NOVEMBER 16th, 2025 PASTOR DON PIEPER
Turning A Minor Prophet JONAH 1:1-10,15-7/2:10-3:5,10-4:4,10-11
“A WHALE OF A TALE!”
Meet Jonah ben Amittai - the only prophet sent to an enemy of Israel, cruel and violent Assyria no less! His is the only prophetic book written as a narrative, or story. Some view it as a myth but this is no mere fish story. Jonah is celebrated in the historical book of 2 Kings, lending credence to Jonah's place in Israel's history as a reknown prophet. Jesus himself repeatedly referred to him as well...
“As Jonah was in the belly of the great fish for three days and three nights,” Jesus said, “so will the Son of Man be in the heart of the earth for three days and three nights.” (Matthew 12:40)
Jonah takes us back to the early days of Assyria's rise to power, during the reign of Jeroboam II, who ruled the northern kingdom of Israel from 792-753 BC, making Jonah a contemporary of Amos and Hosea. Jonah's name means 'dove', but not so much as a metaphor for peace but of human folly, as its used by the prophet Hosea: “The people of Israel have become like silly, flighty doves...” (Hosea 7:11)
Jonah! It's not clear whether his life was a tragedy or a comedy! God says go that way, Jonah goes the opposite way. When a storm rocks the boat, he volunteers to be fish food, only to be vomited up on land where he finally does what he's asked, has success, only to complain about it, about the heat, and about the worm that's eaten his shade casting plant. He's quite the silly fellow. One thing's for sure, you can't call 911 from the inside of a whale. There's just no reception! So he prayed: “Lord, you've driven me from your presence.” (Jonah 2:4) Silly Jonah! His prayer contradicts his own book's intro: “But Jonah got up and he went in the opposite direction to get away from the Lord.” (Jonah 1:3)
Jonah – you gotta love this guy! He was a man on a mission! Only problem was, it wasn't the mission he'd signed up for. His mission, as he saw it, was to the people of Israel, not galavanting about in the enemy's capital! If they're in danger of dying because of their evil ways, then good - they had it coming. As Scrooge put it:“If they're going to die, let them do it and decrease the surplus population.”
(Scrooge from Charle's Dickens' A Christmas Carol)
Obviously, God made a mistake. He didn’t mean to send Jonah. He meant to send Mona, from next door. So at the first opportunity Jonah packed his bags and dashed off in the opposite direction. It reminds me of a conversation that Charlie Brown once had with his little sister, Sally...
Sally: I think I can get out of going to kindergarten, Charlie Brown, if you’ll write this letter for me.
“To whom it may concern: Please excuse Sally Brown from kindergarten. She's needed at home.”
Charlie: I can’t write that!! Don’t you realize that this is what's wrong with society today? This is evasion of responsibility! This is what's eroding our society!
Sally: I don’t know what you’re talking about. I’m too young and innocent! (proudly exits)
Sally and Jonah – two experts in evasive maneuvers, or at least so they thought. Sally however wound up in school and Jonah, after wiping off all the whale spit and seaweed, wound up in Ninevah. “Then the Lord spoke to Jonah a second time: ‘Get up and go to the city of Ninevah, and deliver the message I have given you.’ This time Jonah obeyed the Lord’s command and went to Ninevah…” (Jonah 3:1-3)
So why did Jonah have such a hard time obeying God? Come to think of it, why do I...? “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you?” (Matthew 5:44) “Judge not lest you be judged.” (Luke 6:37) “Seek first the kingdom of God.” (Matthew 6:33)
“If someone slaps you on the right cheek, offer the other as well.” (Matthew 5:39) Okay, if I were to be honest, I’d have to admit I’ve disobeyed every one of those – and that was just this week!
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Why is it so hard to obey God's word? One thing I know, the whole thing gets started from day one. Sally is not the first little person to try and work the system. As an infant the whole world exists to fill our very need. When we get tired, when we get hungry, when we get lonely, we just let out a blast of unfiltered noise and someone comes running. It worked then! Some of us are still working it!
Ever read about about the life of Helen Keller, the blind girl who withdrew into a world of angry noncompliance? Her temper tantrums were infamous. She was a wild, defiant child. It wasn’t until a teacher, Annie Sulliven, invested herself in Keller’s growth and education that Helen came to see that her defiance kept her from realizing the fullness of life God had intended for her.
Sulliven not only helped Helen connect words with objects, she helped Helen make a connec-tion between her rebellious attitude and her inability to learn or connect with others. The result was that Helen began to recognize her need for redemption, for God to enter in and change her heart, and this awareness absolutely rocked her world. Keller later used her fame to point others to Christ.
The problem, as with Jonah himself, is our tendency to run or resist. So it was with Linus...
Linus: I don’t like to face problems head on. I think the best way to solve problems is to avoid them. That's my philosophy - No problem is so big or so complicated that it can’t be run away from!
Charlie: But Linus, what if everyone was like you? What if everyone in the whole world suddenly decided to run away from their problems?
Linus: Well, at least we’d all be running in the same direction.
No wonder Christ’s first message to all who sought to follow him was onee of redirection: “Repent, all of you! Turn around! Go the other way! You’re running in the wrong direction!”
(paraphrase of Mark 1:15)
Who better to deliver such a message than a prophet known for running in the wrong direction? So it was that these self-consumed, power-makes-right people wound up taking Jonah’s message to heart. In the Vegie Tale take on this story, Jonah is so annoyed at this turn of events that he takes out his anger and frustration on his traveling buddy, the worm who ate his shade producing plant, who tells Jonah: "I'm really a caterpillar. Actually my mother was a caterpillar, my father was a worm, but I'm okay with that now."
As Jonah's story reaches it's climax, God gently rebukes Jonah with a telling question: “Is it good for you to burn with such anger?” (Jonah 4:4) God is not suggesting that anger is in of itself wrong, but rather that Jonah's anger is misdirected. His anger shows that he is passionate about the wrong things. He is more invested in his race and nation than in the well-being of those who're lost.
In his book, The Prodigal Prophet, Timothy Keller identifies some parallels between Jonah's story & Jesus' Prodigal Son story. Like the prodigal, Jonah also runs away, convinced he knows what's in his best interests. In the second half he slips into the skin of the other brother in Jesus' parable when he obeys His father but berates him for showing grace. Both stories end with a cliffhanger question...
So what's the takeaway here? What do you make of scripture's most reluctant prophet? Is this about God's call to mission, since God repeatedly sends Jonah to deliver a message, like that of Jesus and John the Baptist, which calls for repentance and an opportunity to experience God's grace?
Or is it about the struggle believers have to obey & trust in God, visible as we see Jonah on the lamb, and later arguing with God? Or is it about race and nationalism, since Jonah seems to be more concerned over his own nation's security than a city of spiritually lost people? Or...all of the above?
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The book of Jonah certainly has much to say to believers in our current context. Herein we are presented with a staunch believer who's convinced his religion and race make him better and more worthy of God's mercy than others, those whose race and religion differ from his own. Here we catch a glimpse of how God views societies and cultures outside of the community of believers. Here we learn about God's opposition to toxic nationalism and the disdain for other races.
As Timothy Keller observed: “Jonah fled from God rather than seeking the spiritual good of a city he despised. He allowed himself to become too aligned politcally and emotionally with the national identity and security of Israel.” As Jonah articulates his anger in theVegietale movie...: "Lord, perhaps you've never been to Ninevah! Well, of course you haven't! A god like you would never go to a place like Ninevah!"
(from Timothy Keller's The Prodigal Prophet)
In Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings, Gimli the Dwarf frequently articulates his dislike & distrust of the Elves. While in Lorien, wounded and defeated, he meets the Elf queen Galadriel. She speaks words of encouragemeent to him in his own secret language, a tongue known to only dwarves.
“And the dwarf, hearing her speak in his own ancient tongue, looked up and met her eyes; and it seemed to him that he looked suddenly into the heart of an enemy and saw there only love and under-standing. Wonder came into his face, and he smiled back at her and said, 'Yet more fair is the land of Lorien, and the Lady Galadriel is above all the jewels that lie beneath the earth!'”
(from Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings)
As a result, Gimli's attitude toward the Elves begins to change, ultimately taking expression in his deepening friendship with Legolas the Elf. When he is embraced in love by an 'Other' it transforms him and enables him to welcome others who are vastly different from himself.
One of the most significant elements of Jonah's story is that it ends on a cliffhanger, with God's unanswered question...: “You don't want me to have compassion on Ninevah, but shouldn't I? You felt compassion for the plant but people are what really matter. In light of the grace I showed you by saving you with the fish, should you not also feel compassion for those drowning in Ninevah?”
(Jonah 4:10-11)
The final verses of Jonah reveal the sign of Jonah, as Jesus called it, the sign that one is on the same page as God in that one has compassion, not contempt, for people who aren't like them. God challenges Jonah for confronting profane, ungodly people without caring or compassion. Surely error and evil must be confronted, but it is only grace that transforms, and Jonah has missed the boat...
Keller observes:“We live in a world fragmented into various 'media bubbles', in which you hear only news that confirms what you already believe. Anyone who uses the internet and social media or who even watches most news channels today is being daily encouraged in a dozen ways to become like Jonah with regard to 'those other people over there.'
Christian believers today are being sucked into this maelstrom as much as if not more than anyone else. The book of Jonah is a shot across the bow. It ends with an unanswered question hanging in the air – deliberately – so that every generation ever since Jonah's must answer it for themselves. 'How can you claim to represent me, love me, when you lack compassion for those different than you?' Jonah points us to Jesus, who showed love and grace to those who're so very different than him.”
(from Timothy Keller's The Prodigal Prophet,2018)
So what might your Ninevah look like? How has God shown you grace? And how might God be telling you to get up and go with the message He has given you extending it to those not like you?
(Jonah 3:2)