3 Epiphany
January 25, 2009
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
I’m in the midst of a great book called Tales of Protection. So far, it has taken me through beautiful but seemingly unrelated stories about different people living in different places spanning centuries. But the book is all about patterns and connections, so I think all these fragments are somehow going to end up together. About a third of the way through, the narrator ponders, “When does a story really begin? And when does it end? And when does a life begin and end?” Even if the rest of the book is a huge disappointment that line makes me glad I happened upon it.
As children we’re often presented with stories with clearly demarcated beginnings and endings. Stories where we’re not supposed to question what happens before “Once upon a time…” And we’re supposed to be content when we reach “And they all lived happily ever after. The end.” The problem is, those kinds of stories set us up for thinking that what we see is what there is, that people are good or bad, that choices are black and white. I have trouble trusting stories like that because I suspect there’s a lot missing that could make a big difference to the story.
I want to know what happens before the story even begins. Like, what was Cinderella’s mother like? What was the family like before she died? Why did Cinderella’s father marry the mean step-mother? And how he could be so clueless about her cruelty towards his daughter?
I also want to know what happens after “The End.” How can Cinderella and the Prince be happy-ever-after when they have this flimsy start to their relationship? How will her traumatic upbringing affect her future relationships? And what happens to the mean step-mother and the bratty, competitive step-sisters?
I know we aren’t supposed to care about them because they’re the bad guys and not the good guys. But life isn’t as cut and dried as those fairy tales make it out to be. There’s got to be a story-behind-the-story that might help us understand how the step-mother got so mean. What was it in her past that made her lash out at Cinderella, and feel like she had to fight so hard for her two daughters? And what is it that keeps Cinderella so strong and optimistic and loving in the face of what she puts up with at home? It seems like those are the pieces of the story that might have something to teach us. Those are the bits that might actually connect to our own life stories.
Because stories are such a big part of who we are and how we connect to each other. It’s true for all of us. Each of us are made up of countless experiences and encounters that shape and form us – pieces of ourselves that we need to come to terms with. Sometimes understanding our own story can help us understand why we’re reacting to something in a certain way. Maybe why certain sights or smells or places give us a warm, fuzzy feeling or why we get too defensive on a certain subject. And knowing more about other peoples’ stories helps too. Helps us to understand them, or to forgive them, or to love them better. Every once in a while I have these “aha” moments where I learn something new about Holden’s background – the way his parents raised him or something that was important to him as a child – and something clicks about who he is now or the things that are important to him.
But it’s not easy to know where a story begins and ends.
Take our Old Testament reading for this morning. What we heard this morning was practically a fairy tale. Once upon a time, God came to Jonah and told him to go to Nineveh and tell the people there to repent. And he went. And the people of Nineveh believed and repented. And God had mercy on them and forgave them. And they all lived happily ever after. The end.
The piece of the short book of Jonah that we got this morning is neat and tidy, but it’s also woefully inadequate. It’s missing the beginning, the middle, and the end. All that makes this story about Jonah interesting is lacking from our reading. All that makes Jonah human and helps us to understand him is gone. Worse yet, everything about Jonah that might cause us to learn something about ourselves and our relationship with God is absent.
So where does Jonah’s story really begin?
The book of Jonah begins with Jonah getting his first call from God to go to Nineveh and cry out against it because of its wickedness. And Jonah refuses. Nineveh is the capital of Assyria, a nation that was a mortal enemy of Israel. Jonah has no interest in going there and trying to get them to repent. And so Jonah not only refuses to do God’s will; he takes the first ship going in the opposite direction. We’re told that he “sets out to flee from the presence of the Lord.” But soon a great storm comes and tosses the boat and all the pagan sailors on the boat are afraid for their lives. Jonah knows it’s his fault and tells them throw him into the ocean. They don’t want to – they row hard to try to bring the ship back to land. They even pray to Jonah’s God. But in the end, they throw Jonah into the sea and sure enough, “the sea ceased from its raging.” Then comes the part we all know – God provides a large fish to swallow up Jonah and he’s in the belly of the fish for 3 days. Finally Jonah prays to the Lord; he’s still not exactly repentant, but at least he’s trying. And the Lord has the fish spew Jonah onto dry land.
That’s where our story from this morning comes in. God gives Jonah a second chance to go proclaim the message to Nineveh and this time Jonah does. And the people of Nineveh believe and repent and God forgives them and doesn’t destroy the city.
That would be a wonderfully rosy end to the story. And, interestingly, in 8 of the 9 children’s Bibles that we have in our house, that is exactly where the story ends. I realize that’s not exactly a scientific study, but I find it fascinating. In 8 of 9 children’s bibles, Nineveh repents and God forgives them and, they even add, God is pleased with Jonah. Only one of the kids’ Bibles goes on to include the really interesting next piece of the story.
The next part of the story is where Jonah’s behavior reminds me of my kids at their very worst. He throws a dramatic tantrum about God’s mercy towards Nineveh: “I knew God would end up forgiving Nineveh and that’s why I didn’t want to go there and warn them in the first place! O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And then he goes off to sulk.
But instead of giving Jonah a cosmic what-for or even a divine time out, the Lord tries what I think educators today call “experiential learning.” God makes a bush grow up over Jonah “to give him shade and save him from discomfort.” And as soon as Jonah is happy with the bush, God has a worm attack the bush and it withers, leaving Jonah sitting in the sun. Again, Jonah moans “It is better for me to die than to live.” God asks him pointedly, “If it’s right for you to be angry about the demise of a bush, why shouldn’t I be concerned about Nineveh where more than 120,000 people live?”
And there ends the book of Jonah.
But even with this larger, more nuanced, more interesting story about Jonah, I still wish I had more. I want to push back the beginning of the story even further and learn why God chose Jonah to go to Ninevah in the first place. Was it because God thought Jonah would be a forceful voice to bring change in Nineveh? Or did God know Jonah had something he needed to work out? Did God send Jonah in particular because Jonah needed to learn something about forgiveness and mercy? What was it that made Jonah so angry about God’s mercy for Nineveh?
And I want to go past that ending of the story too. What happens to Jonah after we leave him sitting under that withered dead bush? Does he ever get compassion and rejoice in the saving of Nineveh? Does he become a prophet for God and run around spreading this story of God’s justice? Or does he sit out there in the sun and wither away with the bush in his stubbornness?
When does a story really begin? And when does it end?
In his prayer at the invocation of the inauguration last week, Rick Warren talked about history as “God’s story.” It’s an interesting way to think about things. In the beginning was God, and in the end will be God, and God is in everything in between. God’s story isn’t tidy and easy to tell like a fairy tale because there’s no real starting place, or ending place, or way to divide up neatly what happens in between.
This book of Jonah is a tiny piece of God’s story. And all of our lives are pieces of that bigger story too. Our experiences and relationships are bits of God’s story -- with God woven through all of it. And all of our small stories have potential to be connected in interesting ways.
So if Jonah’s story is read as a piece of this bigger Story of God, it’s no longer just a tale about Jonah and the Ninevites and their relationship with God. It’s also part of a much bigger story about us and our relationship with God. It’s a story about God sometimes asking hard things from us, things that we don’t really want to do. It’s a story about how we sometimes run away from God. But it’s also a story about God trying again and again, encouraging and sometimes even forcing us to turn back again. It’s a story about a God who is continually granting us mercy and forgiveness. And a story about us often having trouble accepting that mercy and forgiveness for ourselves, or desiring it for others. It’s a story that is unpredictable and yet wildly predictable – we never know where we’ll end up, but we can trust that God will be there. And the story is far from over – it’s still writing itself in all of our lives.
Elizabeth Rees