Jonah 3 [1] & 4 
[2]
Dear sisters and brothers in Christ, grace and peace to you from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. Over the past few years, I've grown to love a good fish story. I suppose this is largely due to the fact that over the past few years I grown to love fishing. The men in the family I married into are all about fishing. Once the fishing opener hits each year, significant time is spent at the cabin each weekend in the boat, prowling the waters for bass. If we are not on the lake fishing, then we are thinking about the next time when we will be able to be on the lake, that's probably August 22nd for those of you keeping score at home. During the off-season, time is spent dreaming about next summer, researching new lures or visiting Grandma and Grandpa in Florida where there is no off-season for fishing. There is drama and excitement in a good fish story. They can grab your attention with the exciting strike of a fish, they keep you listening as you hear of the intense struggle to reel fish closer to the boat, you are tantalized as the fish is finally spotted and netting the fish seems imminent. Then, invariably the biggest fish you've ever makes his escapes and swims off to fight another day. At least that's how most of my fish stories end; big dramatic build up, unsatisfying ending.
So it seems with the book of Jonah. Jonah's a short book. It is only four chapters long, two of which we read today. And Jonah is probably best known for his encounter with the big fish. I'd guess that many of you recall the story from Sunday school, but let me give you the cliff's notes version so we are all up to speed. Jonah receives a call from God to proclaim destruction in Nineveh, the great capital of the Assyrian empire. Jonah heads in the opposite direction of Nineveh to a port city called Joppa. In Joppa, Jonah catches a boat sailing even further away from Nineveh to Tarshish. God then causes a great storm and the boat begins to pitch to and fro causing the crew of said boat to be terrified. Eventually they decide that their only course of action is to throw Jonah overboard where he is at once swallowed by a big fish. For three days he lives in the belly of the fish. Jonah prays to God and then is vomited onto dry land. And who said the Bible can't be exciting?
So far so good, lots of drama, lots of excitement. Here's where today's readings pick up the story. God calls Jonah again. This time Jonah goes to Nineveh, delivers the shortest sermon in the history of sermons, "Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!" That is it. In Hebrew it is only five words. Then the entire city repents, calls a fast, and puts on burlap as a sign of the repentance. God changes God's mind about punishing Nineveh. Then, oddly, Jonah gets angry that his preaching has been successful. Jonah prays to God saying he wishes he were dead. Then God asks why should you be angry? Jonah leaves the city and watches to see if God really did change the plans on him. He sits to the east of the city waiting for the 40 days to expire. God causes a bush to grow that gives Jonah shade. Jonah is happy. God causes a worm to eat the bush the next morning, Jonah is really angry and then Jonah says he wishes he were dead again, huge dramatic climax. Then, God asks Jonah a couple of questions and the story ends. Talk about an anti-climax. We are just left there hanging, rod and reel in hand with nothing to show for it. Seems like a typical fish story, big build up, no finish. Or is it?
I suspect very few of us can identify with being swallowed by a huge fish, hanging out in its stomach for a couple days and then being coughed up on dry land. Similarly, it is not often that we enter into unfriendly land, announce its demise, and then watch as the entire population responds favorably to your proclamation, everyone - the government and all the animals. Then there is the matter of Jonah himself, clearly he is a very unusual prophet. He is reluctant and surly. He hardly seems like a hero. He evades God, preaches bad sermons, and begs for God to kill him. There is no doubt about it. Jonah is a strange book. The fantastic stories in the book of Jonah are difficult to swallow, its protagonist is peculiar and its ending seems less than satisfactory. So what do we do with this peculiar tale?
What if in our quest for a big splash ending we missed the truly remarkable part of this story? Though at first brush the ending seems to fizzle, but God's question are curious and provocative if we give them their due. For in God's concluding questions to Jonah we are given a remarkable glimpse of the divine mind. In verse nine - eleven in chapter four God says,
"Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die." 10Then the Lord said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"
Both the listener and Jonah are invited to ponder the implications of these divine questions. God invites Jonah to step back look at things with new eyes, with God's eyes. From this new vantage point what we held as certain becomes uncertain. We must ourselves as Jonah must ask himself, what does it mean that God cares deeply about the people of Nineveh, the outsiders, the others? What does it mean that God cares for the insiders, the chosen, for Jonah as well?
The dramatic and borderline cartoonish events of all the chapters and verses leading up to the last verse of chapter four help set the stage for the question that God poses to Jonah. And, herein lays the big splash ending. God says "should I not be concerned, which can literally be translated from Hebrew, "Should my eyes not flow on account of Nineveh, that great city..." God is moved to weep for Nineveh, this is a most striking an image. Nineveh a vile and wicked city that has repeatedly wrought destruction and violence upon God's chosen people yet, this city's people, even their animals fall under God's care. For Jonah and for us this surely is more difficult to comprehend than a giant fish and an effective five word sermon. These questions disorient us and confuse us. How can this be?
Grappling for a solid place we must return to Jonah's own confession at the beginning of chapter four. Enraged by God's relenting, Jonah says, "I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing." God is precisely as Jonah described, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
And, this is the God we meet in Jesus. The God who is moved to tears at the sight of wickedness, abuse, and excess. The God who weeps for the broken relationship between his people, this God enters into our world. This God takes on human form. This God suffers with those whom he loves. This God loves all that which he has created. Of course God should be concerned, for that is who God is, and that what God has chosen to make known to us.
But this disclosure, God's self revealing move is not simply a just so you know kind of move. The God, our God, who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and ready to relent from punishing, daily invites us into new relationship with him. God invites us to hear and to see as God sees. We are invited to see a world groaning, crying out in pain a world that doesn't know its right from its left. We are invited to see a creation that is heaving under the weight of our excesses. We are invited to see those that we so readily label as other as beloved children of God well inside God's love and care. In God's questions to Jonah at the end of this wild fish story we are invited to consider just how big our God is. The answer should surprise us, just as it surprised Jonah. We are once again invited to see as God sees. God has surely grabbed out attention with this big fish story. We are now invited to participate in this love of God that knows no boundaries that has no limits. It is a big big story and it is ours to share. Amen.