Jonah 3:10-4:11
The Book of the Prophet Jonah is not actually a book of prophecy. It is a folktale about a prophet from an earlier age, similar to the Book of the Prophet Daniel, which starts with a folktale, and ends with apocalypse.
We rarely remember more than the belly of the whale from Jonah, actually a great fish, and gloss over the backend of the story, where there is an important second lesson. The first, of course, is don’t be a Jonah. Do what you are called to do or you might get thrown off the boat.
That lesson gets into some squishy theology, since we are uncomfortable with the idea of God as a puppet master in the sky, but there is a sort of deep truth there. We have all heard stories of people who have chosen their path based on the expectations of others, have been forced into the family business, or even some role prescribed by gender, some direction that has left them miserable, at sea, trapped in the belly of a beast that seems inescapable.
But before we turn to the second lesson, let’s do a bit of a recap. Jonah is called by God to travel to Nineveh and announce the destruction of the city due to the sins of the people. We’re never told what those sins are, and with Yahweh it could be worship of other gods or economic injustice.
Today, Nineveh is a section of Mosul, a city in Iraq that was destroyed by the Islamic State, with the loss of thousands of lives and the city’s rich cultural heritage, in both cases sometimes intentional destruction and sometimes collateral damage.
The Ancient Jewish people controlled more territory under King David than at any other point in their history, incorporating portions of modern day Lebanon, Syria, and Jordan. At no point did they control Mesopotamia, home of the mighty Tigris and Euphrates rivers, center of powerful kingdoms. In fact, Jewish identity begins with the myth of God calling Abraham and Sarah out of that region, calling them to Canaan.
By the period when Jonah is set, Nineveh was part of the Neo-Assyrian Empire, the same kingdom that would eventually destroy Jonah’s home state of Israel.
Yet here is Yahweh, concerned about the sins of Nineveh. Do the authors of the Book of the Prophet Jonah consider Yahweh to be the only god? A universal god? The ruling god of a pantheon of gods? There is evidence for all of these ideas in the Jewish Bible.
The belief that ultimately dominated, became orthodox, was that Yahweh is the name of the only god, and that while Yahweh has a special covenant with one tribe, the descendants of Abraham, and one family, the House of David, Yahweh is, in fact, universal.
And as I mentioned, Jonah resists the call to go to Nineveh and inform the residents that Yahweh plans to destroy their city because they are sinful. He jumps on a boat bound for Tarshish. Scholars have theories about the location of ancient Tarshish, but honestly, we have no clue.
Then we get the huge storm, the superstitious sailors, and Jonah identified as the one who has offended the holy, chucked overboard, and swallowed by big fish.
This is enough for Jonah. He reluctantly agrees to complete the mission.
In Nineveh Jonah announces God’s displeasure and coming destruction. Then a remarkable thing happens. The people of Nineveh repent, from the ruler right on down. They wear sackcloth. They fast and pray. And God forgives them.
Which brings us to today’s lesson. Jonah is furious. He has traveled far, been eaten by a monster, reeks of fish puke. And for what? To see the people repent?
Jonah complains of God’s mercy. Where is the divine violence? Where is the destruction? It is like a baseball player getting a fourth strike.
God scolds Jonah, much like that other faithful folktale, the Book of Job, though Jonah is more palatable, and infinitely more entertaining.
Before I get to the big question, the real takeaway from the story of Jonah, I should note that many scholars consider the entire work a satire, and there are certainly elements of parody and the absurd in the story.
The authors may have intended to poke fun of those who claimed God’s mercy did not extend beyond the Abrahamic people, and that those outside of the Abrahamic covenant were subject to divine destruction. If so, then later priests misread the text, taking it to support exclusivity and the sort of divinely-driven genocide we find in texts like the Book of Joshua.
This would make the character Jonah the forerunner of the Israeli politician Hanoch Milwidsky, who recently said “We are not like everyone else, and that is why all the laws that apply to everyone else do not apply to us.” This was his reasoning when it comes to the crimes against humanity Israel and the settler terrorists it enables commit every single day.
But let’s head back to that hill outside of the very much not-destroyed Nineveh, to Jonah having a tantrum, to God trying to teach him a lesson. Because I fear we may all have a little bit of Jonah in us, may sometimes want to see people suffer in a way the deserve.
Our scripture readings in recent weeks have often clustered around this theme, around consequence and redemption. But consequence is how we learn. Where is the line between grace and enabling? What do we do when people are unable to learn? Am I honest enough to admit that sometimes I’m angry and smug and want to enjoy seeing karma in real time? Because I do. And it is not my better self.
These are not easy questions. But who ever said morality was going to be easy?
I’ll give you an example. Herman Cain was a Morehouse man, and if you’ve ever met a graduate of the esteemed historically Black college, you’ll know what that means.
He was a successful corporate executive in the food industry, served as chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City. In 2011, he announced his candidacy for President, a campaign that derailed when several women accused him of sexual harassment, back when his party cared about that sort of thing. He remained active in politics, and was co-chair of Black Voices for Trump in 2020.
When the Covid-19 pandemic broke out, Herman Cain opposed masking and social distancing. On June 20, 2020, he was photographed at a Donald Trump rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma, surrounded by unmasked people. On June 29th, he was diagnosed with Covid-19. On July 30th, he died from complications of Covid-19. Mark Meadows, the White House Chief of Staff-of-the-month, was claimed to have said “We killed Herman Cain.”
I experienced a little schadenfreude, a self-righteous pleasure at Cain’s death, the result of his own decisions. He was a smart man. He would not have graduated from Morehouse, climbed the corporate ladder, and served on the Federal Reserve if he had not been a smart man. He understood data. Did he actually doubt the danger of Covid? Or was it a base political calculation, performative delusion like the crowd watching a naked emperor parade down the street?
And honestly, I was filled with rage at those refusing to work together, to sacrifice a little to contain the virus until effective vaccines and treatments could be developed. That rage was only fueled when, a month after Cain’s death, his official Twitter account posted that “it looks like the virus is not as deadly as the mainstream media first made it out to be.”
I am filled with rage at the anti-vaxxers, the spread of measles. And now, apparently, they believe canine vaccines will give their dogs autism. A part of me, a big part of me, hopes they get bit by a rabid cow, which are apparently now a thing here in Upstate.
But in the case of Herman Cain, a man was dead. His death must have been awful. He was clearly not a sociopath, like his preferred candidate, so he must have regretted his decisions, but the dead cannot atone for their sins, even if the sin is only against themselves and their family. And then there was the family. I have no idea what the dynamics were, whether they resisted his carelessness and callousness or enabled it. But no doubt they were grieving.
Herman Cain deserved a Darwin Award, the satirical title created in online newsgroups in the mid-’80’s for people who select themselves out of the gene pool, even if Cain was no longer of reproductive age. Still of reproductive age was Garry Hoy, a Toronto lawyer who was demonstrating that the glass in the office tower where he worked was unbreakable by throwing himself against the window. Until it wasn’t.
Funny, not funny.
Jonah, satirically or seriously, is angry that the people of Nineveh repent, that God is merciful, and that sinful foreign people are not crushed by divine violence.
Is it the Jonah in me that wants to see Netanyahu and Trump in the dock, tried for their war crimes? Or is that justice? What if I want terrible things to happen to those me?
If I understand why Luigi Mangione shot and killed a health insurance CEO, does that make me a bad person? If I refuse to mourn for Charlie Kirk, a man who believed I should be murdered, am I sinful?
We recently considered “tough love.” Is that self-righteous Jonah behavior? Or is it actually love?
If you’re looking for answers, you’ve come to the wrong shop. I have more questions than answers.
But I am willing to ask the question, to engage in self-reflection, to wish for a Nineveh0-reformed kind of world, where people can hear the holy, repent and change direction, to hope that when I am pouting on the hillside hoping God or Darwin will give people exactly what I think they deserve, some prophetic voice will call me to my better self and to love.
Amen.