Growing in the Belly of the Fish(2011Oct16)
Series: Jonah’s Journey M3 11 10 16
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Growing in the Belly of the Fish
Text: Jonah 2:1-3:6
BIG IDEA: Suffering in the belly of the whale can prepare us for our life work.
Ignatian seminary announcement.. we can learn from Catholics… Father Thomas Green… prayer, Scripture and imagination… in prayer.
One Halloween a mom came to the door of someone I know to trick or treat. Why didn't she send in her kid? Well, the weather's a little bad, she said; she was driving so he didn't have to walk in the mist.
But why not send him to the door? He had fallen asleep in the car, she said, so she didn't want him to have to wake up.
This person I know felt like saying, "Why don't you eat all his candy and get his stomach ache for him, too—then he can be completely protected!"
Some of us are part of a generation of adults called "helicopter parents," because we're constantly hovering over our kids ready to swoop into our kid's education, relations, sports life, etc., to make sure no one is mistreating them and no one is disappointing them. We want them to experience one unobstructed success after another.
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt had a hypothetical exercise: Imagine that you have a child, and for five minutes you're given a script of what will be that child's life. You get an eraser. You can edit it. You can take out whatever you want.
You read that your child will have a learning disability in grade school. Reading, which comes easily for some kids, will be difficult for yours.
In high school, your kid will make a great circle of friends, but then one of them will die of cancer.
After high school this child will actually get into the college they wanted to attend. While there, there will be a car crash, and your child will lose a leg and go through a difficult depression.
A few years later, your child will get a great job—then lose that job in an economic downturn.
Your child will get married, but then go through the grief of separation.
You get this script for your child's life and have five minutes to edit it.
What would you erase?
Wouldn't you want to take out all the stuff that would cause them pain?
If we could wave a magic wand and erase every failure, suffering, and pain—are we sure it would be a good idea? Would it cause our child to grow up to be a better, stronger, more generous person? Is it possible that in some way people actually need adversity, setback, maybe even something like trauma, to reach the fullest level of growth?
In order for us to prepare for our life calling, like Jonah some of us are going to have to spend some time in the belly of a whale.
We are in a series in the book of Jonah.
To recap the context, God has called the prophet Jonah to go to the Ninevites, the arch enemies of his people, to call them to turn from their violent ways and to seek the Living God.
But Jonah doesn’t want to go.
Jonah does not want to go because he does not want to fail in his preaching mission: he doesn’t want to be mocked and killed by the Ninevites. He doesn’t want to fail in his mission, but even more he doesn’t want to succeed. He does not want the Ninevites to respond favorably to the message and turn to God and experience God’s mercy, so instead of going east to Nineveh, he bolts west to Spain, the Hawaii of his day, he boards a ship, goes down into his cabin, and falls asleep. He ends up drifting into great storm. The sailors cast lots to see who is responsible for the storm, and the lots fall on Jonah. Jonah suggests they throw him into the sea to quell the storm. Reluctantly, the sailors do so. The raging sea grows calm.
The LORD provides a huge fish (Jonah 1:17) to swallow Jonah and Jonah is in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
We read in (Jonah 2:1) that in his distress Jonah begin calling out to the LORD. From the deep and the realm of the dead he begins to cry out to God for help.
In verse 5 we read: “The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me, seaweed was wrapped around my head.”
We read in verses7-8: “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you in your holy temple.
Then we read in Chapter 3: 1-6:
1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.
Chapter 3 begins with the words: “Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’ ”
When Jonah was called the first time to go to the great city of Nineveh and to preach against it, as we saw, Jonah bolted the other way. Then after being thrown overboard and then after being swallowed by that great fish, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. He is told second time to “go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I gave you.’
As we look at the book of Jonah, and as we look at the Scriptures at large, we see that God calls us on a mission. Jesus’ last words to his disciples were:
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
A major focus for many of us who live in a place like Vancouver and especially for those of us who are part of generation X or generation Y, also called the millennials, i.e., roughly speaking people who are 40 somethingish and younger, is to experience the cool “sensations” that come from mountain biking, rock climbing, and snowboarding. And there is nothing wrong with these things. I personally love being outdoors and sport. But part of what the story of Jonah tells us, part of what the entire Scripture tells us, is that we were made for something that’s bigger than simply “cool personal experiences”—whether in the outdoors, through music or art or entertainment or travel to exotic places which are all good things. But, we were made to take part in a mission from God of bringing his love and justice to the world--something bigger than ourselves.
Whether you know it or not, if your life becomes connected to God you will have something for which to give your life. Look at every person who drew near to God in Scripture: Abraham, Sarah, Joseph, Esther, Mary, John. God invited each of them to participate in a mission that was bigger than themselves to bring God’s light and love to the world, something worth giving their lives for. And we see in the book of Jonah that God gives his reluctant, rebellious prophet Jonah a mission bigger than himself—a call to go and preach to the people of Nineveh, one of the great cities of his day.
We see in the story of Jonah that God prepares Jonah for his life mission by allowing him to inhabit the belly of a great fish for three days and three nights. God allows Jonah to go to sink to the very heart of the sea (verse 6), literally the place of sheol, the place of the dead, and then to be swallowed by the great sea monster – that is to suffer – to prepare him for his life mission.
What are some areas in Jonah’s life that need to be transformed?
Jonah himself in the belly of the whale acknowledges that he needs to experience change.
In chapter 2, verse 8, Jonah says, Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit God’s love for them. The Hebrew word for “love” is the word hesed, which can be translated loyal love or grace. Jonah in saying “those who cling to worthless idols” forfeit the grace of God that could be theirs. Jonah here is really confessing here his own idolatries.
What were Jonah's idols?
One of Jonah's idols was professional success.
As I said a couple of weeks ago, Jonah was a prophet who was afraid of professional failure. God was calling Jonah to walk into one of the most dangerous cities of the world and to call the people to get on their knees and humble themselves before God. It would have been like asking a Jewish rabbi during World War II to go and preach to Hitler. The most likely outcome: Jonah is either mocked or killed. A prophet or a preacher does not want to go to a place where they are almost certain to fail professionally.
One of the places where many of us need to experience transformation is in our need, our vain selfish need, to succeed professionally. Now of course we can be motivated by noble reasons to succeed. We can be motivated to succeed to contribute to the world, to develop and fully use our talents and opportunities. But we can also be motivated to succeed professionally for vain or superficial reasons. We can be motivated to succeed so that we will become personally financially prosperous or to achieve validation in our own eyes or respect in the eyes of our parents or someone is important to us.
Nathan Hatch, the president of Wake Forest University, admitted what educators have seen for years. A disproportionate number of adults have been trying to cram into the fields of finance consulting, corporate law, and specialized medicine because of the high salaries and the aura of success that these professions now bring. “Students were doing so with little reference to the larger questions of meaning and purpose,” said Hatch. That is, they chose professions, not in answer to the question “what job helps people to flourish?” but “what job will help me to flourish?” As a result there is a high degree of frustration expressed over unfulfilling work.
There is something about suffering, something spending time in the belly of the whale, that gives us perspective and frees us of our vain and selfish need to succeed professionally.
Steve Jobs the founder of Apple who recently died said:
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
He then of course contracted pancreatic cancer and said:
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
And Jonah was in the belly of that great fish and he realized that his utter nakedness—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure –all of the professional idols to which he was clinging, fall away in the face of his death, leaving only what is truly important: God’s call to bring light and love to the world.
As we see in the story, Jonah was afraid of professional failure – of being mocked, of being killed. Spending three days in the belly of a great fish freed him from his fear of failure. It at least healed him enough… so that when the fish vomited him up on the beach and God called him to go preach to Nineveh, he was willing to do so.
A second reason that Jonah was reluctant to preach to the Ninevites was not that he was only afraid of failure, but he was also afraid of success. The Ninevites, the people of Assyria, were, as I said, the arch enemies of Israel. They were a cruel and violent people. The empire was already demanding a tax tribute from Israel, a kind of international protection money. The Ninevites were these violent, murderous people who showed off their violent prowess by using the skulls of their enemies as decorations in their homes.
Jonah hated the Ninevites. He felt racially, culturally, and morally superior to the Ninevites. Part of the reason that Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh is that Nineveh was full of Ninevites, people of a different race, different culture, different value system; people who value violence over compassion, power over mercy.
In Jonah 2:8 he refers to his idols.
One of Jonah's idols was professional success.
Another idol he had was his race and cultural identity.
In order for Jonah to be freed of his idol of race cultural identity, from his superiority complex, he himself needed to experience the radical mercy of God.
When Jonah runs from God, is tossed into the heart of the raging sea by the sailors and then is miraculously rescued by that great fish, he realizes in the belly of the great fish that while the Ninevites were violent murderers he is also a sinner. He has been running away from God’s call on his life to bring God's light and love to the world. He was racist. He had a superiority complex and God had been merciful to him by rescuing him with this fish, so he figures somewhere in that fish’s digestive tract “God has been merciful to me for my running from him, from my racism, why couldn’t God be merciful to the Ninevites for their violent and murderous ways?” and he’s willing to go. (and Jonah BTW was partially, not completely, healed, as we will see in two coming weeks… But healed enough to go to Nineveh.)
When we spend time in the belly of the whale, when we experience suffering and then the mercy of God in the midst of our suffering, we will, among other things, become more humble, more compassionate, and more loving, and therefore less racist, less classist, less sexist.
It is a hard thing for us to admit that from the time we were little children there is a part of us that finds it difficult to live with ourselves the way we are, and so we need to make ourselves feel better by thinking of ourselves as superior to at least some of the people on the planet-- kids can be kind, kids can also be cruel to their peers, putting them down. It's hard for us to admit this, but from the time we were little we have had the psychological need to look down on someone. And all of us do this to some degree. In Jonah we see this prophet who feels better about himself as he sees himself as racially and culturally and morally superior to the Ninevites.
But, looking down on others because of your race or their race is just one way to make you feel better about yourself. If you are not particularly racist, you may feel better than people who are obviously racist (that racist redneck). If you are well-to-do, you may look down on people who are poor and see them as being lazy and irresponsible. If you are poor, you may look down on people who are rich and see them as arrogant and oppressive. If you are liberal, you may look down on people who are conservative. If you are conservative, you may look down on people who are liberal. If you are educated and cultured, you may look down on people who are into popular culture. If you are into popular culture, you may look down on people who are into high culture as snobs.
As Canadians we’re likely too polite to say it out loud, but each of us here probably looks down on someone or on a particular group of people.
And when we look down on a person, we can justify, if not putting them down outright, at least quietly despising them or ignoring them.
The Bible says that when we realize our true condition as spiritual failures before God and receive the undeserved favour of God or grace, we can be healed of our racism, of our classism, our sexism, our sense of superiority, whatever form that may take, when we realize, like Jonah, that the only reason that we have been received by God is because of his sheer mercy and grace, we will deeply humbled and healed of our any sense of superiority we might we have..
Sometimes God comes to us through a storm and allows us to spend time in the belly of the whale, a place of darkness, a place of suffering, a place with seaweed wrapped around our head, so that we recognize God’s extraordinary grace in delivering us. And in the belly of the fish we recognize his grace and we can be healed of our need to succeed for selfish reasons and of our attitudes of superiority.
Let me clarify. God may allow you to go through some kind of suffering, perhaps through no direct fault of your own, like the sailors on board who suffered through the storm because of Jonah’s disobedience. You too may suffer as a kind of innocent bystander because of someone else’s sin or just because of just the radioactivity of sin in the world.
The question is: How will you respond to suffering? Will you allow suffering to humble you and awaken you afresh to God’s grace? Or will you allow your suffering to make you bitter? Will you allow your suffering to make you a deeper person? Or will you allow suffering to make you a more superficial person by denying your suffering and trying to mask it with an addiction? Will you allow your suffering to make you more sympathetic of to the suffering of others, to make you turn inward and become self-absorbed? Will you make your suffering prepare you for you for your life mission, or disqualify you?
Sometimes when God wants to prepare us for our life mission, he allows us to go through suffering so we go on our mission to bring God’s light and love to the world humbly, without a sense that we are the Saviour, just someone who re-presents him. As God allows us to be humbled, don’t go with the sense that we are doing this world a big favour; so that we don’t go on our mission with a patronizing, paternalistic attitude, but so that we go humbly, just as one beggar telling another beggar where we found bread.
God is calls us to something bigger than ourselves and he prepares us through the belly of the whale. Even if suffering, as was true in Jonah’s case, comes from our failure, God can prepare us by allowing us to become humble through failure and more dependent.
The word of the LORD comes to Jonah a second time telling him to preach to the people of Nineveh. God had asked Jonah already to preach to the people of Nineveh and Jonah said no and ran the other way. He boarded a boat and heads for Spain, the Hawaii of his day, and sails into a storm, almost drowns at sea, but God saved him with a great fish and gives him a second chance. And God asks him again to go to Nineveh.
A word caution here. There are times when it seems that God does not give everyone a second chance, but there are times when we read of people in the Bible who disobey him and the door is closed. But, the over-riding nature of God is to give people second, third, fourth chances. The Bible tells us in Psalm 103 that God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. I am not encouraging us to presume on the patience and grace of God. It is dangerous to ever willfully disobey God, but if we have disobeyed him and wondered about God’s will for our life, we can take hope in the Jonah story because God forgives him for disobeying his call to Nineveh the first time, and he gives him a second chance through this failure. As I said, when Jonah sailed into that storm, and was then thrown into the heart of a raging sea, and miraculously saved as God provided a great fish to swallow him, Jonah recognizes that he has been running from God. He realized that he too was a sinner who had received the mercy of God. And if he had received the mercy of God for running from God, for not being willing to preach to the Ninevites because of his racism and sense of cultural superiority toward them, he figured, “Well, then God can be merciful and compassionate toward the people of Nineveh in spite of their violence.”
And it may well be that part of the way that God prepares us for our life mission is by giving us a new sense of God’s favour by forgiving us of our past failure. If we have chosen to disobey, there is something about failure and grace that can prepare us for God’s mission.
When I was in seminary in Boston, I was able to get to know a pastor of a nearby church. This pastor in years gone by had a reputation for being gifted, but rather pretentious and arrogant. This person went on to become president of a very well-known Christian organization. Shortly after becoming president, it was disclosed that he had a brief sexual affair and was forced to resign.
It was some years after this that I got to know this man. One day over breakfast with him outside of Boston, I said, “You seem really capable and confident. Is there anything you are afraid of?” And he said, “You are looking at a man who destroyed the ministry opportunity that God gave him. He had no-one to blame, but himself. But after I had sinned and God in his grace allowed me to come back to him and receive his forgiveness and after some time away from ministry, God allowed me to enter into his work again. I have a deep, deep, deep sense of tenderness and gratitude. And I fear that I will lose that one day.”
I didn’t know this man before his failure. I believe that his ministry, while less well-known now than before his fall, is humbler, deeper and more powerful than ever before.
George Verwer, a respected missions leader and the founder of a worldwide mission called Operation Mobilization, who spoke here a some years ago at Tenth, has said that God can use failure as a backdoor to real success.
While my failures, by God’s mercy, have not been as dramatic as my friend’s in New England, there have been times when my vision has been blurred and when I have been vulnerable and tempted and experienced failure. Some years ago there was a season when I questioned whether I really had the character to be a minister of the Gospel. I went to see an old man who had the reputation of being very wise and very candid. I said to him very frankly, “In my past there have been some boundary violations.” I was very explicit about this. I said, “I can see myself working for a corporation and pursuing a career in journalism as my father did, and given my theological framework, I don’t see working for a corporation or in the media as being any way inferior to being a church minister.” This wise person said, “It may be that your life is prophetic in some way and it may be that you are called to pastor a church where people have failed in some way but are welcome. A pastor for those who are broken will find healing. It may be that God will use your past to prepare your way for your future.”
This may be true in your unique call in your life, as well. Through your weakness or vulnerability, or even maybe through the failure, or maybe just because of some suffering you’ve faced may become the pipeline that God uses to bring his life and love to the world.
Even when you feel like you failed, or have been crushed by life circumstances, or as good as dead – in the belly of a whale… God has a way of coming to us in raising us from the dead as he did for Jonah. See Jonah was not only an instrument of God's life, he was a recipient of God's life and love as well. And God wants to use you not only as an instrument of his life in love in the world, but wants you to be a recipient of his life. So if you feel like you failed, feel like you have died in some way, God can raise you from the dead.
God is in that business. When Jesus was asked by the Pharisees to give them a sign that he was the unique son of God, Jesus said, “The only sign you'll get is the sign of Jonah. I will die and three days later God will raise me from the dead.” God is in the business of taking that which is dead, and lifeless and considered worthless to the world and raising it to new life and to new purpose.
If you are a kind of helicopter parent simply fretting over how things are going for a family member or loved one, know that he can use that person suffering and even their failures and redeem them for his purposes.
And God can use your failure or our sufferings to prepare you for some new life and new purpose, so we more fully radiate his light and love in the world.
The God of Jonah saved Jonah, the God who raised Jesus from the dead, can take the broken glass of your life, the broken pieces of clay and make it into a beautiful mosaic for the world.
Will you let him do that?
Speaker: Ken Shigematsu
Title: Growing in the Belly of the Fish
Text: Jonah 2:1-3:6
BIG IDEA: Suffering in the belly of the whale can prepare us for our life work.
Ignatian seminary announcement.. we can learn from Catholics… Father Thomas Green… prayer, Scripture and imagination… in prayer.
One Halloween a mom came to the door of someone I know to trick or treat. Why didn't she send in her kid? Well, the weather's a little bad, she said; she was driving so he didn't have to walk in the mist.
But why not send him to the door? He had fallen asleep in the car, she said, so she didn't want him to have to wake up.
This person I know felt like saying, "Why don't you eat all his candy and get his stomach ache for him, too—then he can be completely protected!"
Some of us are part of a generation of adults called "helicopter parents," because we're constantly hovering over our kids ready to swoop into our kid's education, relations, sports life, etc., to make sure no one is mistreating them and no one is disappointing them. We want them to experience one unobstructed success after another.
Psychologist Jonathan Haidt had a hypothetical exercise: Imagine that you have a child, and for five minutes you're given a script of what will be that child's life. You get an eraser. You can edit it. You can take out whatever you want.
You read that your child will have a learning disability in grade school. Reading, which comes easily for some kids, will be difficult for yours.
In high school, your kid will make a great circle of friends, but then one of them will die of cancer.
After high school this child will actually get into the college they wanted to attend. While there, there will be a car crash, and your child will lose a leg and go through a difficult depression.
A few years later, your child will get a great job—then lose that job in an economic downturn.
Your child will get married, but then go through the grief of separation.
You get this script for your child's life and have five minutes to edit it.
What would you erase?
Wouldn't you want to take out all the stuff that would cause them pain?
If we could wave a magic wand and erase every failure, suffering, and pain—are we sure it would be a good idea? Would it cause our child to grow up to be a better, stronger, more generous person? Is it possible that in some way people actually need adversity, setback, maybe even something like trauma, to reach the fullest level of growth?
In order for us to prepare for our life calling, like Jonah some of us are going to have to spend some time in the belly of a whale.
We are in a series in the book of Jonah.
To recap the context, God has called the prophet Jonah to go to the Ninevites, the arch enemies of his people, to call them to turn from their violent ways and to seek the Living God.
But Jonah doesn’t want to go.
Jonah does not want to go because he does not want to fail in his preaching mission: he doesn’t want to be mocked and killed by the Ninevites. He doesn’t want to fail in his mission, but even more he doesn’t want to succeed. He does not want the Ninevites to respond favorably to the message and turn to God and experience God’s mercy, so instead of going east to Nineveh, he bolts west to Spain, the Hawaii of his day, he boards a ship, goes down into his cabin, and falls asleep. He ends up drifting into great storm. The sailors cast lots to see who is responsible for the storm, and the lots fall on Jonah. Jonah suggests they throw him into the sea to quell the storm. Reluctantly, the sailors do so. The raging sea grows calm.
The LORD provides a huge fish (Jonah 1:17) to swallow Jonah and Jonah is in the belly of the fish three days and three nights.
We read in (Jonah 2:1) that in his distress Jonah begin calling out to the LORD. From the deep and the realm of the dead he begins to cry out to God for help.
In verse 5 we read: “The engulfing waters threatened me, the deep surrounded me, seaweed was wrapped around my head.”
We read in verses7-8: “When my life was ebbing away, I remembered you, LORD, and my prayer rose to you in your holy temple.
Then we read in Chapter 3: 1-6:
1 Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the LORD and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go through it. 4 Jonah began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, took off his royal robes, covered himself with sackcloth and sat down in the dust.
Chapter 3 begins with the words: “Then the word of the LORD came to Jonah a second time: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.’ ”
When Jonah was called the first time to go to the great city of Nineveh and to preach against it, as we saw, Jonah bolted the other way. Then after being thrown overboard and then after being swallowed by that great fish, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. He is told second time to “go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I gave you.’
As we look at the book of Jonah, and as we look at the Scriptures at large, we see that God calls us on a mission. Jesus’ last words to his disciples were:
19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in[a] the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
A major focus for many of us who live in a place like Vancouver and especially for those of us who are part of generation X or generation Y, also called the millennials, i.e., roughly speaking people who are 40 somethingish and younger, is to experience the cool “sensations” that come from mountain biking, rock climbing, and snowboarding. And there is nothing wrong with these things. I personally love being outdoors and sport. But part of what the story of Jonah tells us, part of what the entire Scripture tells us, is that we were made for something that’s bigger than simply “cool personal experiences”—whether in the outdoors, through music or art or entertainment or travel to exotic places which are all good things. But, we were made to take part in a mission from God of bringing his love and justice to the world--something bigger than ourselves.
Whether you know it or not, if your life becomes connected to God you will have something for which to give your life. Look at every person who drew near to God in Scripture: Abraham, Sarah, Joseph, Esther, Mary, John. God invited each of them to participate in a mission that was bigger than themselves to bring God’s light and love to the world, something worth giving their lives for. And we see in the book of Jonah that God gives his reluctant, rebellious prophet Jonah a mission bigger than himself—a call to go and preach to the people of Nineveh, one of the great cities of his day.
We see in the story of Jonah that God prepares Jonah for his life mission by allowing him to inhabit the belly of a great fish for three days and three nights. God allows Jonah to go to sink to the very heart of the sea (verse 6), literally the place of sheol, the place of the dead, and then to be swallowed by the great sea monster – that is to suffer – to prepare him for his life mission.
What are some areas in Jonah’s life that need to be transformed?
Jonah himself in the belly of the whale acknowledges that he needs to experience change.
In chapter 2, verse 8, Jonah says, Those who cling to worthless idols forfeit God’s love for them. The Hebrew word for “love” is the word hesed, which can be translated loyal love or grace. Jonah in saying “those who cling to worthless idols” forfeit the grace of God that could be theirs. Jonah here is really confessing here his own idolatries.
What were Jonah's idols?
One of Jonah's idols was professional success.
As I said a couple of weeks ago, Jonah was a prophet who was afraid of professional failure. God was calling Jonah to walk into one of the most dangerous cities of the world and to call the people to get on their knees and humble themselves before God. It would have been like asking a Jewish rabbi during World War II to go and preach to Hitler. The most likely outcome: Jonah is either mocked or killed. A prophet or a preacher does not want to go to a place where they are almost certain to fail professionally.
One of the places where many of us need to experience transformation is in our need, our vain selfish need, to succeed professionally. Now of course we can be motivated by noble reasons to succeed. We can be motivated to succeed to contribute to the world, to develop and fully use our talents and opportunities. But we can also be motivated to succeed professionally for vain or superficial reasons. We can be motivated to succeed so that we will become personally financially prosperous or to achieve validation in our own eyes or respect in the eyes of our parents or someone is important to us.
Nathan Hatch, the president of Wake Forest University, admitted what educators have seen for years. A disproportionate number of adults have been trying to cram into the fields of finance consulting, corporate law, and specialized medicine because of the high salaries and the aura of success that these professions now bring. “Students were doing so with little reference to the larger questions of meaning and purpose,” said Hatch. That is, they chose professions, not in answer to the question “what job helps people to flourish?” but “what job will help me to flourish?” As a result there is a high degree of frustration expressed over unfulfilling work.
There is something about suffering, something spending time in the belly of the whale, that gives us perspective and frees us of our vain and selfish need to succeed professionally.
Steve Jobs the founder of Apple who recently died said:
When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.
He then of course contracted pancreatic cancer and said:
Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.
And Jonah was in the belly of that great fish and he realized that his utter nakedness—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure –all of the professional idols to which he was clinging, fall away in the face of his death, leaving only what is truly important: God’s call to bring light and love to the world.
As we see in the story, Jonah was afraid of professional failure – of being mocked, of being killed. Spending three days in the belly of a great fish freed him from his fear of failure. It at least healed him enough… so that when the fish vomited him up on the beach and God called him to go preach to Nineveh, he was willing to do so.
A second reason that Jonah was reluctant to preach to the Ninevites was not that he was only afraid of failure, but he was also afraid of success. The Ninevites, the people of Assyria, were, as I said, the arch enemies of Israel. They were a cruel and violent people. The empire was already demanding a tax tribute from Israel, a kind of international protection money. The Ninevites were these violent, murderous people who showed off their violent prowess by using the skulls of their enemies as decorations in their homes.
Jonah hated the Ninevites. He felt racially, culturally, and morally superior to the Ninevites. Part of the reason that Jonah did not want to go to Nineveh is that Nineveh was full of Ninevites, people of a different race, different culture, different value system; people who value violence over compassion, power over mercy.
In Jonah 2:8 he refers to his idols.
One of Jonah's idols was professional success.
Another idol he had was his race and cultural identity.
In order for Jonah to be freed of his idol of race cultural identity, from his superiority complex, he himself needed to experience the radical mercy of God.
When Jonah runs from God, is tossed into the heart of the raging sea by the sailors and then is miraculously rescued by that great fish, he realizes in the belly of the great fish that while the Ninevites were violent murderers he is also a sinner. He has been running away from God’s call on his life to bring God's light and love to the world. He was racist. He had a superiority complex and God had been merciful to him by rescuing him with this fish, so he figures somewhere in that fish’s digestive tract “God has been merciful to me for my running from him, from my racism, why couldn’t God be merciful to the Ninevites for their violent and murderous ways?” and he’s willing to go. (and Jonah BTW was partially, not completely, healed, as we will see in two coming weeks… But healed enough to go to Nineveh.)
When we spend time in the belly of the whale, when we experience suffering and then the mercy of God in the midst of our suffering, we will, among other things, become more humble, more compassionate, and more loving, and therefore less racist, less classist, less sexist.
It is a hard thing for us to admit that from the time we were little children there is a part of us that finds it difficult to live with ourselves the way we are, and so we need to make ourselves feel better by thinking of ourselves as superior to at least some of the people on the planet-- kids can be kind, kids can also be cruel to their peers, putting them down. It's hard for us to admit this, but from the time we were little we have had the psychological need to look down on someone. And all of us do this to some degree. In Jonah we see this prophet who feels better about himself as he sees himself as racially and culturally and morally superior to the Ninevites.
But, looking down on others because of your race or their race is just one way to make you feel better about yourself. If you are not particularly racist, you may feel better than people who are obviously racist (that racist redneck). If you are well-to-do, you may look down on people who are poor and see them as being lazy and irresponsible. If you are poor, you may look down on people who are rich and see them as arrogant and oppressive. If you are liberal, you may look down on people who are conservative. If you are conservative, you may look down on people who are liberal. If you are educated and cultured, you may look down on people who are into popular culture. If you are into popular culture, you may look down on people who are into high culture as snobs.
As Canadians we’re likely too polite to say it out loud, but each of us here probably looks down on someone or on a particular group of people.
And when we look down on a person, we can justify, if not putting them down outright, at least quietly despising them or ignoring them.
The Bible says that when we realize our true condition as spiritual failures before God and receive the undeserved favour of God or grace, we can be healed of our racism, of our classism, our sexism, our sense of superiority, whatever form that may take, when we realize, like Jonah, that the only reason that we have been received by God is because of his sheer mercy and grace, we will deeply humbled and healed of our any sense of superiority we might we have..
Sometimes God comes to us through a storm and allows us to spend time in the belly of the whale, a place of darkness, a place of suffering, a place with seaweed wrapped around our head, so that we recognize God’s extraordinary grace in delivering us. And in the belly of the fish we recognize his grace and we can be healed of our need to succeed for selfish reasons and of our attitudes of superiority.
Let me clarify. God may allow you to go through some kind of suffering, perhaps through no direct fault of your own, like the sailors on board who suffered through the storm because of Jonah’s disobedience. You too may suffer as a kind of innocent bystander because of someone else’s sin or just because of just the radioactivity of sin in the world.
The question is: How will you respond to suffering? Will you allow suffering to humble you and awaken you afresh to God’s grace? Or will you allow your suffering to make you bitter? Will you allow your suffering to make you a deeper person? Or will you allow suffering to make you a more superficial person by denying your suffering and trying to mask it with an addiction? Will you allow your suffering to make you more sympathetic of to the suffering of others, to make you turn inward and become self-absorbed? Will you make your suffering prepare you for you for your life mission, or disqualify you?
Sometimes when God wants to prepare us for our life mission, he allows us to go through suffering so we go on our mission to bring God’s light and love to the world humbly, without a sense that we are the Saviour, just someone who re-presents him. As God allows us to be humbled, don’t go with the sense that we are doing this world a big favour; so that we don’t go on our mission with a patronizing, paternalistic attitude, but so that we go humbly, just as one beggar telling another beggar where we found bread.
God is calls us to something bigger than ourselves and he prepares us through the belly of the whale. Even if suffering, as was true in Jonah’s case, comes from our failure, God can prepare us by allowing us to become humble through failure and more dependent.
The word of the LORD comes to Jonah a second time telling him to preach to the people of Nineveh. God had asked Jonah already to preach to the people of Nineveh and Jonah said no and ran the other way. He boarded a boat and heads for Spain, the Hawaii of his day, and sails into a storm, almost drowns at sea, but God saved him with a great fish and gives him a second chance. And God asks him again to go to Nineveh.
A word caution here. There are times when it seems that God does not give everyone a second chance, but there are times when we read of people in the Bible who disobey him and the door is closed. But, the over-riding nature of God is to give people second, third, fourth chances. The Bible tells us in Psalm 103 that God is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in love. I am not encouraging us to presume on the patience and grace of God. It is dangerous to ever willfully disobey God, but if we have disobeyed him and wondered about God’s will for our life, we can take hope in the Jonah story because God forgives him for disobeying his call to Nineveh the first time, and he gives him a second chance through this failure. As I said, when Jonah sailed into that storm, and was then thrown into the heart of a raging sea, and miraculously saved as God provided a great fish to swallow him, Jonah recognizes that he has been running from God. He realized that he too was a sinner who had received the mercy of God. And if he had received the mercy of God for running from God, for not being willing to preach to the Ninevites because of his racism and sense of cultural superiority toward them, he figured, “Well, then God can be merciful and compassionate toward the people of Nineveh in spite of their violence.”
And it may well be that part of the way that God prepares us for our life mission is by giving us a new sense of God’s favour by forgiving us of our past failure. If we have chosen to disobey, there is something about failure and grace that can prepare us for God’s mission.
When I was in seminary in Boston, I was able to get to know a pastor of a nearby church. This pastor in years gone by had a reputation for being gifted, but rather pretentious and arrogant. This person went on to become president of a very well-known Christian organization. Shortly after becoming president, it was disclosed that he had a brief sexual affair and was forced to resign.
It was some years after this that I got to know this man. One day over breakfast with him outside of Boston, I said, “You seem really capable and confident. Is there anything you are afraid of?” And he said, “You are looking at a man who destroyed the ministry opportunity that God gave him. He had no-one to blame, but himself. But after I had sinned and God in his grace allowed me to come back to him and receive his forgiveness and after some time away from ministry, God allowed me to enter into his work again. I have a deep, deep, deep sense of tenderness and gratitude. And I fear that I will lose that one day.”
I didn’t know this man before his failure. I believe that his ministry, while less well-known now than before his fall, is humbler, deeper and more powerful than ever before.
George Verwer, a respected missions leader and the founder of a worldwide mission called Operation Mobilization, who spoke here a some years ago at Tenth, has said that God can use failure as a backdoor to real success.
While my failures, by God’s mercy, have not been as dramatic as my friend’s in New England, there have been times when my vision has been blurred and when I have been vulnerable and tempted and experienced failure. Some years ago there was a season when I questioned whether I really had the character to be a minister of the Gospel. I went to see an old man who had the reputation of being very wise and very candid. I said to him very frankly, “In my past there have been some boundary violations.” I was very explicit about this. I said, “I can see myself working for a corporation and pursuing a career in journalism as my father did, and given my theological framework, I don’t see working for a corporation or in the media as being any way inferior to being a church minister.” This wise person said, “It may be that your life is prophetic in some way and it may be that you are called to pastor a church where people have failed in some way but are welcome. A pastor for those who are broken will find healing. It may be that God will use your past to prepare your way for your future.”
This may be true in your unique call in your life, as well. Through your weakness or vulnerability, or even maybe through the failure, or maybe just because of some suffering you’ve faced may become the pipeline that God uses to bring his life and love to the world.
Even when you feel like you failed, or have been crushed by life circumstances, or as good as dead – in the belly of a whale… God has a way of coming to us in raising us from the dead as he did for Jonah. See Jonah was not only an instrument of God's life, he was a recipient of God's life and love as well. And God wants to use you not only as an instrument of his life in love in the world, but wants you to be a recipient of his life. So if you feel like you failed, feel like you have died in some way, God can raise you from the dead.
God is in that business. When Jesus was asked by the Pharisees to give them a sign that he was the unique son of God, Jesus said, “The only sign you'll get is the sign of Jonah. I will die and three days later God will raise me from the dead.” God is in the business of taking that which is dead, and lifeless and considered worthless to the world and raising it to new life and to new purpose.
If you are a kind of helicopter parent simply fretting over how things are going for a family member or loved one, know that he can use that person suffering and even their failures and redeem them for his purposes.
And God can use your failure or our sufferings to prepare you for some new life and new purpose, so we more fully radiate his light and love in the world.
The God of Jonah saved Jonah, the God who raised Jesus from the dead, can take the broken glass of your life, the broken pieces of clay and make it into a beautiful mosaic for the world.
Will you let him do that?
posted by Shigematsu at 4:14 PM
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