Prejudiced toward an enemy. How could God have the audacity to bless and love this person who has made or is making my life so difficult? We would rather disobey God than see an enemy saved from judgment. We play god when we continue to be angry at people and groups upon whom God has pronounced forgiveness. God’s mercy is sometimes dispensed to people who do not seem to deserve it! When it comes to your enemies, some of you need to "go to Nineveh." Who are your personal Ninevites? Are you keeping your distance from someone because you would rather give them what they deserve rather than what they need most? Remember, God can bless people that you disagree with and He may want to do it through you.
Notation: The world and the media are prejudiced toward Christians. Recently, we know that the death of a young homosexual man in a western state was blamed on some prominent Christian leaders and groups. For some reason, Christianity is under attack. It’s so important for us in these days to model what it means to "go to Nineveh." Let’s not give any fodder to those who want to discredit the credibility of our message to the world.
Quotation: In an interview with Dianne Sawyer, Billy Graham was asked the question, "If you could rid the world of any one problem, what would it be?" He replied: "Prejudice."
Illustration: Dateline aired a story last year about Toni Whatley of Cleveland, OH, a black woman who had been on dialysis for five years. To live a normal life, Whatley needed a kidney transplant. Dateline then introduced the viewers to Diana Harrill, a white woman who belonged to the same church Toni belonged to. Diana donated one of her healthy kidneys to a black woman so that she could live a normal life. Dateline reporter Rob Stafford ended the program that night by saying "It’s been a lesson in just how powerful love can be."
Observation: God could control the wind and waves in chapter 1, the fish in chapter 2, the gourd, worm, and wind in chapter 4, but he could not control Jonah without the prophet’s surrender. God Himself can’t help you with your prejudices, unless you’re willing to surrender. Prejudice must be overruled by the purposes of God. Don’t run away again from confronting your prejudice. Things can only get worse when you run away. Is your obedience up to date? Are you going in the direction God has asked you to go or are you resisting Him? Don’t let yourself off the hook so easy. You have no right to be angry at God’s forgiveness. We all have prejudices, some of which we inherited from the atmosphere of our home or school, while others we have picked up along the way. I’m asking you to be a hero/heroine. Confront your prejudice and win!
Invitation: One of the most moving truths that comes from this story is that God gave Jonah a second chance (3:1). Some of you here today have chosen to disobey God and you’re going in the opposite direction to "Tarshish," attempting to get away from the presence of the Lord. You’ve found your ship and you’re sleeping your guilt away. Circumstances are seemingly favoring your willful disobedience. But before things get any rougher and you’re cast out into a raging sea of sin’s consequences, why don’t you come back to the harbor and get after the business and the kind of life that God wants you to live.
