A View to the Future

Based on the Book of Jonah

Sure is hot today! Lord I miss yesterday’s shade. I used to think a dip in the sea was the solution to weather like this, but not so much anymore.

Why am I subjecting myself to this anyway?  I was not instructed to stay. My job has been completed.

As I think back on it, I still struggle to understand.

When I accepted this job I knew I would have to deliver hard news on occasion, but I understood that it would always be for the good of my people. This time is so very different.

This assignment seemed offtrack from the very beginning. Not that it was sure to fail – that was my real concern. Success at what cost? 

This is nothing like the days after I told my King Jeroboam that through him God would restore the boundaries of Israel.  Now that was a message fit for a prophet to deliver! When my words were made true, I was honored at the highest levels.

Funny how that sounds. Some say that King Jeroboam should have destroyed the idols in the high places. I am not wise enough to judge him for that. The people seem to like those high places, even though their petitions fell on stone-cold ears.

But this time, going to this foul people! Their sins are many. Judgement is their lot. Is it possible that God would relent?  Is there any other reason to warn them of their coming judgement, beyond that it was not too late to turn from their wicked ways?

Oh, I tried to get out of it – quite literally. It seemed best to head in the opposite direction.  I paid my fare for a well-earned vacation from the pressure of my job. It was a beautiful day for my departure, as I continued to make my plans for addressing the situation. Then I remember feeling so very tired and going below for a nap.

I awoke to the voice of the captain: 

“What do you mean, you sleeper? Arise, call upon your god! Perhaps then god will give a thought to us, that we do not perish.”

Arise? Was he crazy! The boat was lurching with every breath. What was left in the hold seemed to ‘arise’ as the floor below it fell away over and over again. The hold looked much larger, as much of what was there when I lay down was gone when I woke up.

Then one of the crew said:

“Come, let us cast lots, that we may know on whose account this evil has come upon us.”

Naturally I had to draw a lot also, but the odds seemed in my favor. I intended no evil toward this crew. I caught my breath when the lot fell upon me, stunned. Then someone asked:

“Tell us on whose account this evil has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where are you from? What country? Who are your people?”

How should one answer such a question?

“I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land” I answered. 

Of course, when I had said such things in the past, ‘fear’ meant respect and honor. But then it struck me that this time it meant something quite different. And I could see the fear in their responses too.

“What is this that you have done?” one asked. 

I had already told them that I was running away from the presence of my God, so he knew the answer before he asked, though none of us really grasped the outcome of my actions.

Then the boat pitched even more as the seas grew even more tempestuous.

“What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” asked another. 

It was not a threat so much as a request for direction. Almost immediately I knew how to respond, though my lips were slower in obeying my brain:

“Take me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great tempest has come upon you.”

Well, God bless them, they did not accept my suggestion. Instead, they rowed all the harder, for quite some time, but to no avail. Then they reconsidered my suggestion. While they did not know my Lord, they prayed:

“We beseech thee, O Lord, let us not perish for this man’s life, and don’t blame us for his death; for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.”

And then they threw me over the side.

At first, I was concerned about how I would deal with the turbulence of the waves, but then, as I hit the water, the waves were gone. I could hear the crew rejoice as I began to sink. The water grew colder as I descended, and I struggled to hold my breath, trying to stay alive for a moment longer. Then the light from above was blotted out. I was swallowed up, without a bite or violent shaking. It was warmer here, though still wet. And I could breathe! The air smelled not nearly so sweet as I would prefer, but it was air. And sea weed. So much sea weed that it wrapped around my head and arms and legs.

I struggled for ever so long, trying to figure out what might come next. So many possibilities passed through my mind. I had no way to measure the passage of time in the darkness, as I waited. I had the impulse to reach out to my Lord… but then I recalled that he was the one who put me here, and I reconsidered.  That is, until I reached the pinnacle of my desperation. I began to feel faint, with little remaining strength of my own. Then I cried out, hoping that somehow my Lord could hear my prayer from the depths, before I passed out, forever: 

‘I am cast out from thy presence; how shall I again look upon thy holy temple?’

Oh, how crazy that sounded once I said it! I had attempted to flee from his presence to avoid doing my job, and then found myself longing once again for his presence, when it seemed far too late to know his presence, ever again. And I prayed further:

“Those who pay regard to vain idols forsake their true loyalty. But I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have promised, I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”.

Then my host began to convulse and I, and all that surrounded me, were expelled. For a moment I again could not breathe. Then, I felt sand and rocks between my fingers, and I gasped for breath once more. I was on the shore!  Swallowed in the depths of the sea, and delivered back to dry land. How great is my Lord!

“Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you” I heard my Lord say, just as he had before I planned my detour. 

I sensed no anger, or bitterness or wrath in His words, but this time my response was different, even though, in my mind, I still struggled with what it would mean.

I noticed that my hands and legs were strangely whitened from my time in that great fish, and the scent of the air that I breathed, during what I later best figured was about 3 days, stuck with me, and to me. But this time I headed in the assigned direction. When I arrived, I began shouting the message I was assigned:

“Yet forty days, and Nin′eveh shall be overthrown!”

It took about 3 days to cover all the areas of the city because it was so large. Now that I think about it, that is the same amount of time I spent in that fish. Hard to say which was more intolerable.

Somehow, I hoped that they would ignore me.  This was a foul people who had done evil to many, including my people, and they were more than deserving of judgement.

However, they did hear me, and believed my message. After I completed my assigned task, and prepared to leave the city, I could hear many talking about what this could mean. They were downcast to the point of sorrow. Then, around me, I could hear the king’s heralds proclaiming:

“By the decree of the king and his nobles: Let neither man nor beast, herd nor flock, taste anything; let them not feed, or drink water, but let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and let them cry mightily to God. Everyone! Turn from your evil way and from the violence which your hands have committed. Who knows, God may yet repent and turn from his fierce anger, so that we might not perish?”

This was not what I expected. God told them that they would be destroyed! And that is what they deserve! And now, as their sun was near setting on what even they called their evil ways, they were reaching out to my Lord to be saved!  Did they possibly think that my Lord might relent?  Was that even possible? Is that the kind of Lord I serve? He relented, of course, with his own chosen people, several times. But those who did my people harm he destroyed, time and again. 

How could these people possibly hope that my Lord would relent just because they are now contrite!

Well my part was done. I could now go back to my life as it was before. But I had a nagging feeling that perhaps their hope was not in vain. How could my Lord put me through all this and then not act justly with Ninevah? In all this my anger and frustration grew! How could God put me, His faithful servant, through all this, and then possibly not follow through with the declaration he gave me to deliver when these evil people called upon his name?

So I spoke to my Lord again:

“Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

I had the sense that my Lord responded in a still small voice:

“Is it right for you to be angry?”

I suppose that was an appropriate question, but after thinking about if further, I am not really sure that it was my Lord’s voice that I heard.

So now, here I sit, just east of the city, in a shelter I built all by myself, just waiting to see what God will do. And It’s hot. A couple of days ago, after I finished building this shelter, I noticed a leafy plant growing up and over my shelter.  By yesterday afternoon its shade provided a great comfort to me, giving me protection from this sun and the desert heat. That was really wonderful! And my spirits picked up as I had the sense that God had provided that for me. But this morning that leafy plant had withered away. Upon inspection it appeared that a common plant-eating worm had been chewing on it overnight. And now my shade is gone! The sun is up again, and today there is a scorching east wind blowing on my back, as if I were too close to a fire.

I am starting to feel faint again. Only my frustration keeps me from collapsing.

“It would be better for me to die than to live” I hear myself say.

“Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?” I heard from that same voice as a few days ago, and almost the same question.

“It is. And I’m so angry I wish I were dead” Said I. 

How odd that sounded, considering that I sat here hoping that all the of the inhabitants of Ninevah would be dead by now, and I would be vindicated.

Then the voice spoke again:

“You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 

And should I not also be concernd for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”