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Thursday, August 22, 2013

Not Just a Fish Story

This is the message from the WOW (Worship on Wednesday) service in Gettysburg August 21. 2013.  The Bible verses used are Jonah 1:1-2:1, 2:10-4:1, 4:5-11.

Jonah's story is another one of those stories that almost everybody knows, at least a little bit.  It's one of those cute Sunday school stories a lot of us heard when we were kids.  We think we know Jonah got swallowed by a whale, although the actual term is “big fish” rather than “whale”.  We know he was in there for three days and then got out.

What got Jonah in trouble, of course, is that God told him to do something and he did not want to do it.  Can you relate to that?  Have you ever felt like God was telling you to do something that you did not want to do?  I'll bet there are some people here who have.  I have.  How did you respond?  Did you do it anyway?  Did you run away?  Did you just try to put God off?  What did you do?

Well, we know what Jonah did.  Jonah ran away.  He got on a boat that was headed in the opposite direction.  He thought he could get away from God.  And, of course, God did not let him do it.

Now, as I've said with other Old Testament stories, I don't want to get into whether we're supposed to believe this story is literally true.  To me, the interesting question is, why is this story in the Bible?  What are we supposed to learn from it?

As with most of the stories in the Bible, there are lots of things we can learn.  I'm not going to guarantee that I'll him all of them tonight.  Here, though, are some of the things we can learn from this story.

One of them is that when God calls someone, God does not necessarily call the great and the powerful.  A lot of times, God calls ordinary people.

We're not told that there was anything special about Jonah that made him the only person who could give this message to Ninevah.  We're not told that there was anything special about Jonah at all.  As far as we know, he was not known as a great prophet.  He was not anything.  All we know about him is that he was the “son of Amittai”.  And Amittai was no big deal, either.  The only thing we know about him from the Bible is that he was Jonah's father.  

But God chose Jonah.  We don't know why God chose Jonah, but God chose Jonah.  And God told Jonah, “Here's what I want you to do.”

But that leads to another lesson, and that is that we do have free will.  We can refuse to do what God wants us to do.  We can choose to run away from God.  God does not force us to do anything.  God could.  I mean, God is God.  God is all-powerful.  God could force us to do things.  God could've forced Jonah.  God could've given Jonah no choice but to go to Ninevah.  But that's not what God did.  God gave Jonah a choice.  And Jonah refused to do what God wanted him to do.  He ran away.

A third lesson we can learn, though, is that when we do refuse to do what God wants us to do, that refusal has consequences.  It does not just have consequences for us.  It has consequences for everyone we come in contact with.

Think about all the things that happened as a result of Jonah not doing what God wanted him to do.  Think of what he put all those sailors on the boat through.  They went through a terrible storm.  It was so bad they thought the ship was going to break up.  They probably all thought they were going to die.  They had done nothing wrong.  They had done nothing to make God upset with them.  But they were with Jonah, and Jonah's refusal to do what God wanted him to do put their lives in jeopardy.

The fourth lesson we can learn is that, when we refuse to do what God wants us to do, it has consequences for us, too.  In Jonah's case, they were pretty serious consequences.  He must have thought he was going to die a few of times.  He probably thought he'd die in the storm.  When he survived that, he probably thought he'd drown.  When the fish swallowed him, he must have surely thought that was the end.

But it wasn't.  And that brings us to the fifth lesson we can learn from this story:  God loves us, but God sometimes makes us deal with the consequences of our actions.  That's the tough love we talked about when we talked about the story of Sodom and Gomorrah.  God would not have had to make Jonah go through all the things he did.  God could've not given him any consequences at all.  Or, God could've rescued Jonah sooner than he did.  But if God had done that, Jonah would not have learned anything.  Jonah would not have come back to God.  Jonah would've just kept running, going here, going there, going anywhere he had to go to get away from the Lord.  And that would not have been good for Jonah or anyone else.

But here's the good news, in the sixth lesson we can learn from this story:  God never gives up on us.  God could've just let Jonah go.  God could've found someone else to deliver God's message to Ninevah.  But God was not going to just let Jonah go, just like God does not just let any of us go, when we refuse to do what God wants us to do.  God loves us too much to do that.  God keeps after us.  God does whatever is necessary to get our attention and to get us to turn around and ask for forgiveness and follow God.

And there's a seventh lesson we can learn from this.  God's love and forgiveness does not just extend to us.  It extends to everyone.  It extends even to people we don't like very much.  And God expects us to give everyone love and forgiveness, too.  And we're also supposed to extend that love and forgiveness to people we don't like very much.

Think about it.  If there was ever someone who should've been grateful to God for God's love and God's forgiveness, it would've been Jonah, right?   But look what happened.  Jonah finally went to Ninevah and delivered God's message.  And the people of Ninevah repented and asked God's forgiveness.  And God gave it to them and did not destroy them.  And who was upset about that?  Jonah!

We don't know what Jonah had against the people of Ninevah, but he obviously had something.  He was really mad at God when God did not destroy Ninevah.  In fact, Jonah says to God, “See?  I knew this would happen.  I knew if I told the people of Ninevah you were going to destroy them, they'd repent and you'd never go through with it.”  Jonah was happy to receive God's love and forgiveness, but he was not willing to extend that same love and forgiveness to the people of Ninevah, and he did not want God doing it, either.

So how do we apply this to our lives?  Well, let's go back to the questions I asked at the beginning.  Have you ever felt like God was telling you to do something you did not want to do?  If so, how did you respond?

Because I will guarantee that there is something God wants each one of us to do.  Maybe we're already doing it.  Maybe we're not.  But there is something God wants each one of us to do.  God calls ordinary people to do God's work.

God will not force us to obey, but if we don't, there will be consequences.  Those consequences don't just affect us, they affect others, too.  God will make us deal with those consequences, but God does not give up on us.  God still keeps after us, doing whatever is necessary to get us to turn around and ask for forgiveness and follow God.  When we ask for God's love and forgiveness God will give it to us.  But God expects us to give that same love and forgiveness to others.

The story of Jonah is not just a cute kids' story about a guy who got swallowed by a fish.  It's a story about our relationship with God.  So the next time we feel God telling us to do something, let's remember this story.  And let's go ahead and do what God wants us to do.

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