Last week we talked about free will. How Jonah was exercising his free will when he went and caught a boat going the opposite direction from where God send him. We looked over the scripture to determine Jonah’s qualifications. If he was being called for the first time as a Prophet. From the reading it seems that this was not a new job. What was new was that he is the only prophet in the OT that is being sent to people other than Israel. We also learned about the conversion of some pagan sailors. .
Here are a couple of things that I did not point out last week. While it is obvious that Jonah is being disobedient, up to the point we stopped last week we never saw him repent. The storm did not scare him. The fear of the sailors did not bother him even when the casting of lots pointed to him as the cause of all their weather problems. In fact when confronted with why was his god angry the pagans were scared to death that someone would disobey his God. Especially a prophet.
So last week we saw gentile pagans sailors the repented, prayed, and worshiped the LORD and the prophet did not. Then when asked how the LORD could be satisfied, the says throw me over board. I had to think a little on why he just did not jump over board himself. I guess I thought he was just scared. The seas are high it is obvious that he will not survive if he is in the sea. So I decided he is a wimp. Perhaps he considered it a sin to commit suicide? That is what it is right, it there is not way to survive in the sea. He is a good Jew and would never do anything sinful.
One additional idea is that for the sailors to be separated –absolutely – clearly separated from Jonah’s sin. They had to be the ones to take the punishing action. They had to throw him overboard. You will recall that they tried to avoid this action. And finally gave in and the storm stopped. And the last we heard of the Prophet Jonah was that God prepared a big fish that consumed him.
Does it bother you that we don’t have any evidence today that a fish might eat a person, and the person survives? As a kid I never worried about these details. And now as an adult the people that make movies can show me any incredible thing they want to and it will look very real.
Today, we are not going to really worry about the mystery of the fish because We don’t have an answer. I will tell you that I personally can accept it and move on with what I believe our lesson is for today.
Now I will read the 2nd chapter and you need to listen directly to Jonah’s words. Today our lesson is connected to reading Jonah’s lips. As he gives a prayer to God in his time of distress what is he really saying and not saying.
Jonah 2 Jonah’s Prayer
1 From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. 2 He said:
"In my distress I called to the LORD ,
and he answered me.
From the depths of the grave I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
3 You hurled me into the deep,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
4 I said, ’I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.’
5 The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you brought my life up from the pit,
O LORD my God.
7 "When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, LORD ,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.
8 "Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
Salvation comes from the LORD ."
10 And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.
While Jonah was on the boat we have no hint that he actually prayed to God for the deliverance of the boat from the danger it was in. Now in this chapter he begins to pray. His prayer is full of I’s, perhaps that is normal when facing dangers. I just wonder way he does not start his prayer until he is in the water and even seems to be under the water. I guess there is better than an average chance that he did not know how to swim. But what would have been the point. Notice that Jonah, does not record any characteristics of God in the beginning f his prayer. Perhaps he is in a hurry. Later in the book he will mention what he sees as the character of God. But that will be next week.
So he states that in his distress that God heard him, heard his prayer. I guess if God did not respond we would not have this story about obedience would have ended pretty quickly. (And he died as food for the fishes. ) That would tell us something about God and his wrath. But it does not end there. And Jonah’s prayer continues. You still need to be reading his lips as he says the next part.
“3 You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the currents swirled about me; all your waves and breakers swept over me.”
Did we miss something? Who is really responsible for the problems he is facing right now? Was Jonah innocent and sinless in his choices up to this point?
If Jonah had headed to Nivinah, he did not need to catch a boat. So who’s fault is all of this? It sounds like Jonah is blaming God for the problems….
It sounds as if, for no reason at all, God picked him up and hurled him into the sea.
I wonder something, as a prophet of God, to you think that he thought he was superior to other people? I am pretty sure that as an Israelite, he believed that he was better than the Pagan sailors and the world of gentiles, like the Assyrians. The Israelites knew they were the chosen people. Blessed and protected by the one true God. That could make them a little arrogant. It would be easy to have a superior attitude when God is on your side. And Jonah was a prophet. A servant of God. God spoke to people through him. He had personal knowledge that God spoke to him. That made him pretty special, he could easily have felt that he was better some how.
As Christians, I wonder if we sometimes end up with a superior attitude. We are saved. Though the blood of Jesus Christ our sins are forgiven and we will have eternal life in heaven. That is the Good news. We have it from God’s word that we are a chosen people. That is what we know and compared to all those people that live around here. We have something they don’t. We have it because we are really good people.
Today we are talking very directly about when we as Christians forget where we came from. We can end up with a superior attitude that lets us be stubborn and unmoved by other people’s conditions and needs. We can be arrogant about the promises we have received and even resentful if someone beneath us accidentally finds the things we believe.
What I want you to consider this morning is superficial spirituality. Is your spirituality only skin deep? It seems Jonah’s attitudes relied on his history, his heritage and his calling, but not on his actions that led him to this moment. It seems that he felt that God owed him something when he cried out. He accuses God of causing the bad stuff to happen, perhaps a call for guilt on God’s part.
As Christians today, we talk about Grace and how it is a gift A GIFT. Today we should have a completely different understanding of God than Jonah. But I wonder if we do?
Think for a moment, Really consider how you feel I the back of your mind, the ideas that you would never really say out loud.
How do you feel about the fact your family has gone to this church for a long time?
How do you really feel about the physical work you have done around the church…?
Your offering, why do you really Give…..
Do you feel that you have paid your dues? Do You believe that you are in the club and have rights and privileges?
Have you been here long enough that you have seniority, and you own something.. or that you are owed something?
Skin deep spirituality is like a Halloween mask. It is easy to take it out on Sunday and put it on and come down to the church and everyone sees Jesus on you. Plain as the nose on your face and when you head home it can come off just as easily.
Skin deep spirituality works by hiding what our insides are really like. It allows the wearer to rely on their heritage, “I have always been in church. Heck I was practically born back there on the next to last row.”
Too many people that call themselves Christians look at their heritage and works and ultimately fool themselves and others into believing that everything is fine in their relationship with God. There is no desire to do much more than show up on Sunday. No real studying for Sunday school or any individual bible study.
The depth of spirituality is characterized by a shallow prayer life that only really becomes active when something goes wrong in their lives. When their world starts to fall apart.- Oh God save me from this pain and suffering. Other wise the prayers fall to generalities, Lord protect our children; watch after all the Christians in the world.
Unfortunately, the faith in their prayer is just as weak because they don’t really believe they will go anyplace anyway. They can’t find a comfort or real peace because that actually comes from an inside that has been fully yielded to God.
This kind of spirituality is like a couple of inches of snow on top of a garbage dump. With just a stick and a couple of minutes you all too quickly find the truth about where you are standing.
When we go back to reading Jonah’s lips, we realize that he never repents for his disobedience. He never says he will go to Nivinah. He describes his life draining away as his prayer reached God.
At the moment he is praying to God he knows that it is possible to be saved. For him, it is possible because he is a believer in God and not an Idol worshiper. Why would this recognition and potential offering be of any value to God? Jonah has exercised his free will and said he will not do what he knows God want him to do. When the storm came he stood on the deck of the boat and refused to acknowledge God. He let his pride keep him from responding.
All he promises to do is to go to the temple with thanksgiving and offer a sacrifice. Jonah is depending on who he seems to be to be the reason God might save him. It appears that he has no remorse for his disobedience or for his arrogance and pride. Perhaps it is that he just does not see that he has any problems. He is not noticing his disobedience is a bad thing.
Why does God deliver Jonah in our scripture today?
It appears that Jonah is willing to give full credit to God for saving him. He seems to fully believe in God and his power and even mercy. Jonah is the recipient of God’s grace even without understanding that it is his faith in God and his ultimate nature that really saves him.
Folks if we are not really in touch with God, if we don’t recognize that it is our sin that causes the problems in our lives and we let pride keep us from turning to God to find something to fix us. We deserve all that we get.
We deserve for all our prayers to be heavier than lead balloons.
We deserve all the pain and suffering that we experience as a result of the sin.
Why does God Let us live? Why does he not just squash us and get it over with?
We are also the receivers of God’s abundant mercy and grace. Even if our faith is as thin as a mask. If it has just the tiniest foot hold in our heart. We are in the family.
But how do we deal with the problem that is far too common for Christians today.
We must let ourselves be moved by our experiences or the experiences of others we have to repent from being so comfortable that we are totally line with God’s direction and will. None of us are on the perfect track!
We can’t just sit and wonder what God does not seem to speak to us…. I really believe he tries; sometime we don’t listen because we don’t like what he has to say. Just like Jonah we run from God until he stops pushing. Our free will pushes the spirituality from the heart and makes it hard to listen.
If we don’t hear God, but we really want to, we have to stop trying to fake it.
We have to pray and ask that we receive the gift of grace that we need. We have to ask to have our hearts changed and softened.
We have to look at our lives and see if we are being changed. If the Garbage dump is being replaced by an empty space that is suitable as a home for God.
If your desire is real, it may take a little time but God will start working. It will start with the softest whispers and move to warm conversations. The things that look like risk and chances to fail get smaller and your desire to run away fades a little.
- Our spirituality must be allowed to go deeper for us to be truly useful to God. Only You can choose to let that happen.
All Glory be to God!
