Who Knows?: The God of Second Chances (Dr. Trey Benfield)

February 5, 2017 Mason Matthews

Scripture Readings:

John 21:15-19
Genesis 18:16-33
Jonah 3:1-10

We are continuing our study of Jonah. In chapter 1 we learned how Jonah was not called to preach to a group of people he didn’t like, or that he did not like foreigners, but to an empire equivalent to the Nazi regime or ISIS. However, we are commanded to love our enemies because God gives us hope that the world can be different and has freed of us from the fear of our enemies. Then we examined the poem Jonah composes in the guts of the fish. There we saw that the only thing Jonah really gets right is that he belongs to God. That relationship is God’s goal throughout scripture where God says, “I will be your God and you will be my people.” Last week we looked at the events of Jonah chapter 2 as Jonah was swallowed by a fish and then vomited back up. Jonah saw this experience as a journey from death to new life and as a picture of baptism. Jonah had been subjected to the judgment of God, but God had provided the fish as means for Jonah to safely pass through judgment. Remember that I pointed out that the gender of the fish changes illustrating that the guts of the fish was actually a womb and that through this experience Jonah was reborn. Jonah had once been a prophet whose message had been about building walls to keep Assyria out, but now Jonah had a new mission to extend a message of hope to bring Assyria in.

We pick up our story with Jonah after Jonah has been vomited by the great fish on dry land. According to our text, the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. The familiar commission that we read in all the prophets, “arise, go and proclaim” that was originally given to Jonah in chapter one is repeated again. This time Jonah does what we originally expected, he arises and goes to Nineveh and this time, as verse 3 tells us, according to the word of the Lord.

Nineveh is again described as the great city just as it was in chapter 1. We are told it takes three days to walk from one side to the other. That would be a staggering size for a city in the ancient world. More than likely this is a figure of speech and is probably related to the three days and three nights Jonah spent in the great fish. If you remember from last week’s sermon, I said the expression “three days and three nights” was thought to be the length of time it took to journey from death to life or back from death to life. So Jonah has journeyed from death to life in a great fish and now Jonah’s words will move Nineveh from death to life.

Jonah only makes it one day into Nineveh before he proclaims the words God had given him. Until this point the story had focused on the command to proclaim the words of the Lord, it is only at this point that we learn the content. “Forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Only five words in Hebrew. The phrase “forty days and forty nights” is also significant recalling both the flood of Noah when God’s judgment is brought down on the world for the same reason that God judgment is threatened against Nineveh, because their evil has risen to the presence of God. Forty days and forty nights was also the time period the Israelites waited after Moses journeyed up to Mount Sinai to intercede for the Israelites after they made the Golden Calf. Here the Israelites were in danger of judgment because of their evil as well.

The crazy thing is this - to our astonishment and to Jonah’s as well, the people of Nineveh believed. The text uses a different word for believe that rarely found anywhere else. The word is amen which is where where amen comes from. It means trust and is derived from truth. We also find this word used to describe Abraham’s response in Genesis 15 after God makes the covenant with Abraham, “and he believed, and God counted it to him as righteousness.” So here we have the people of Nineveh imitating the faith of Abraham. Also, If you will remember, Jonah is introduced in chapter 1 as Jonah the son of Amittai which is another word related to belief. The people of Nineveh believed God because of the words of Jonah the son of belief.

In some ways the people of Nineveh behave like the sailors, who also are ready to believe in Jonah’s God. The sailors feared God but that word does not go quite as far as believing. The sailors heard Jonah’s confession and were immediate danger. Only the threat of danger confronted the Ninevites. There is no indication given in the story as to why the people trusted God so readily. When details like that are left out we call it a gap. Gaps are used in a story to pique our interest and make us speculate. I think that is exactly what is going on here and I want to do more with it. However, it will fit it a bit better when we get to chapter 4. For now, I just want to point it out.

One interesting point is the common people are the first to repent and it is only later that the message comes to the king. In fact, verse 6 tells us the word reaches the king coming to the king indirectly. The repentance of Nineveh is a true grassroots movement among all levels of society. The king’s proclamation merely makes official what the people have already spontaneously been doing. My favorite part is that according to the king’s proclamation, not only do the people have to fast and wear sackcloth, but so do all the animals.

Jonah’s message did not contain any instruction as to what the people might do to avoid God’s coming judgment. Even the king’s proclamation contains only a little hope and no certainty. He says, “Who knows? God may turn and relent” Nor is the king and the people’s fasting and sackcloth merely for show. Everyone is ordered to turn from violence which was the great strength of the Assyrian Empire. Violence was how Assyria maintained their position of dominance.

Then another crazy thing happens - God changes His mind. God said He was going to bring disaster to Nineveh, that He would overthrow Nineveh in forty days, and He relents. The word relent is nachem in Hebrew and means to be sorry or regret. God was sorry that He was going to bring disaster on the Ninevites and so He does not do it.

On the surface this is a pretty straightforward story. Jonah tells the people of Nineveh that God is going to overthrow their city. The people of Nineveh feel genuine remorse and change their behavior. God decides not to overthrow city and so for the people of Nineveh disaster is averted. Yet amid the simplicity there are some big questions. Why does God trust this message to someone who had run away from him once and only does what he commands by way of weird, miraculous intervention involving a giant fish? Why do the animals of Nineveh have to fast and wear sackcloth? How is God sorry for a decision He made? It makes us uncomfortable for God to be inconsistent and change His mind.

So let’s start with the first question. The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time. If the plan to use Jonah to proclaim a message to Nineveh did not work the first time, why does God try again and even go to such great lengths as having a fish swallow Jonah to have Jonah finally deliver His message?

I think this illustrates one of the great lessons of the Bible and it is this - Our God is a God of second chances. A few examples from scripture will illustrate this point. If you remember the story of Joseph, Joseph is a super annoying little brother who is shown incredible favoritism by his father. Joseph’s ten older brothers are so bothered by Joseph that they decide to kill him. However, one of the brother’s named Judah points out if they kill Joseph, then they have to go through all the trouble of covering up a murder and they get nothing. So instead Judah suggests they sell Joseph into slavery.

Joseph ends up in Egypt and after a lot of bad things happen to him, Joseph becomes second in command of Egypt. Meanwhile there is a famine in Israel and Judah and his brother have to journey to Egypt to get food. When the brothers arrive they meet Joseph do not recognize him and Joseph decides to test them by requiring his younger brother Benjamin who is their father’s new favorite son to stay behind. Judah knows this will crush his father and fears the news may even kill his father. So Judah decides to stay in Benjamin’s place. Judah has been given a second chance and as a result God invests the line of Judah with the kingship of Israel and even the messiah.

Another example is from our reading in John. After Jesus had been sentenced to crucifixion, Peter famously denies knowing Jesus three times this after promising that he would never betray Jesus and would fight to the death. Yet, Jesus comes to Peter and after sharing breakfast with him, asks Peter three times if he loves Him. Peter repeats that He does and Jesus restores the breach in the relationship by commanding Him to feed His sheep. What Jesus wants Peter to know is that He has not given up on Peter and that He still wants Peter to be part of His mission to restore the world to Him. Jesus does not just say thats alright Peter, I forgive you, Jesus gives him a job. Peter has been given a second chance and so after Jesus’ ascension, we find Peter at Pentecost delivering the first sermon in Acts 2.

Looking back through scripture we can find that the whole history of the Bible is God giving His people second chances. God’s plan to rescue the world is not thwarted by anyone because He is reconciling the world to Himself and for some reason He has selected His people to carry that out despite their fear, their lack of understanding, or even their disobedience. Even at the start of the Bible the work of humanity is not ended with the fall, but God continues with Adam and Eve promising that the serpent will defeated and that defeat will come from Eve even though it was Eve who choose to listen to the serpent rather than to God.

God is a God of second chances because He has chosen His flawed people to be the means He will bring salvation to the world. In theological terms, God has chosen His people as mediators. A mediator is a person who works between two groups to reconcile them together. A mediator has a foot in both camps and work to reconcile both sides to each other like a liaison or an ambassador. Jonah is sent as a mediator to bring God’s word to Nineveh.

If we look at our other reading we see another instance in which God selects cities for destruction. The evil of Sodom and Gomorrah much like Nineveh had reached the point where it had risen to God’s presence and could no longer be ignored. Yet before God issues His judgment He tells Abraham about His plans. We are told that God decides to consult with Abraham because the Lord is going to bring to Abraham what He promised him. The promise that God is referring to goes back to Abraham’s call in Genesis 12. Abraham is commissioned, using language similar to Jonah’s, to arise, and go to the land God would show Him so that God would make Abraham a great nation and Abraham’s name would be great. However, the point making Abraham a great nation and make Abraham’s name great is so Abraham would bring blessing to all the peoples of the earth. Abraham is to mediate God’s blessing to the whole world.

In that capacity, Abraham then argues for God to prevent the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. It is an amazing move and almost does not seem smart to debate with God the way Abraham does. Yet, God condescends to change His mind repeatedly because this is exactly the role God had called Abraham to fill. Abraham as God’s representative is to be a mediator. Moses does the same thing later during the forty days and forty nights on Mt Sinai. Moses begs that God not destroy His people because of the sin of the golden calf and again God changes His mind. Delivering God’s message and advocating for others is exactly the job of God’s people.

Jonah is really bad at this. At no time does Jonah mediate for Nineveh. Jonah pronounces doom without hope. Based on prior examples we would expect Jonah when faced with God’s potential destruction to act as Abraham or Moses did. Yet still God changes his mind because of the actions of the people of Nineveh. Jonah, despite the fact that he has been given a second chance and despite the fact that he has seen the pagan sailors turn toward God, fails to fulfill this role.

In the big story of the Old Testament we will see God’s people fail repeatedly at their role just as Jonah did. Israel was to be a light to the nations and Jesus tells them they have taken their light and hidden it. Yet God will not be thwarted and so He sends Jesus as the ultimate mediator, both God and man both from Heaven but an Israelite who does what Israel was called to do and sacrifices Himself for others as Israel was called to do. Who even while being crucified ujustly as a criminal, says “Father forgive them for they know not what they do.”

Nor is this salvation that Christ brings about His people alone. Nothing less than all the nations of the whole world was in view in God’s commission to Abraham. In Isaiah 49, God says, “It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and bring them back preserved to Israel; I will make you a light for the nations, that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth.” Yet it does not end there because not only is Jesus a mediator for all the nations of the earth but He is a mediator to bring restoration to all of creation.

When we look at our other example where “forty days and forty nights is found,” Noah passing through the waters of destruction as Jonah did, brings about salvation not just to his family, but to the animals as well. So when Jonah comes to Nineveh what is in view is not just the people of Nineveh but also the animals. God’s concern is for His whole creation that He created good and despite sin and the fall, He is working to restore all of it.

Paul says in Romans 8 that the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. Our purpose as followers of Christ and the work of remediation is bigger than just making sure that we go to heaven when we die. It is much more expansive and cosmic than that. Last week I said that salvation was not an end, but a beginning. Jonah was reborn for a purpose to act as an agent of restoration. What Paul tells is that at least part of that purpose is that the creation itself would be set free from its bondage to corruption and will obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. Paul says that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth. The imagination of the people of Nineveh was big enough to realize that truth.

Jonah has not grasped the enormity of God’s plan, but it is ironic that just as the sailors saw something bigger than themselves, the people of Nineveh do as well. As Jonah confessed in chapter 1, he serves YHWH the God of heaven, who made the sea and dry land - in other words the God of EVERYTHING. We in the church can also rest in our own salvation and become so myopic that we loose sight in the enormity of God’s plan for the cosmos. Perhaps it is time for the church’s hopes and dreams to be bigger than what they are because they should be more than about our salvation but about resurrection!

So are you ready for some sauce as Chris Lundberg might say? I want everyone to find a child near them with a worksheet and look at the upper right corner. What you are looking at is ancient cuneiform. If you remember back to high school, cuneiform was the writing system of the ancient Sumerians. They would use a sharpened stick and make these series of wedges into clay tablets to represent words. The cuneiform symbol you are looking at means Nineveh. Notice that it is a box which means house and inside is what looks like a fish. The name Nineveh means “house of fish.”

So God uses a fish to swallow Jonah giving Jonah a second chance. Jonah then acts as a mediator to bring salvation to the house of fish giving them a second chance. He does this incredibly poorly giving them five words with only a hint of hope. Nineveh does not even know if their actions will work. The king says, “who knows” just as the captain of the said, “Perhaps we may may not perish?” ‘Who knows?” Jonah should have known that God was the God of second chances. Actually we will learn in chapter 4 that he did know. However, imagine this scene, after spending three days and nights in a fish and then being vomiting up on dry land. Then journeys to Nineveh - by the way if you look on a map Nineveh is a long way from the coast. Then spending all this time thinking about your weird experience in a fish you arrive at Nineveh and then sees this sign? Can you imagine the irony was not lost on Jonah?

Second chances are God’s business and now God is extending that second chance to those outside His people because at verse three tells us, Nineveh is a great city TO GOD. Nineveh is part of God’s creation as well. Who knows? God knows and his people should know and we as the church should know. It is why we are to serve, to feed, to heal, to bear witness, to sacrifice, and to mediate because it is our responsibility as God’s people to cry, “Father forgive them for they know what they do.”

We know because God is a God who relents and does not do it. The whole story of the Bible is a God who gives second chances and who changes His mind. We are often bothered by this - a omniscient God should be consistent and not change His mind. This is inconsistent and illogical. It destroys my rational theology about who God is. To this charge the answer is - that you have understood correctly. It makes no sense, but God is a God who fights for His creation over and over again. Who even condescends to relent and change His mind who sends Christ the ultimate mediator, God and man, to empty Himself and take on the form of a servant, to humble Himself to the point of death even the death on a cross.

For Resurrection Church and the followers of Christ we are to answer the world that we know that God will save this world. We are to be mediators of this message. We are to be a people with dreams of resurrection as wide as big as the whole cosmos. We are to present a picture of a God who cares about His creation and who works to restore it. To tell the story of a God who is not bound by logic, but only by love because as Jonah proclaims in his song, “Salvation belongs to the Lord.”

The Baptism of Jonah (Dr. Trey Benfield)

January 29, 2017 Mason Matthews

Scripture Readings:

2 Kings 14:23-25
Matthew 12:38-40
Jonah 2:1-9

Last week we looked at Jonah 2 and we examined the psalm Jonah composed in the guts of the fish. The sermon made the point that though Jonah realized the seriousness of his situation and called to the Lord for help, Jonah still refused to admit guilt and showed himself to be self righteous. However, Jonah got one thing right - perhaps the only thing he gets right. Jonah was confident he belonged to the Lord and this was the basis of Jonah’s hope. We then looked at how the entire story of the Bible depends on idea that God wants to be our God and to have us as his people. This relationship between God and humanity is ultimately fulfilled and realized through Jesus Christ.

The Southern military general Stonewall Jackson was known as a tactical genius. However, before he became a general in the army of Northern Virginia, he was a teacher at the Virginia Military Institute. Apparently, though a great general, Jackson was a terrible teacher. He would memorize his lectures and deliver them in straight monotone. Worse, if it seemed as though his students had not grasped the lecture he would deliver the exact same lecture word for word again.

So since our sermon text from last week covered the same verses as this week, you may be forgiven for wondering if I am going to deliver the exact same sermon because I have decided that like Stonewall Jackson’s students you have failed to learn last weeks lesson. Well I assure you that is not the case. We are simply going to look at this chapter from a different perspective. Last week our focus was on the poem, but today we are going to zoom out and look at the events that actually happened to Jonah in chapter 2. The big point I want to make today is that what Jonah experienced was a picture of baptism and by making that point I want to help us understand baptism better.

As we saw last week, Jonah will compare his experience inside the guts of the fish to death. In verse 2, Jonah cries from Sheol which was the Hebrew term for the place people went after they died. In verse 6, Jonah states that his life was brought up from the pit. The pit was another common term used to describe the realm people passed to after death. Last week we saw that the line, “you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.” was the central message of Jonah’s song. So to Jonah what has transpired in chapter 2 was not simply that he had been swallowed and then vomited on shore by a fish, but rather he had passed from to death into life. Jonah has in a way experienced resurrection.

We are told that Jonah spends three days and three nights in the great fish. The phrase “three days and three nights” is a common expression. It does not mean an exact time period the way we might think of it but an indefinitely long period. However, we do find examples in ancient near eastern literature where “three days and three nights” is related to the time it takes to journey from the realm of life to death or from death to life. This was likely because of the widespread belief in the ancient world that death was not permanent until a body showed no sign of life for three days.

There is a Sumerian myth called “The Descent of Inanna” in which the goddess Inanna journeys to the underworld to retrieve her husband Damuzi. The myth specifically notes the journey to the underworld took Inanna three days and three nights. We even find one example in the Old Testament where the phrase “three days and three nights” is used to describe a journey from death to life. In Hosea 6, there is series of verses describing the future restoration of Israel. “Come let us return to the Lord, for he has torn us, that he may heal us; he has struck us down and he will bind us up. After two days he will revive us; on the third day he will raise us up that we may live before him.” Notice here that it takes three days to bring Israel from death to life.

So if we apply this knowledge to Jonah chapter 2, we begin by finding him dead, in the underworld of Sheol and after three days and three nights Jonah finds himself alive again on dry land. Having said this, I do not think Jonah literally died and rose again. He is using poetry - it is exaggerated language. We find David using similar terminology in the Psalms as he describes his pursuit by King Saul. What Jonah experienced was to him like being dead and becoming alive again and so Jonah describes his time in the guts of the fish as if that was what happened.

I do think this helps us make sense of one of the most enigmatic passages in the Gospels. Jesus is confronted by the pharisees who demand a great sign to prove that He is the messiah. This must have been quite exasperating to Jesus since he has been healing people, casting out demons, calming storms, and teaching with authority. Of course Jesus will not play the Pharisee’s game because He knows if they have been skeptical up to this point one more sign will not make a difference. So in typical Jesus style, Jesus decides to blow their minds. Jesus tells them you are going to get one ultimate sign - the sign of the prophet Jonah. It is kind of strange because it seems odd that Jesus would pick an example from Jonah of all people. After all Jonah seems mostly a loathsome person and he is end the fish because he disobeyed God. Last week we looked at how even though this poem in chapter 2 is on the surface pious, Jonah still does not admit any guilt and is even weirdly self-righteous.

So why does Jesus use this story of all stories to illustrate the one and ultimate sign He will give the Pharisees? It turns out that the Jews of Jesus days already associated Jonah’s experience in the great fish with death and resurrection. In fact there is a collection of Jewish tradition called “The Lives of the Prophets” that holds that Jonah was the widow’s son that Elijah raised from the dead. Matthew tells us that when Jesus says that He will give the Pharisees the sign of Jonah he is referring to His death and resurrection.

Jesus also calls his death and resurrection a baptism. For example, in both Mark and Luke Jesus talks about the cross as a baptism. So the sign of Jonah helps us to understand why Jesus’ death and resurrection is called a baptism. Jonah passed through the the dangerous waters, but was saved by a fish provided by the Lord. The passage we read earlier calls the flood of Noah a baptism. Here again a group of people passed through dangerous waters, but were saved by an ark provided by the Lord. 1 Corinthians 10 calls the Israelite passage through the Red Sea a baptism. Another group of people pass through dangerous waters, but were saved by a passage provided by the Lord.

It is a bit perplexing that these three incidents are compared to baptism because we typically think that baptism represents a cleansing. Water is used to wash off dirt and so baptism represents the removal of sin represented by the dirt. I do not think this interpretation is incorrect. However, I want to suggest that the symbolism of baptism is more varied and rich than simply removal of sin.

For example listen to how John the Baptist, who we might expect would know a thing or two about baptism, describes baptism. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but he who is coming after me is mightier than I, whose sandals I am not worthy to carry. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear the threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.”

Of course here you need to know something about ancient near easter agricultural practices. When wheat was harvested, it was necessary for the grain to be separated from the indigestible outer coat called the chaff. Typically the stalk would have been beaten on a rocky surface called a threshing floor which would break the chaff open leaving the grain. However, the grain and chaff would be all mixed together. To separate the two a winnowing fork would throw both up in the air. The heavier grain would fall while the chaff would be blown to the side by the wind.

So the imagery that John uses here for baptism is very similar to Noah’s flood or the parting of the Red Sea, or Jonah. In all of these examples a potentially destructive process saves people deemed worthy.

In the ancient world when a case came to trial for judgment it could be difficult to determine guilt or innocence because they could not collect forensic evidence like we might today. So if you are in charge of administering justice in the ancient world quite often you would have to resort to very different techniques than we would use today. Think of the case before Solomon where two women who each have a baby but one women loses her baby and claims the other baby is her own. Solomon’s decision is to cut the baby in half, but before doing so one of the mothers offers to give the baby to the other rather than see the baby split in two. Solomon of course never intended to carry out the threat, he simply used it as a mean to discover the true mother.

So one method that would be used in the ancient world to determine guilt or innocence when evidence was lacking was something called the judicial ordeal. Here is how it worked. The alleged criminal would be thrown into a raging river and could prove his or her innocence by surviving. It seems like a bad idea, but the rationale was that the god or gods would prevent the condemnation of an innocent person. In effect the alleged was placing their fate in the hands of God. Survival would mean vindication.

This is exactly what happened during the flood of Noah, the passing of the Red Sea, and in our story of Jonah. In each case they were subjected to some sort of watery terror that would have resulted in their drowning except for the intervention of the Lord. At each point God provides a means to survive - in the case of Noah, the Lord provides the ark, in the case of Moses God parts the Red Sea, and with Jonah, God sends a fish. This is very similar to John’s description of Baptism as a winnowing fork that separates the wheat from the chaff.

What that means is the when we are baptized, what we are doing is subjecting ourselves to judicial ordeal appealing to God for a verdict. Baptism then is a statement that we have put our faith and trust entirely in the Lord to save us. Like Noah, the Israelites fleeing from Pharaoh’s army, and Jonah we depend on God to provide us a way to survive the ordeal.

The sticky part comes because the truth is we are not innocent no more than Noah, or the Israelites, or Jonah. A provision must be made and that is where the gospel comes into play. You see because Jesus was able to face the ultimate ordeal of death and was able to be vindicated in His resurrection. Colossians says we have been buried with Christ in Baptism. Christ’s resurrection then proves that He can survive the ordeal, that He has been rendered innocent and the He has been vindicated. So what Baptism represents in not only an appeal to God for judgment but also an identification with Christ as the One who will bring us through the ordeal as a person declared innocent.

However, I do not want to stop there because as great as salvation is, the story of Jonah does not stop there. There is one more point I want to make and I think it is crucial but often neglected one. Jonah was called to perform a specific task. Jonah had a vocation. Jonah was commanded to call out against the city of Nineveh and after Jonah is vomited onto dry land we find him journeying to Nineveh to do his job.

Until now I have left out a very important detail about Jonah. Jonah is actually mentioned one place outside of the book of Jonah. It was in the passage we read earlier in 2 Kings. According to this passage, Jonah in his capacity as a prophet spoke the word of the Lord to King Jeroboam II. We are told the Jeroboam II was a wicked king but in this case at least he listened to what the Lord told Jonah. The message Jonah had for the king was to restore the borders of Israel from Lebo-Hamath to the Sea of Arabah. This area is significant because it would be the border between the Kingdom of Israel and the Assyrian Empire. In fact in Amos 6, we find Amos warning that God would send the Assyrians to oppress Israel from Lebo-Hamath to the Sea of Arabah. In other words until now Jonah’s call was to be a prophet who was responsible for preparing Israel’s defense against the Assyrians. Now Jonah’s mission is to go to Assyria and to extend to them a chance to change. Jonah has gone from building a wall to keep the Assyrians out to crossing the wall and inviting the Assyrians in. The safety and security Jonah had known had been removed and now rather than establishing a boundary, Jonah was building a bridge. How does this happen?

There is an important clue in the story. Like many languages, Hebrew words have gender. In our story the Hebrew word for fish is dag, which is a masculine. Something curious happens in chapter 2:2. The fish is called a daga, which is a female ending. Interestingly Jewish rabbis explained the gender change by supposing that originally the fish was male but was so roomy that Jonah did not pray so God transferred Jonah to a small female fish provoking his prayer.

There is another explanation though - remember Jonah is in the belly of the fish which is a general term for the internal organs, not necessarily the stomach. This is why I have been translating it guts. By tellings us that Jonah was in the belly of a specifically female fish, the text wants us to understand that Jonah is in the womb of the fish. That means that not only has Jonah passed from death to life, but Jonah has been reborn. “Truly, truly I say unto you unless one is born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Jonah’s experience is not just a judicial ordeal where he is vindicated. Jonah’s experience is not just about salvation. Jonah’s experience is a new birth giving him a new purpose and mission.

We often think about salvation as an end to itself. What the book of Jonah wants us to see is the transforming power of salvation that changes and reorients our life. Salvation takes us from a person who builds wall to a person who crosses them. Who goes to the enemy he once feared and instead offers his enemy hope. Who moves from an “eye for an eye” to “turn the other cheek.” Salvation is not an end, salvation is a new beginning, and a new mission.

Jesus rose on a Sunday the first day of the week because what Christ does is usher in a new creation, a new world, and a new mission. The Church is the instrument Christ has chosen to begin this work. So for us at Resurrection Church salvation cannot simply be an end but a new beginning that reorients and realigns our priorities that moves from fear and concern for safety and security to vulnerability and sacrifice just as we see in the story of Jonah. It is what repentance means - a turning.

Our new obligation is to the kingdom and what Christ tells us is that our allegiance to the old way of doing things is over because it is dying. The world where power and wealth dominate is over. The world where exploitation, oppression, and violence is the rule is over.

There is a new world being born and Christ’s kingdom is coming to heal, to feed, to serve, to comfort, to bring peace, to welcome, and to include. Blessed are we if we join in this work because it is the future and Christ’s survival of the ordeal of death and His vindication at the resurrection show us that future is beautiful and that future is certain and it is not only worth changing our lives for but it overwhelms us compelling us to change because once we experience it the old world no longer makes sense. May we all be transformed and conformed to the image of Christ.

Jonah's Song (Dr. Trey Benfield)

January 23, 2017 Mason Matthews

Scripture Readings:

Leviticus 26:11-13
Amos 9:1-4
Jonah 2:1-10

Last week we began our study of Jonah. The big point I made was that Jonah did not flee simply because he was disobedient or because he wanted to be exclusive and not see foreigners become part of God’s family. Jonah fled because the people of Nineveh were part of one of the most violent, ruthless empires in history and what he was called to do was dangerous and crazy. It would have been the equivalent of going to the heartland of ISIS and telling them that what they were doing was wrong and God was angry with them.

Jonah’s call was reflective of the command to love our enemies, a principle that is completely radical and resists our attempts to make it manageable. However, the call to love our enemies is ultimately about hope. Hope in a God that will right wrongs but will also change and redeem. It is a hope in a real solution to end the cycle of violence, oppression, and exploitation that is represented by Assyria. It is a faith that God’s kingdom is here and that the church’s work is about embodying and communicated this message by loving our enemy confident that all authority in heaven and earth already belongs to Christ.

Our passage today looks at the most famous part of the Jonah story. As we read Jonah is swallowed by a great fish and after spending three days and three nights in the fish’s belly is vomited up onto the shore. The experience of being in the belly of the fish seems to have led Jonah to pray to God for deliverance and to do so by composing a poetic psalm.

So we find Jonah in prayer literally from the guts of the fish. We really have very little information as to what kind of fish we are talking about. All we are told is that it is a great fish. The Hebrew word for fish is pretty broad basically covering any sort of animal that is in the sea - so the story could intend that Jonah was swallowed by a really big fish, a whale, a sea monster or anything else that lives in water. However, despite our focus on the nature of the great fish the text is more focused on the poem describing Jonah’s experience inside the fish.

Jonah’s prayer is in the form of poetry. As I have mentioned before, poetry in the Bible uses exalted language with lots of imagery designed to help us feel and experience what the author is trying to communicate. So the point of Jonah’s psalm is for us to put ourselves in the place of Jonah and in some way take part in his ordeal.

Jonah starts his prayer by stating, “I called from my trouble to YHWH and he answered me.” If you remember from chapter 1, the verb call is repeated over and over. God tells Jonah to call to Nineveh. When the storm comes, the captain of the ship commands Jonah to call to his God. The sailors call to the Lord asking that they not perish as a result of Jonah’s actions. Jonah fled from the command to call to Nineveh and although the pagan captain and sailors call to Lord, it is only at this point in the story when Jonah is in the guts of a fish that the prophet finally calls to the Lord.

It is interesting that Jonah begins this prayer in the guts of the fish by proclaiming that the Lord answered him in the past tense. In fact, if we turn to the Psalms we find similar language. Psalms 120:1, “In my distress I called to the Lord and He answered me.” or Psalm 118:5, “Out of my distress I called on the Lord, the Lord answered me and set me free.” So what Jonah is doing is using standard language in his prayer. Actually, it is not just this line, but multiple places in Jonah’s poem where he borrows from others Psalms. Jonah’s psalm is essentially a mashup of lines from various psalms. We might easily say that Jonah is being cliche. However, I think that should be a lesson to us in our prayer life. We don’t need to be original or particularly creative.

As we read Jonah’s psalm, it seems Jonah has now become aware of his true plight. We saw in chapter one that there was repetition of the word “down” - Jonah goes down to Joppa, down to the ship, down into the down-most part of the ship. Now Jonah sees that his flight from the Lord has led him to the lowest depth - Sheol. When people died they went to the place of the dead called Sheol. The ancient Hebrews did not think in terms of heaven and hell. I should note, Sheol is not a place of punishment but it is also not described in any other way but a negative place. Sheol is beyond the reach of any power except God because nothing short of resurrection will save those from Sheol.

As Jonah’s song continues, we see Jonah more and more realize the helplessness of the situation. Jonah views himself as merely the object of the raging sea. It is God who cast Jonah into the deep, the flood surrounds him, it the waves pass over him. The waters close over him and the deep surrounds him. Jonah is nothing but an object. He no longer has agency, he cannot exert his will, he is utterly without ability to control his situation.

The Israelites, like most ancient people were not a seafaring people. The sea for them was a place of unpredictability and chaos. In most of the surrounding ancient mythologies the evil god came from the sea. We even sea this is the New Testament, the beast of the book of Revelation comes out of the sea. So the image presented here would have been the stuff of nightmares to the ancient world.

Jonah also knows that the forces acting on him, placing him in a helpless condition and the nightmare he finds himself, are entirely a result of the actions of God. It was God who hurled the wind on the sea. It is God who hurled Jonah into the deep. It is God’s waves and billows that pass over Jonah. Yet Jonah still finds hope because because he knows that God also has the power to save him from his predicament.

Much of the language Jonah uses is taken from Exodus imagery. Another song, Exodus 15:5 describes the drowning of Pharaoh’s army, “the depths have covered them, they sank into the deep.” There is also a reference in verse 5 to the reeds wrapping around Jonah’s head. We typically say that Pharaoh’s army was drowned at the Red Sea but this is a mistranslation. The Israelites crossed and Pharaoh’s army was destroyed when Moses parted the Sea of Reeds. This point is significant because in both of these references to the Exodus, Jonah is substituting himself into the role of Egypt. Jonah is the enemy while the pagan sailors are the ones who have just been passed through the raging sea to safety.

Jonah on the other hand continues in his descent further down. In the ancient world, their view of the earth was a flat land where we live with a blue dome above it. This blue dome held up the water that came down in the form of rain. Underneath the earth was another large body of water where springs and rivers come from. In the Genesis flood story we are told that all the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the windows of heaven were opened. The land was held up by large mountains that were surrounded by these underworld waters. It is beneath these mountains that Jonah finds himself. Worse the way up is is blocked by what verse 6 calls bars. Even in this unbelievable picture of hopelessness that Jonah has painted he still finds hope in the power and love of the God he has disobeyed.

So the central question of chapter two and the central question of our sermon is how can this be? Up until this point Jonah has basically done everything wrong. In the history of the prophets, he is probably the worst. Even this poem which on its surface follows the standard language of a typical Thanksgiving Psalm reveals Jonah’s shortcomings. Jonah never admits guilt for his situation. At the end in poem in verse 9, Jonah is even oddly self-righteous. He is not like those who “pay regard to vain idols” and therefore “forsake their hope of steadfast love.” However, Jonah is not innocent like Job. The story make abundantly clear that Jonah has only himself to blame for the suffering he is undergoing.

Look at the passage we read earlier from Amos. Here the Lord is addressing the Northern kingdom of Israel. Notice the similarities in the language between this passage and Jonah’s prayer. They are pictured as being in Sheol, they go down to the bottom of the sea. The Lord sends a sea serpent after them. They are in the same predicament as Jonah. However, the Lord does not use it to rescue them. In a few years, the Assyrians will conquer, resettle, enslave the men, and carry the women to become prostitute. All the nasty things the Assyrians are known for will happen to the Northern Kingdom and they will become the so called ten lost tribes of Israel. What is the difference between them and Jonah?

To answer this question we are going to have to know a little about how to read Hebrew poetry. So let me give you a brief outline of how Hebrew poetry is structured. The basic unit of meaning is a line which in the biz is called a colon. Colons are organized into groups of similar lengths with similar meanings called parallelism. Several of these parallel groups of cola form a complete thought called a stanza. Typically we find the key point the stanza wants to communicate in the middle of the stanza usually in a single colon that is distinguished by not having a parallel.

So if we look at Jonah’s psalm we find it consists of two stanzas. The first stanza is contained in verses 2-6 and the second in verse 6-10. In the first stanza we find the key point in verse 4, where Jonah says, “I am driven away from your sight, yet I shall again look upon your holy temple.” The key verse for the second stanza is verse 7, “and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.”

Notice at center of both stanzas we find Jonah returning to the holy temple. The holy temple is important because the temple represents the place where God and His people meet. It is the location that forms the axis between heaven and earth, where God provides a way through sacrifice, atonement, and forgiveness, where a holy God condescends to be with His people. What Jonah has identified in the midst of his disobedience, his arrogance, and his fear is that the Lord his God wants to be with His people and Jonah claims for himself, despite everything that has happened, that the Lord is his God and that Jonah belongs to the Lord.

When we come to the last line of verse 6, we find a colon that belongs at the end of the first stanza and the beginning of the second stanza. This line acts as a hinge connecting the two stanzas together. It is the take home message for the psalm - “you brought up my life from the pit, O Lord my God.” YHWH Lord is Jonah’s God.

Jonah may mess up and be wrong about every other point. However, here he has identified, claimed, grasped, and found hope in the central teaching of the Bible that God so passionately desires a relationship with His people that nothing will stop Him from making this a reality. It is the whole story of the Old Testament. Adam and Eve are exiled from the garden but God even amid his judgment promises them deliverance. God calls Abraham, a pagan dwelling among pagans, to bless Abraham so he can be a blessing to all people. When God’s people suffer slavery in Egypt God dramatically rescues them and Exodus 6:7 God tells us why He would do this, “I will take you to be my people and I will be your God.”

In the book of Leviticus after giving the people all the rules and regulations they are to follow as they approach and worship at the tabernacle, God tells them why He does this, “I will walk among you, and will be your God and you will be my people.” When the Israelites break the covenant and the Babylonians conquer them and lead them into exile, Jeremiah promises a new covenant and restoration and the reason given for doing this is “so you shall be my people.” Ezekiel says the same thing after seeing God revive the dried bones in the valley and make them live again.

When Christ comes he refers to Himself as the temple. At first it seems a bit of a stretch, but what Christ means is that He embodies everything the temple symbolized. Christ through His death makes the ultimate sacrifice and provides the final atonement providing forgiveness so that God can meet with humanity. The whole message of the Old Testament is fulfilled in Christ because it all leads to the achievement of God’s plan of being a God who is in relationship with His people. It is what provides hope to a prophet who should have no hope. It is what provides hope to a displaced people who find themselves by the rivers of Babylon weeping. It is what provides to us the confidence and ability to stand before the throne and cry Abba, father because He is our God and we are His people.

Jonah concludes his song with the words, “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” In Hebrew you would say this, “yesu ata lyhwh” You may be familiar with the shorter, anglicized version of this phrase - Jesus. Matthew tells us that Mary will bear a son and his name would be called Jesus - because “He will save His people from their sins.” All of this took place to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Behold, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son and they shall call his name Immanuel, which means God is with us.” The purpose and heart of the Old Testament, the purpose and heart of the Gospel is that He is our God and we are His people and this is symbolized, realized, achieved, and demonstrated for us in Jesus.

For all of Jonah’s faults He is right about one thing, perhaps the only thing he is right about, that he belongs to God and that knowledge, that fact means that even in the guts of a fish or even if taken by death itself, God can and will save His people. Salvation is the Lord’s. It belongs to Him. Salvation is the Lord’s possession. If the Lord wants to save nothing will stop Him. Jonah cannot thwart the Lord’s plan to save Nineveh by fleeing. Neither can the storm, or the fish, or death take Jonah from the Lord because Jonah belongs to the Lord.

The story of Jonah is the story of the gospel and it is good news for us. We are a people who live in fear as Jonah did. We are a people who are all too often self righteous as Jonah was. We are a people hesitant to call out except when faced with overwhelming circumstances as Jonah was. We are a people who lack creativity and eloquence and must borrow words to even talk to God as Jonah was. However, despite this we are a people who can have hope as Jonah had. A people who have hope because we can have confidence that despite circumstances, appearances, doubts, and our own recalcitrance, the Lord is our God and he has sent Jesus so that we can look on Him and our prayers can come to Him. As Paul said, “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, not things to come nor height nor depth nor any created thing shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

Misunderstanding Jonah (Dr. Trey Benfield)

January 15, 2017 Mason Matthews

Scripture Readings:

Genesis 10:8-12
Matthew 5:38-48
Jonah 1:1-17

The story of Jonah may be one of the most familiar stories of all time. Even those who no little about the Bible and have never been to church know the story of the man who tried to flee from God and was swallowed by a whale.

In some ways it is a simple story. In fact I can sum it up in five sentences. God tells Jonah to go to Ninevah and preach to the people. Jonah runs away but a storm endangers the crew of the ship he is on and so he asks the crew to throw him overboard where he is swallowed by a whale or more accurately - a great fish. After spending three days in the belly of the great fish, Jonah is spit up on the shore and travels to Ninevah warning the people to repent or they will be destroyed. Surprisingly the people do repent and they are saved. Jonah then complains to God that this is exactly why he ran away because he knew God was compassionate and merciful and might actually save them.

The book of Jonah reads like a folk tale. Throughout the narrative exaggerated language is used. Ninevah is the great city, the storm is a great storm, we have a great fish. It takes three days for Jonah to walk through the city of Ninevah. Everyone from the king to the livestock covers themselves in sackcloth and greatly calls to God. We are told in all 120,000 people are saved. Yet for all its simplicity and children’s bed time story qualities, there is a depth and complexity here.

Although a prophet, Jonah does not work like other prophetic books. In every other prophetic book, the focus is on the message - the content of the prophecy. Here the message is the simple message, “yet forty days and Ninevah will be overthrown.” The prophecy that Jonah delivers is only eight words in English and only five in Hebrew. Instead, the primary focus of the book is on Jonah himself and his actions, thoughts, and fears as well as God’s response.

The book also ends with a bit of an existential crisis for Jonah. In chapter 4 God questions Jonah about the events that have taken place. God and Jonah enter into a dialogue with each expressing their opposing views. However, the book is open ended without much resolution and it is unclear whether Jonah has changed.

Today I want us to dive into the text and take a close look because I think we miss a lot of what the text is trying tell us for two reasons. First, because we are very removed from the historical context. Second, because we are taught this story as a child and we are usually taught a very simple straightforward moral. By looking at this story with fresh eyes, I hope to show that the story of Jonah is more challenging and therefore has more to teach us than we might think at first glance.

So we start with a standard prophetic call to Jonah beginning with the word of YHWH coming to Jonah son of Amittai. This is followed by the command to arise, go, and call. Sometimes called the prophetic commission, this is typical of commands God issues to his prophets. The destination is Ninevah described as the great city. Ninevah was located in modern day Iraq very close to the city of Mosul. There was an ancient shrine to Jonah that stood on top of Nineveh’s ruins revered by both Assyrian Christians and Muslims . It was actually destroyed by ISIS about two years ago because ISIS deemed the shrine idolatrous.

Ninevah is a very old city and eventually became the capitol of the Assyrian empire. At the time Jonah is set, Assyria was the dominant empire and still on the rise reaching its peak under Sennacharib in the next few years. At this time it was a heavily fortified city about eight miles around.

Jonah is to call out against it because their evil has risen before YHWH - literally before my face. Here evil is a carefully chosen word implying great wickedness not simply a moral failure, but rather malice and violence. The situation is to the point where the actions of Ninevah can no longer be ignored. As a result, the word of YHWH is given to Jonah the son of Amitti and he is to take the word to Ninevah the great city. In this way Jonah is set up as the mediator in the conflict between God and Ninevah.

So far the narrative has been relatively straightforward, even stereotypical in its language. However, we expect the next words will be, “And Jonah arose, went to the city of Ninevah, and called out against it.” Instead Jonah rises and then flees to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. The phrase “from the presence of the Lord” is repeated twice in verse 3, emphasizing the remarkableness of this action. Notice it was the evil of Ninevah rising before the presence of the Lord that causes the Lord to send Jonah, now Jonah is fleeing from that same presence.

Jonah goes to Joppa which is a port city that lies outside of Israel in the land of the Phoenicians. Jonah’s ultimate destination is Tarshish. Tarshish seems to be a real place that is attested by multiple sources, but we still are not sure where it is located. The best guess is Spain or Sardinia - but it seems to be the furtherest west anyone knew about. However, the important point is to notice that Ninevah is located very far to the east of Jonah’s original location and Tarshish is located very far to the west.

The language of the text repeats the word down. Jonah goes down to Joppa, he goes down into the ship. When the storm comes Jonah, is found to have gone down to the down-most parts of the ship to sleep. So again we see the progression of Jonah the prophet trying his best to distance himself from his mission and the presence of God.

Jonah’s plan is of course thwarted by the storm. Verse 4 leaves no doubt that the Lord is responsible - the Lord hurls a great wind and the result is a great tempest. The greatness of the storm left no one with any doubt that its origin was not a severe drop in barometric pressure and various fronts colliding, but that this storm was divine in nature. In contrast to Jonah who tries to avoid the storm by sleeping, everyone else on board seems to know that the problem they are facing is supernatural. At the end of verse 4, we are told the ship itself thought it might be broken. Even the boat is more aware than Jonah.

The sailors respond by hurling the cargo in the sea. Literally, the text says that they hurled the cargo to lighten the sea - not lighten the ship as a lot of translations make it. The idea is that the sea god was upset and the sailors offer the cargo as a sacrifice. The sailors were afraid, cried to their gods, and hurled the cargo. By contrast, Jonah goes down, lies down, and sleeps. While the sailors move toward activity to appease whatever divinity has been offended, Jonah moves to inactivity. The crew is showing themselves more in accord with God than Jonah despite the fact that they are pagan foreigners.

Notice that Jonah was told to arise, go to Ninevah and call out. He arose, went to Ninevah, and fled. The pagan Captain confronts Jonah, after finding him asleep, with the words - arise, call out. These are two of the same verbs that God used when issuing Jonah’s prophetic commission. Hearing these words repeated must have been quite jarring to Jonah - however again Jonah remains silent when hearing the words of the Lord, whereas the pagan captain sees hope for deliverance.

We see the hand of God at work again as the sailors cast lots - literally they hurl lots. Just as God hurled the wind and the sailors first hurled the cargo, now they seek divine guidance by hurling lots. The text wants us to understand that unlike Jonah, the crew is imitating God’s actions.

After the casting of the lots identifies Jonah as responsible for the great danger, they pin Jonah down by interrogating him. Up until this point, Jonah has met God and the Captain with silence, but now Jonah is forced to answered. Here Jonah makes a confession of faith emphasizing the God he serves is no local or limited deity as they would have understood, but rather the God of the cosmos. While explaining God’s all encompassing power, Jonah still remains silent about the reason God is angry with him.

Interestingly, we learn that sailors already know the reason God is angry with Jonah because Jonah had previously told them. The text has withheld this information from us until now. That means this is an important fact. We will return to the significance of this fact later. For now I just want to draw it to your attention.

Notice too that. though the men now understand the cause of the storm and Jonah presents them with a remedy, they first try rowing toward land. It is only after this plan fails that they hurl Jonah into the sea. Before hurling Jonah to his certain death, the sailors will pray to the Lord to absolve them of any responsibility for Jonah’s death.

The sailors call to the Lord. They actually use the name YHWH which is the personal name for God. Prayer is the first action we would expect from a prophet, but here we find pagan, foreign sailors doing just that and the prophet trying everything but prayer.

After hurling Jonah in the sea the storm ceases. The sailors change from worshipping their own gods or the sea god to worshipping YHWH. Now like Jonah, the sailors fear YHWH.

So as I said earlier, this story seems fairly straightforward with a simple moral. Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh and not wanting to obey this command, Jonah runs away. Today we are given commands in the Bible and so we should obey them and not run away like Jonah. If we do run away, then bad things like a great storm are likely to result and we will get thrown overboard, so it is best to follow God. So that is the message, lets go home - amen!

I want to suggest that the story is a little more complicated than this. I think the typical simplistic reading of Jonah is based on a false premise. There are very few instances in the Old Testament of prophets being sent to a foreign nation. True there are lots of prophecies directed against foreign nations but these oracles are usually directed to the Israelites comforting them that their oppressors will eventually be brought low. In chapter 4, Jonah says he does not want to go to Nineveh because he knows that God is gracious and might be merciful to the people of Nineveh.

Taking these two pieces of information, that prophets were seldom sent to foreign nations and Jonah fled because he was worried that that God might be merciful to Nineveh, it is usually assumed that the problem was that Jonah like most Israelites did not like foreigners. That Jonah did not want to see God’s grace and mercy extended to people who were not Israelites. The covenant that God made with Israel meant that Israel had a special, unique relationship and that meant that Israel was special and seeing God’s grace and mercy extended to others would threaten the pride Israel felt by their exclusivity. Jonah’s flight then was made because of notions of Israelite exceptionalism.

However, several facts in chapter one argue against this interpretation. First, when Jonah flees he leaves Israel going first to Joppa, then getting on board a ship with a bunch of pagans, and traveling far from Israel to the edge of the known world. Second, Jonah is not content to let the ship go down because of his actions. Although he is still trying to flee God, Jonah does offer to sacrifice himself in order to save the pagan sailors. Third, we learn during the crisis of the storm that the sailors knew that Jonah was fleeing from God. That means that far from the usual idea of a prudish Jonah spending all his time alone, Jonah had interacted with the crew swapping stories and telling them the sad circumstances that led him to share their voyage to Tarshish.

So I want to challenge the premise that Jonah is fleeing because he does not like foreigners because giving up this notion will allow us to see that the point Jonah is making is much more radical than simply the importance of obeying God’s commands or even the need to extend God’s grace and mercy to others.

Here is where the historical background becomes important. When we hear about Nineveh we just think of an old city filled with ancient Assyrians. However, the history is far more interesting. The Assyrians were really the first people to establish an empire - meaning they conquered other people outside their own ethnic group. This was accomplished by supporting a large standing army funded by looting conquered territories. Walled cities were no longer an adequate defense as they had been for centuries because the Assyrians developed siege technology in order to breach enemy defenses. The Assyrians forced their conquered foes to speak Aramaic. This was so successful, that 600 years after the fall of Nineveh, Jesus would speak teach in Aramaic.

The Assyrians held their territory by intimidation and brutally put down any revolt. The Assyrians cultivated an image of ruthlessness and publicly broadcast their willingness to torture their conquered foes. Some of the Assyrians practices included impaling their conquered foes so their dead bodies could be displayed as a warning. It is thought this practice led to the development of crucifixion. Conquered foes were marched from their lands naked, strung together by rope that were attached to hooks pierced through the victims noses. There victims would then be resettled into other parts of the empire so they could be sold into slavery or forced into prostitution. In other words the Assyrians were the first large scale human traffickers. Selling captives into slavery made so much money that the Assyrians were able to fund their opulent building programs of cities like Nineveh. The evil that God complains about is not the result of a prudish God, but disgust in an empire that dealt in horrific violence, exploitation, and oppression on a scale never before conceived of in the ancient world and one that still would shock us today.

The reason it is important, is because Jonah is not called to go to a foreign nation and offer the possibility of salvation. Jonah is being asked to go Assyria and in Jonah’s world that would have been the modern equivalent of God asking one of us to go to the Nazis or ISIS. In light of this we may have some sympathy for Jonah’s action because how many among us would not also flee if asked by God to do this? Who among us would even want to offer the hint of the possibility of salvation to ISIS?

Forty or so years after the events of Jonah, the Northern kingdom of Israel would be conquered by the Assyrians led by Sargon II after a three year siege. Later Sargon II’s son Sennacharib would devastate the southern kingdom of Judah destroying most of the kingdom and only falling short of conquering Jerusalem itself by some last minute divine intervention. So think about this - Jonah is a book in the Bible. That means that ancient Jews who knew their kinsmen in Israel had been conquered and the people deported, sold into slavery or prostitution, who knew that the Assyrians had almost conquered Jerusalem would have read this book. That this book was thought by them as holy scripture. It is absolutely amazing because it means that despite their knowledge of the evil of the Assyrians they still read this book of a prophet ordered by God to deliver God’s words and as they read it they knew they would have done exactly as Jonah did.

Now that we understand this concept, we see that the message of Jonah is not one of the importance of obeying God’s command, although that is true, it is not the importance of mission to people that are different than us, although that is also true. The radical message of Jonah is summed up by Jesus’ words “love your enemies.”

When Jesus says the words love you enemies, he also says if someone strikes you then turn the other cheek. Jesus says if someone asks for your tunic give him your cloak and if he asks you to walk one mile you walk two. Each of these is a command a Roman soldier might give. At the time of Jesus, the Romans were the occupying force of Israel and the Jews were not OK with it. Jesus is telling his followers the message and teaching of his kingdom is to love your enemies and that means not people who are mean to you or who annoy you but people like the Romans or people like the Assyrians. It is not an easy teaching that should be made more manageable but an incredibly difficult teaching that on some level causes all of us to flee in terror just as Jonah did.

Given the radical nature of loving your enemy, how should we then live? I think the only way that we can love our enemies is because the story of the Bible and what Jesus promises is hope. Hope in a possibility that the world can be different. That people can change, that violence, exploitation, and oppression need not be the last words. That humanity can be redeemed and that there can be shalom and peace.

In our first reading, we learned that Ninevah was founded by Nimrod. Nimrod means rebel and he is described as a mighty hunter. The term mighty hunter would better be translated warrior. Nimrod is described as a a mighty warrior before the Lord - this is the same phrase used in Jonah describing the rising of evil - before the the Lord. He is a man of violence who founds the great conquering cities of the ancient world. Nimrod is the spiritual father of kingdoms founded on violent conquest like the Ninevites or the Romans. A couple of chapters in Genesis later God will introduce His plan to solve the problems of Nimrod.

Abraham and the blessing that is promised to him is hope because the blessing of Abraham will lead to all the families of the earth being blessed. It is this blessing that will ultimately solve the problem of violence, exploitation, and oppression. This blessing finds itself fully expressed in Jesus Christ who presents an alternative kingdom that brings salvation for those oppressed but also offers the possibility of redemption for the oppressor.

The history of the Assyrian Empire ends with the complete and utter destruction of Nineveh by a coalition army led by the Babylonians about 150 years after Jonah. However, this is not the end of the Assyrian people. Like the Israelites they will eventually become subjects of the Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans. After the time of Christ, they would be one of the first groups outside of Israel to convert to Christianity.

The cycle of violence of the Assyrians is broken and so they are a people who have been redeemed. There is hope for change in this world and it is this hope for redemption that allows the possibility of radical enemy love. This is much more radical than our liberal notions of tolerance which simply allows for coexistence. Loving your enemy is much, much more difficult

It is so radical that it makes no logical sense in our world. When Jesus issues the command to love our enemies it is in the context of the kingdom of God that Jesus has been sent to bring about. The kingdom of God functions different than the kingdoms of our world. The law of ancient Israel said an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. That was a pretty enlightened law for the ancient world since it limited vengeance. It is really the idea that if someone takes your eye you should only take an eye as compensation. Jesus is saying now that my kingdom is here, there will be no more violence. Jesus will stand before Pilate knowing that His path leads to crucifixion and He will tell Pilate my kingdom is not the same as this world. The ethics of the kingdom of God are radically different.

What happens in the kingdom of God is that evil is punished, the victims are heard, wrongs are righted. The problems of this world are not simply allowed to continue, but are corrected. A holy and just judgment issued by God will be issued that will be final and will break the cycle of violence and exploitation and oppression. Pilate may knowingly crucify and punishment an innocent man but Pilate will be judged. So there is hope.

There is hope because Christ says all authority in heaven and earth is mine. The kingdom of God means that we are free from the power of our enemy. Power, exploitation, and oppression are over because the consequences of failing to yield to the oppressor is over. Pilate has no power over Christ because the ultimate weapon of the tyrant is death and death has been defeated. In the kingdom of God there is no death, so we are free and that freedom means we are free to love our enemies knowing they have no power over us.

However, there is also hope in the transforming power of God’s grace and mercy. The centurion will see Christ and Christ crucified and he will confess - “Truly this was the Son of God.” So there is hope. We as Christ’s church are called to follow by taking up the cross and showing the way of suffering. It is only in this way that there is hope because this world has shown itself to be broken. The good news is that all authority in heaven and earth has been Christ and what the cross does, what loving the enemy does, what suffering does is bring about redemption and salvation. The kingdom is here. All authority on heaven and earth has been given to Christ so we can love our enemies because we can be confident that God will right their wrong or that God will redeem them. This is where our hope lies and so in our world loving our enemy makes no logical sense, the story of Jonah makes no logical sense, however, what Christ tells us is that we no longer live in the world but we are part of the kingdom and the kingdom is transforming this world and the message of Christianity is that the old ways of being human are over. Power, oppression, and exploitation are over. We are removed from the cycle of violence and the message of Christianity is not about the rites, rituals and practices of a religion, nor is about replacing those in power with a new political order, but it is about a new way of being human. May Christ gives us at Resurrection Church the strength and wisdom to love our enemies because the kingdom of God is the start of a new world order and it will be victorious!