Edgewood United Church

United Church of Christ

Edgewood United Church United Church of Christ   

Rev. Karen E. Gale
January 22, 2006

Bitterness and Choice
Jonah 3-4

I’ve been here long enough as your pastor that I can look back and see what I preached the last time these texts came up in the lectionary three years ago. I looked back this week to see what was going on in my sermon from 2002. As a nation we were counting down the last days before going to war with Iraq. Time was running out, rhetoric was running high, and Jonah and the Ninevites were in the lectionary.

Three years later Jonah and his faltering trek to Ninevah, the ancient city located in modern day Iraq, are back. And here we are as a nation and a faith community, struggling once again with these texts. Struggling with what to do as a people of faith.

Jonah is a book about our own internal cramped selves and our xenophobia on a global stage. It is at once an absurd tale of a man eating fish spewing a prophet where he doesn’t want to go and the prophet’s incessant whining about the hardships in his life. It is also a very pointed story about the unbounded love and grace of God in spite of our limited vision to see it.

Jonah’s tale asks us what keeps us from following God’s call to the hard things while it also serves as a warning against holding so much bitterness inside ourselves.

Did Jonah want to go to Ninevah? Of course not. Jonah would have hated the Ninevites. Everyone did. This was the repressive Assyrian reign that came through and destroyed cities and armies and peoples, that oppressed the people and had a cruel government. The same empire that destroyed Israel. Jonah didn’t like the call that God connected him to.

Did he go? Well, not at first. I chopped off the first two chapters of Jonah because that is the part of the story that you all probably know. God says, Jonah go preach to the Ninevites. Jonah thinks no way and gets on a boat going the opposite direction. The seas get rough, the captain and the crew start praying and eventually when they learn that Jonah is the problem, throw him overboard. To Jonah’s credit, he does suggest this and the crew only throw him over as a last resort. Then Jonah is swallowed by a giant fish and sits in the fish for three days. Where he has time to say, “Ok, I’m sorry, I’ll do it.”

The fish spews Jonah up on the shore and then we pick up the today’s scripture. The voice of the Lord comes to Jonah a second time.

And Jonah agrees to go. I envision Jonah saying “fine” stomping off to this task grudgingly. And he does the task, though not exactly to a high standard. He tromps around for three days saying “Forty days and Ninevah’s gone” Five words are all it is in Hebrew. Grump grump grump.

Jonah didn’t want to be in Ninevah.

I have been following the story of Jill Carroll the kidnapped Christian Science Monitor reporter who has not been heard from in several days as the deadline for her execution has passed. On NPR this week a friend of Jill’s Jackie Sparrow who is with the Baghdad bureau of the Washington Post spoke about being a war correspondent.

The interviewer asked Sparrow about how noble she felt war correspondents were. Sparrow replied that they weren’t so much noble but instead felt a sense of obligation and responsibility to the truth. She said, “anyone who gets into journalism knows that at some point they will be asked to go where they don’t want to go and talk to people they don’t want to talk to.” She continued by saying that if reporters felt the truth was the ultimate goal, then they had to go.

What does God call us to do that we don’t want to do or aren’t doing. How many of us are sitting around inside the belly of a big fish of denial, pushing aside this call on our heart?

The budget hearings have been going on in our national legislature. The house and senate have been battling back and forth about what programs to cut. And food stamps, Medicaid, child care support for poor families and help for needy students are all in line to be cut. It is not just. It is not right. And there are two weeks before the final vote is called in the Senate.

Do I want to be calling my senator this week to let them know I am unhappy with this bill, that it is unjust and does not represent my wishes for the country and for the poor on whose behalf I am called to advocate? Do I want to do that?

No, I don’t. I would much rather be planning my weekend, cleaning up the dishes, working on next week’s sermon.

But there is a deeper reason, too. No, I don’t want to call the senators to repent. Because I, like Jonah, am sure that it will do no good. That it doesn’t make any difference anyway. They won’t repent. It will all just pass into law and life for the poor will just get worse. It’s not like the people I like or trust are in our elected leadership anyway.

And then, to take it one step further, what if they did repent? Then there would be no more “bad guys” to pin the problems of poverty and inequality on. Then I would have to step up and seriously engage my part in the problem.

So much like Jonah. We don’t want to do what seems out of our hands and our abilities. While we don’t remember what might be within God’s ability to change. Can’t I even spare five words on behalf of the poor? Can’t we all?

Jonah is alive and well within me and maybe you as well.

But it is not just Jonah’s unwillingness and grumpiness that are a problem. It is the bitterness.

Kathleen Wakefield writes,
“We may find Jonah amusing, ridiculous, or appalling as he mutters and whines against God’s offer of redemption to the Ninevites, and as he tries to run away from God. But if we let the story touch us, if we plumb the depths of our own hearts, we will find Jonah there within us -- that part of us that judges and condemns, that desires revenge rather than justice, vengeance instead of mercy.

“Jonah spends three days inside the whale, in the gloom, so he will have time to think, so he will learn a lesson. We, too, spend much time in gloom. The vengeance that we desire, the hurt feelings and grudges and rages that we carry for years weigh us down and eat at us. We are the ones who suffer the most in these situations. It doesn’t hurt the other person--the Ninevites were not hurt by Jonah’s reluctance, only Jonah was -- but it damages us spiritually, relationally, emotionally, and physically. We are the ones spending time in darkness, we are the ones imprisoned.”

Jonah is a comic figure. The story is meant to be funny. Be at the same time he is a tragic figure and all too familiar a figure if we are honest with ourselves. The vengeance we seek comes back to us again and again.

“Two neighbors came before God and prayed him to grant their hearts' desire. One was full of greed, and the other eaten up with envy. So to teach them both, God granted that each might have whatever he wished for himself, but only on condition that his neighbor had twice as much. The Greedy man prayed to have a room full of gold. This was no sooner said than done; but all his joy was turned to grief when he found that his neighbor had two rooms full of the precious metal. Then came the turn of the Envious man, who could not bear to think that his neighbor had any joy at all. So he prayed that he might have one of his own eyes put out, by which means his companion would become totally blind.” (Aesop’s Fables)

Bitterness.

Jonah is so caught up in himself, his hatred of the Ninevites that he is furious with God when the Ninevites repent. He wanted to see them destroyed. He was looking forward to watching the destruction. He even climbed a hill to get a better view!

Now he is mad at God “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning for I know that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and ready to relent from punishing. And now God please take my life from me for it is better for me to die than to live.”

Is Jonah embarrassed that he said the city would be destroyed and now it won’t?
Is he angry that God changed God’s mind?
Is Jonah furious that his enemies are getting away with their previous evil deeds and he has helped them be saved?

Jonah is bitter. He cannot see beyond himself and his own feelings. And so God tries to get Jonah’s attention again. If you ever wonder if God would give up on someone, consider Jonah. This is the third time God is going back to Jonah. God raises up a plant to shade him which Jonah loves and then the plant dies the next day. And here Jonah is complaining again: “it is better for me to die than to live.”

If I were God, I would be smiting Jonah right about now. Forget the Ninevites, they are not nearly so trying.

God explains very patiently, “For Jonah loves a plant of one day how could God not love a city of more than 120,000 people and animals besides.” Where is his feeling for fellow human beings? Jonah is so bitter he can’t find compassion.

“London's Garrick club was once a favourite haunt of England's theatrical and literary circles. It's patrons have included Winne-the-Pooh's creator AA Milne and Charles Dickens. They also included the actor Frederick Lonsdale, who was engage din a long running and bitter feud with another club member. The two had once been close friends, but now bitterness kept them apart. It was a New Years Eve when Seymour Hicks insisted Lonsdale reconcile with his old friend. "You must," Hicks said to Lonsdale. "It is very unkind to be unfriendly at such a time. Go over now and wish him a happy New Year." Finally convinced, Lonsdale crossed the room to speak to his friend-turned-enemy. "I wish you a happy New Year," he said, "but only one."”  (Oz sermon illustrations)

Which brings us right back around to the beginning of the story. What does God want us to do that we don’t want to do. It is true that God wanted Jonah to warn the Ninevites, to help them repent and come back to just living. But what God really wants from Jonah is compassion. God wants Jonah to give up the hate and anger and rage and bitterness that are eating at Jonah’s soul. Jonah hates Ninevah so much that there is no room left in his heart for anything else. No room for God—he flees God until he is stuck in the dark of the belly of the fish. There is no room for him to even celebrate his own life. He cries in frustration that he wants to die because the city is not destroyed. There is no room for compassion for a city of so many thousand people.

What is getting crowded out of our hearts because of the bitterness we carry around?

I have members in my family and I am sure you do too, who are stuck in their lives because of bitterness. There have been times in my life when I was poisoned with bitterness myself. It is a cramped, shadowed, uncomfortable place—much like the belly of a fish. Perhaps you have been there yourself.

Compassion is the way out of bitterness. Love, letting go, speaking to God, realizing one is connected to all living beings and that hate is a dead end. Not a dead end for the other person, but a dead end for yourself.

Jonah had a choice, choice after choice actually. Help save the Ninevites, see the Ninevites as fellow human beings. Choose to see beyond his anger and rage.

What did Jonah ultimately choose? Well, he didn’t fare too well in what we have of his story. Who knows what happened after that.

But the more important question for you this morning is what is next in your story? What bitterness is cramping your soul or preventing your journey with God? And what is God calling you to do that you can’t see yourself through to doing because of it? Reconciliation with family members or a lost friend or an old job or a past relationship? To call those who represent you in government and demand justice?

God is calling you to let go of bitterness. To see all people in the light of compassion. Whether that be Iraqis or your estranged parent, or the poor, and to work toward repairing those connections as best we are able.

May the God of all compassion lead us. Amen.