Rev. Reddit Andrews - More Than Just A Fish Story. Pt. 2
Our brother Reddit Andrews concludes his insights in a message from the book of Jonah. Also check out the message he preached from Jonah 1:1-6. Rev. Andrews serves as the pastor of Soaring Oaks Presbyterian Church in Sacramento CA.
The story that follows conveys four essential lessons that we are either to emulate or searchingly root out of our lives. First, there is Jonah’s self-centered unconcern for the spiritual well being of those around him. Jonah’s portrayal of this both compels our deepest admiration and lifts his account completely out of the realm of a mere children’s story. How fearless is his candor and familiar his failing. In each of the four vignettes he portrays himself as tragically self-absorbed and completely out of touch with the mercy, compassion and God’s purposes in the world. See him perfectly at sleep in the hull of the ship while the mariners are in peril of perishing. He acts to safeguard them only after being shamed and prevailed upon. Had they not done so he would have slept on, permitting them to die with him. Behold him in the belly of the great fish. He records the foolish cry of his heart; one that contains twenty five first person pronouns and completely disregards the commission of God. How callously he writes of the Ninevites, “Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their hope of steadfast love. But I….� Look at him as he rudely conveys God’s message to the Ninevites, having been vomited out by the fish that provided a divine response to the self-centered cry. “Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!� He preached so as to ensure they would in fact be overthrown! Lastly, see him petulantly sulking at the joy of their entrance into the covenant community as “the people of Nineveh believed God.�
His self-centeredness comes to a gruesome climax as he bemoans the loss of his personal shade tree while simultaneously angered at the joy of the Ninevites salvation. After all it did bode ill for the political tomorrow of his people and the personal enjoyment of his day, didn’t it? We can all too easy be like Jonah can’t we? We can be oblivious to the cause of world mission, the salvation of family members, neighbors and co-workers, while bemoaning the perks and possessions we don’t have. Let us learn this lesson.
Second and more succinctly, Jonah conveys a wonderful portrait of the persistence and patience of God in dealing with His self-centered people. Certainly God could’ve called another prophet to carry His message. We can see no necessity that it be Jonah that carries the message. But behold how God sets the world in motion to bring Jonah into sympathy with Him. God ‘appoints’ a great fish to swallow up Jonah. He ‘appointed’ a plant that made Jonah glad and also ‘appointed’ the worm that attacked the plant and made Jonah sad. God ‘appointed’ a scorching east wind that drove Jonah to his knees in order that he might truly hear God’s voice. If life isn’t working and has lost meaning could it be because you’ve set sail for Tarshish and you are being brought into sympathy with God through His ‘appointed’ difficulty? Too often our dissatisfaction really amounts to pitying plants at the expense of the perishing Ninevites on our doorsteps. Learn to give profound thanks to God for His great love that patiently pursues you until you give up your flight to Tarshish and are happily involved in His purposes for Nineveh.
A third great lesson Jonah affords and perhaps the one most easily appreciated but difficult to live is the expansive portrait of God’s compassion for the lost, His awesome heart for the nations of the world. Nineveh, a nation known far and wide for a level of cruelty and brutality seldom equal in the annals of history, is the object of divine pity. We, along with Jonah, are stunned awake and then shamed by the question, “And should I not pity Nineveh…?� Oh, may we never forget that this is what God is like! The true nature of God’s compassion involves forgiveness and judgment but is biased towards forgiveness. He is the God who so loves that He gives His one and only Son for the world. Which brings us to the forth and last lesson Jonah imparts.
The divine compassion that Jonah seeks to elicit from us is not one that can be found within us as we are by nature. Jonah ends on a note that leads us to conclude that he felt his need to be as great as the Ninevites. Is there anyone or anything that can rescue him from His self-centeredness? Yes, centuries later one would come who was greater than Jonah! Jesus likens His experience to Jonah’s. He would embody the obedience Jonah withheld and the compassion he was incapable of. In this way we are invited to renew our commitment to compassionate obedience by following Jesus, who is greater than Jonah. Nineveh was long gone when Jesus came, He sends us to the world. As we learn to love the Lord, who embodies divine compassion and pity we will be moved to pity and have compassion on those upon who He does.