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Jonah Chapter 2
Sermons from Commons Church. Intellectually honest. Spiritually passionate. Jesus at the centre. Since 2014.
If you're grateful, you're not fearful. And if you're not fearful, then you're not violent. Because if you're grateful, you begin to act out of a sense of enough and not a sense of scarcity, and you become willing to share. Welcome to the Commons cast. We're glad to have you here.
Speaker 1:We hope you find something meaningful in our teaching this week. Head to commons.church for more information. We do still find ourselves in the middle of Lent, in the middle of a series on the book of Jonah. And over the first two weeks in this series, we have looked at the first chapter of this story. At today, we're gonna continue.
Speaker 1:We're gonna move through the second chapter together. But first, as always, let's look back at where we've been because it's been quite a ride already. In fact, we jumped into the story mid story because this story starts with an and. And so we talked in the first week about how this is in some sense an invitation to us to fill in the backstory of Jonah with whatever we want, with our story really. Because we are meant to find ourselves, to discover ourselves in Jonah, and therefore, this is as close as a blank slate as we can get in a story like this.
Speaker 1:Jonah is there for us to put our story into his backstory so that we find ourselves in his story. However, we do get one tiny little bit of insight into Jonah, and that comes to us from a single line in second Kings. There we read that Jonah lends his support to the wicked king Jeroboam the second who, quote, did evil in the eyes of the Lord and did not move away from the sins of Jeroboam son of Nabad. Now Jonah, we don't know much about, but Jeroboam, we actually do know quite a bit about Jeroboam the second. See, he was a king who got rich.
Speaker 1:He was a king whose friends got rich. He was a king who ruled during a period where everyone connected to the throne in Israel got rich and all the while the normal people in the country suffered and they were left behind. And for that, he was also a king whom God judged through the conquest of the Assyrians who took control of the Northern kingdom of Israel in July, which ended his line. Now, that has some interesting parallels with our story here in Jonah. Because we know that Jonah is friends with this king, and we saw that Jonah appears to be quite wealthy in the story last week.
Speaker 1:We read that Jonah is called by God to go to the Zirians to preach to their capital city of Nineveh and they eventually repent. And so we talked last week about how one of the ways to read the story of Jonah is to imagine this story as a reimagining of the history of Israel. It's an alternate timeline if you will, asking the question, what if instead of siding with the wicked king Jeroboam, what if the prophet Jonah had gone to our enemies to preach God's grace instead? And what if that had changed everything for us? And, yes, this is an idea about Jonah and his book, but this is also about how we read our bibles.
Speaker 1:Because I think this is instructive for us when it comes to our bible as a whole. Remember, the bible is not a book. It is a collection of books or a curated library of books. That means that each book has a different style and a genre and an agenda, a different way of using language to communicate. And collectively, all of these books together give us a more well rounded, a more robust image of the divine.
Speaker 1:But to understand that, we actually have to learn how to take each book on its terms. We we just came through the book of Romans. We took 28 sermons over five years to work our way through this series of incredibly complex compounding arguments that Paul makes to lead us toward his understanding of Jesus. That is beautiful in its own right. There is a profound inspired wisdom in Paul's writing that comes to us, but we have to approach those kind of texts differently than we might in ancient comedy about a giant fish.
Speaker 1:Both of them teach us something profound about God. But the way that we read, and the way that we teach, and the way that we understand what these books are trying to say is very different, even if ultimately they are pointing us toward the same God. And so hopefully, if you've been tracking with us in this season, in this cycle, you've been able to see how we teach differently depending on the text that we're looking at. I'm not gonna preach Romans the same way I do Jonah because this is part of how we honor the text as it comes to us. It's it's actually about taking the bible seriously on its terms, not ours.
Speaker 1:Now that said, last week, we found Jonah on a ship in a storm with pagan sailors who desperately work to save him. They risk their lives to get him back to shore when all he wants is to be thrown into the sea. And so this was ultimately our first big punch line in the book. This image of foreign pagan sailors who seem to understand the value of human life far better than the Hebrew prophet who is supposed to speak for God. And here is your periodic reminder that credentials don't mean everything.
Speaker 1:Now look, credentials are important. I posted a video to my Facebook page last week where Jurgen Klopp, the manager of Liverpool FC, was asked about the COVID nineteen outbreak and what he thought the Premier League should do about it, and his response was hilariously on point. He said, look. Why on earth are you asking me? I'm a football manager.
Speaker 1:I know about football, not epidemiology. So stop asking famous people for their opinions and start listening to experts who actually know what they're talking about. So there's absolutely something to be said for those with expertise and credentials. We are listening to them and responding accordingly. But everyone here on the teaching team at Commons has also done multiple degrees studying theology so that we can teach confidently and accurately.
Speaker 1:And when it comes to spiritual guidance, we still remember that credentials alone are all apparently not enough. Here in the opening chapter of Jonah, it is the one with the credentials, the one who is the court prophet, the one who actually does hear from the Lord. And yet, it is these sailors from Tarshish who begin the day each with their own religions. They are the ones who respond to the grace of God. And that's funny and supposed to be, but it's also quite poignant and it's a good reminder for us, I think.
Speaker 1:Those of us who claim to know God, but have not grace and compassion for those who don't, and we are just as confused as everyone else. And so this is what we've learned in the first two weeks of Jonah that God is not in paradise waiting. God is already in Nineveh with the wicked working. And that if grace is not to be found in Jonah, then perhaps it is hidden within those we least expect to find it. So, let's pray.
Speaker 1:And then today, it is the whale. God of grace, whose love is all around us all the time. In people we don't expect, in moments we fear, in spaces and places where we might never even begin to look for you. Would you help us to become aware of your presence today, surrounding us, comforting us, healing us, keeping us safe, helping us to bring your grace near to those who need it most. As we become more aware of you, may we slowly become ambassadors of your peace in fearful times.
Speaker 1:May we point to you. Might we celebrate your goodness. May we become part of creating your kingdom and your commonwealth among us here in this city this week. For those of us who perhaps find ourselves feeling a little bit lost or afraid this morning, isolated in a way from the normal patterns we're used to, scared and alone and perhaps feeling like somehow we are trapped at the bottom of the sea. May your grace find us even there and bring us slowly back to you In the strong name of the risen Christ we pray.
Speaker 1:Amen. Okay. Today, we finally meet the whale. And, we are gonna talk about the raging sea, the great fish, old old prayers, and why we're in it all together. Because last week, we left Jonah on the boat, sailors rowing furiously back to shore, but eventually, we read that they took Jonah and threw him overboard.
Speaker 1:And the raging sea grew calm. And at this, the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him. Now the Lord provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights, end of chapter one. Now, we do want to get to chapter two today. We wanna work through that whole chapter before we leave today, but there are a couple things here at the very end of chapter one I wanna talk about.
Speaker 1:First of all, they took Jonah and threw him overboard and the raging sea grew calm and at this, the men greatly feared the Lord. Now, that's kind of a strange statement. I mean, I can certainly see why they were scared of the storm, but here in the calm, isn't this the moment to finally begin to feel safe? And at least part of what the writer is doing here is drawing our attention to the idea of fear itself. This is a thing that we come across in the Hebrew scriptures a lot, the the fear of God.
Speaker 1:Unfortunately, what happens is we tend to conflate two very different ideas in our mind. Now, it is the same word, and this is why it gets translated the same way. But Hebrew, just like English, has words with a wide semantic range. In fact, Hebrew, which has a much smaller vocabulary than English, almost has to by necessity have words with more range to them than we're used to. Everything just has to do double duty.
Speaker 1:And fear or Yare in Hebrew falls into that category. Because Yare can mean fear, but it can also mean reverence or respect or worship. As an adjective, Yare can even mean everything from awesome to disgusting depending on the context. However, the theological dictionary of the Old Testament says it of the verb Yare that in almost 80% of the passages where it appears and the object of the fear is God, the nature of this fear is modified substantially by particular contextual classificators. Essentially, what they're saying there is that in almost all of the fear of God passages, the context indicates that being afraid is not actually the central idea.
Speaker 1:And why this tangent is important is I think we tend to read fear of God in the Hebrew scriptures, and what we should hear is reverence and respect or deep awareness of divine transcendent otherness. And instead, we filter those words through our English vocabulary, and we end up being afraid of God. And those are two very different ideas. And so what can happen is like our last series, we hear a passage from Romans where Paul says that the wrath of God is being revealed against all of the godlessness and wickedness of humanity. And immediately, instead of thinking, oh, thank goodness, God is just as upset as I am about injustice.
Speaker 1:Thank goodness, God intends to tear down everything that hurts me, everything in me that pits me against my neighbor. Instead of hearing that God is against everything that tears at us and creation, we revert back to this fear response, and somehow we think that God has turned against us. And instead of being in awe of the God who does everything to heal creation, somehow we end up being afraid of that same God. And so, at a meta level, understanding that the fear of God does not mean that you should ever be afraid of God is important. God is on your side.
Speaker 1:God is working for your best. God is always drawing you toward the center, and that's the good news even when it's hard. But the truth is that's actually what seems to be being expressed here in the story of Jonah as well. Because if you look a little more closely at the Hebrew, what you see is that there's actually a parallel that's a little lost in our English translation. In verse 10, the Hebrew says that after hearing about Jonah's God, the sailors feared a great fear.
Speaker 1:Now, in verse 16, after the storm has been calmed, we read that they greatly feared the Lord. In in the Hebrew mind, there is a profound difference between fearing fear and fearing the Lord. And I really like the way that the Jewish commentator Uriel Simon draws this out for us. He writes that just as the towering waves had filled their hearts with quote a great fear. Now, the uncanny calm of the sea has opened their hearts to quote a great fear of the Lord.
Speaker 1:And, I like that because I like the way he captures the beauty and the complexity of the Hebrew language here by saying that their hearts were opened to a great fear of the Lord. Because for a Jewish person, for a rabbi, for a storyteller like the writer of Jonah, this fear is a gift. It's not something to be afraid of. It is an opening up to the mystery of what really is around us all the time. At this week, I think a lot of us found ourselves afraid of COVID nineteen.
Speaker 1:But the truth is that's not really helpful. Fear tends to shut us off from each other. It tends to shut down our empathy for one another. It it actually distances us in more than our physicality. It begins to separate us emotionally.
Speaker 1:But this fear reminds us that this is not the only option for us. There is also awe and there's respect. There's awareness of reality that opens us up to each other in new ways. That actually drives us to care for each other, that makes choices for each other, that channels how small that we are as individuals into solidarity with each other. And, brother David Stendle writes this.
Speaker 1:He says, if you're grateful, you're not fearful. And if you're not fearful, then you're not violent. Because if you're grateful, you begin to act out of a sense of enough and not a sense of scarcity, and you become willing to share. And maybe that's the kind of fear of the Lord that motivates pagan sailors to row for shore to save someone else's life. Or to begin to offer sacrifices to a god that they've just discovered to make vows to the lord about how they will begin to live tomorrow.
Speaker 1:Because fear doesn't have to be something to be afraid of. Here, in this story, it can also be the thing that opens us up to seeing the world in new ways, that draws us together in solidarity in awe of the divine around us. But then, a great fish swallowed Jonah. So let's talk about this. The Hebrew says that a great fish swallowed Jonah, and people get caught up on this a lot.
Speaker 1:Was it a fish? Was it a whale? Was it a passing ship named a great fish? Which, by the way, is actually an interpretation of the story that imagines Jonah originally as a play that was acted out. And in that play, perhaps, Jonah was rescued by a new set of sailors who took him and put him up for three nights in a tavern called the belly of the whale.
Speaker 1:And over the years, perhaps that play, as it moved from actors to writers, got mixed up a little bit in the details. May have an interesting idea, although you'll find it put forward in literature, it doesn't really seem to have any basis in particular other than someone's speculation. But there is, however, another very ancient Jewish interpretation interpretation all the way back from the eleventh century where the rabbi Ibn Ezra assumes that this section is actually all the dream that Jonah has when he sleeps in the belly of the ship. We talked about some of the foreshadowing in the language there, and even Ezra picks up on that to help explain what's going on. However, as I have argued, I think the absurdity of the story is the point.
Speaker 1:I actually think that attempts to explain away this great fish are missing the point because I think the writer wants us to giggle about this here, and he wants us to begin thinking in absurd ways. I like the way that Jack Sasson puts it, which, by the way, is just a great name for an academic. But he says, is not necessary to enter a dispute at all here. Suffice it to say that stories of wondrous escapes from the giant gulps of fish have survived into our own days and they are not necessarily promulgated or believed merely to sustain fundamentalist convictions. They survive because they are good stories.
Speaker 1:And so I think attempts to make Jonah make sense to try to explain how he could have actually survived in a whale for three days. They both somehow reduce the miraculousness of the story, and they miss the point of the story. That Jonah really does not want to go to Nineveh and God really does want him too. And so now, here we are finally in the belly of a whale. And we enter into one of the most profound moments in the arc of this Jonah character.
Speaker 1:Because where everything has been, for the most part, pretty light hearted and funny so far, even the idea of Jonah being thrown into the sea is played for some laughs. This next section is anything but comedy. Now, we read that from inside the fish, Jonah prayed to the Lord his God. And there's this interesting quirk in the language here where the sailors have already asked Jonah about his God, but this is the first time we see Jonah speaking to his God. And this is what he says.
Speaker 1:In my distress, I called to the Lord and he answered me. Psalm 18. From the depth of the realm of the dead, I called for help and you listened to my cry. Psalm nine. You hurled me into the deep, into the very heart of the seas, and the current swirled around me.
Speaker 1:All your waves and breakers swept over me, Psalm 42. I said, I have been banished from your sight, Psalm one thirty nine, and yet I will look again toward your holy temple, Psalm five. The engulfing waters threatened me, Psalm 69. The deep surrounded me, Seaweed began to wrap around my head. Into the roots of the mountains, I sank down.
Speaker 1:The earth beneath me barring me in forever. But you, oh Lord, my God, brought my life up from the pit, Psalm 30. And when my life was ebbing away, Psalm one forty two, I remembered you, Lord. And my prayer rose to you, to your holy temple, Psalm 11. For those who cling to worthless idols, Psalm 31, they forfeit God's love for them.
Speaker 1:But I, with shouts of glorious praise, will sacrifice to you what I have vowed, I will make good. For I will say salvation comes from the Lord, Psalm 27, Psalm 37, Psalm 62, and Psalm one eighteen. And the Lord commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land. I mean, this is a remarkable moment in the story. And not only for the turnaround in Jonah.
Speaker 1:I mean, a moment ago, he wanted nothing to do with God. And I do suppose that being swallowed by a whale will do that to you, but also for the incredible content of this prayer that we just read. You see, in this second chapter, there are no less than 14 references to 11 different psalms in this prayer. And if you go and look them up, you will see that these are not just passing illusions. These are direct quotes from the Hebrew book of worship.
Speaker 1:That is really interesting to me because we did a series on prayer last year. It was called the problem of prayer. In that series, we talked about the beauty and the need for both spontaneous expressions of prayer that flow from a moment of divine connection. But then also prayers that are crafted and preserved for us. Prayers that are gifted to us by the artist in our communities that have a way of expressing things we struggle to for ourselves.
Speaker 1:And I think most of us recognize the significance of both of those in our lives. Every week when I prepare my sermon, I craft a prayer that comes after the opening, and I write that prayer out. I work really hard on it to welcome us into this space where the message can then work on us. And I spent a lot of time every week on the language and the tone and the shaping of that moment because I believe that the spirit of God is present to me all week as I prepare to speak on a Sunday. And consistently, across our team here at Commons, I am blown away by the creativity and the beauty that emerges from our public worship in the prayers that are written for our gatherings together.
Speaker 1:Now but then, at the end of the sermon every week, I also reserve some space where I can pray and I can react to that moment. I very intentionally leave that prayer unwritten until that moment. So that I can feel the room and I can understand how that message is landing for me so that I can respond to the way that I sense spirit leading us together in that moment. And in that moment, I pray spontaneously without prewritten words to guide me. And for me, both of those feel very honest.
Speaker 1:Neither of them feels forced. Neither of them is better than the other. In fact, it's that sense that God is near me in both my preparation and performance that I find incredibly comforting. But if I had to guess which type of prayer I might lean on, should I find myself ever in a moment of desperation sinking to the bottom of the ocean, wrapped in seaweed with a large fish mouth agape swimming toward me, I might tend to go with the second. In fact, I'm pretty confident here that if I found myself in a situation like Jonah, I might be a little less eloquent than I expected.
Speaker 1:You know, some colorful language tends to come to mind for this. The truth is, I don't know about you, but fish kind of creep me out. I really don't want none of that. My son, for some reason, really likes the idea of fishing, and he always asked me to take him down to the bow habitat to fish. And I'm like, sure.
Speaker 1:But I'm not touching anything if you actually catch it. That's gross. And thankfully, he never does, so I don't have to worry. But I find this moment here in Jonah very compelling. Because my instinct here is to revert to calling out for desperate help, to want to crawl up in the fetal position and cry when I imagine myself in Jonah's shoes.
Speaker 1:And yet Jonah gives me something I wouldn't know to expect from him. This deep reliance on the community that has surrounded him. See, this is the language that he has been gifted by the poets. This is the faith that he has perhaps been offered by his parents. This is trust that things are not just what they seem on the surface.
Speaker 1:There is a bigger story at play here in this moment. And that despite his errors, he has not forgotten. That despite his running, he is still not alone. That despite the fact that he has tried everything he can to avoid God's grace, somehow God's grace has not avoided him. And that's really meaningful to me.
Speaker 1:And look, Jonah is far from our model here. We shouldn't trying to be emulate him. He is gonna take this moment of grace and spit it back at God. He's actually going to do as little as possible to live up to this prayer when he finally finds himself safe on the beach again. And yet, somehow, God is still present here in the belly of the whale.
Speaker 1:In words that someone else wrote, passed through the lips of someone who barely believes them in an echo of faith that comes back to Jonah from a memory perhaps long forgotten. Even there, God is present and active and full of saving grace. And this is actually the paradox that sits at the very heart of the Jonah story. Sometimes, in order for us to recognize God everywhere, we first have to try to run away. And that sometimes, in order to begin to see the divine in those closest to us, we first actually need to become aware of it in those we would least expect.
Speaker 1:That sometimes, in order to encounter God in personal, meaningful ways, up and close and near us in that place where we feel trapped. First, we need to learn to trust ourselves to those who've been there before us. And we take their words as ours. And we trust their faith is true. And we try on everything that has come down to us, not because our faith will end up looking any less unique than we are.
Speaker 1:But simply because somehow, even when it comes to our faith, we are in this together, even when we find ourselves trapped in the belly of a whale. And this is what I would hope we would take from the story of Jonah in this week and in this moment we find ourselves in the world right now. That when you are anxious, it's the prayers of the community that can calm you. And that when you are scared, it is the gifts of those around you that can bring you peace. That when you are alone or lonely, sometimes it is the memories of kind words that fill your mind and lift you up out of that moment.
Speaker 1:And that when you are fine and healthy and full of joy again, it is the grace that sustains you in the whale that becomes the gift you now have to offer to those who are near you. Because this is what Jonah reminds us, that everything in faith is a paradox. And that even when we find ourselves alone at the bottom of the ocean, trapped in the belly of a whale, it is there that the community of Christ. And the faith that surrounds us in those that love us, that comes to us, that lifts us, that reminds us, and teaches us what it means to be thankful again. Because no matter what we have been told, no matter what situation we find ourselves in, we are never on our own, no matter how deep we find ourselves.
Speaker 1:And this is what Jonah remembers in this moment. This is what moves Jonah into the next. May it be the same for us this week as well. Let's pray. God, for all the ways that we may have forgotten about you and tried to run away, tried to find our own agenda, our own path to our own paradise, Maybe those things did not work out as we expected.
Speaker 1:And perhaps, we've begun to be afraid of you, thinking that when we meet you again, when we come back around, you will meet us with anger and frustration that you will not be there with open arms to embrace us. But God, might we remember the prayers of Jonah. Someone who messes up and falls down and runs away, and yet still when he prays, the community is there to give him words. You are there to meet him and embrace him. You are there to provide salvation and put him back on solid ground.
Speaker 1:And yet, even when he turns again and spits that grace back in your face, you are still there to be compassion. And love and empathy to be there waiting for us no matter how many times we turn around and back again. Would that confidence become the story that grounds us in the world? The fear of the Lord, this awe of your love that reminds us of what really is in the world. That we can turn towards each other.
Speaker 1:Even when we're scared, even when we feel like we are separated. We can offer a grace and peace and in that moment, we can become a strength for each other. In the strong name of the risen Christ, we pray. Amen.