Ministry Remnants: Jonah in the Belly of the Whale

 After the awful news from Israel I felt I must spend time reminding us to "pray for the peace of Jerusalem" and so we did. But it seemed right to pick up Jonah and go into chapter two. Tying the two together is a challenge and I almost didn't try. It was appropriate to pray for Jerusalem, it was appropriate to pick up Jonah again. No explanation required.

But my mind wouldn't let it go so I offered observations tied to the idea that the chosen people are a gift to the world, though in ways ironic and difficult.

1. The Jewish people consider themselves a people offered up for the world, very much like a sacrifice. This seems in part a way to make sense of their painful history as the carriers of God's self-revealing, reaching its pinnacle (for Christians) in Christ. But it is most awful and ironic in the Nazi's attempt to exterminate them, itself a large scale iteration of what people have tried to do as long as the Jews have been a nation. 

Bottom line, holocaust means burnt offering. And in some sense Jews see that awful history as being offered up for the world, perhaps an expiation of sorts that can only be accomplished by them, God's chosen people. It is an echo of what Christians believe Christ did for the world.

2. Related closely to that theme is Jonah's call to Nineveh. Nineveh was full of not-nice people. God could have just wiped them out. Instead he sent Jonah to warn them of certain judgment. And then when they repented, He showed mercy. Jonah was angry about this this plan but God is better than all of us, his servants not excepted. 

Bottom line: God's plan for His people is to reveal Himself through them and He was doing so with Nineveh, reaching out to them with mercy before judgment. This is who God is, working in infinite ways seen and unseen to reconcile the world to Himself.

3. Jonah was offering himself for a task that would change life for a great many people in a city that was on its way to hell. 

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The best point is likely something like this: God is always at work with His people, using them to get the world's attention. He even allows tragedy. To borrow the familiar idea from CS Lewis, these things are a megaphone to rouse a dull world. We are dull, we need waking up, and we need to pray for the peace of Jerusalem!

(I did go on to give reasons why Jonah found Himself in the belly of the whale, but I will leave off that for another day.)

Ministry Remnants: Jonah is Mercy on Repeat!

 Across the years I have grown to love Jonah, the story in the fifth book of the minor prophets, self-named after its famous main character. Of course the real main character is God.

I tried to think about it on a basic two-fold analysis: 

• the story teaches us about God, 
• the story teaches us about ourselves.

We dealt only with the seventeen verses of chapter one where in 5 verses Jonah goes from calling, to running, to sleeping in the hold of a storm-tossed ship. Then the remaining narrative finds him tossed into the sea so the storm will stop and the sailors be saved. And in the sea a great fish swallowed him. Amazing!

What do we learn about God? He calls: in particular, in seasons, for a lifetime.

What do we learn about ourselves? We can resist, we can run. We are not forced.

But the story teaches us more. Jonah's calling was to speak truth in a difficult context. Easy to shy away from that! Our calling always involves speaking truth with care and self-giving love in the day, season and life we are living.

If we run from our calling God may come after us -- He is good that way. And there will be turmoil and difficulty until we heed the call and follow. God will use all means at his disposal to help us come back. The storm, the sea-toss, and the great fish are this story's version of seeking the lamb lost from the fold.

There is much to consider about calling and I tried to go there, reminding us we all have a calling, it is good and fitted to who we are, and we need the help of others to discern and follow. But my main takeaway as I reflect now and look to the remainder of the book is the recurring mercy of God: mercy in calling Jonah to Nineveh, mercy in seeking the running Jonah, mercy in sending the great fish, mercy on repeat.

In Jonah we see ourselves, unwilling to follow God's way.  And we see God, unwilling to let us take our own poor way without pursuing us. God's mercy is in that pursuit, to be sure. And that's the happy remnant as I look forward to chapter two for next week.