Running From God

Rev.Debbie Cato
Jonah 1
Fairfield Community Church
Preaching Series on Jonah – Week 1
September 10, 2023

Let us pray:    Startle us, O God, with your truth and open our hearts and our minds to your wondrous love. Speak your word to us; silence in us any voice but your own and be with us now as we turn our attention, our minds and our hearts, to you, in Jesus Christ our Lord.  Amen.

 

Running from God

 

A prophet is someone called by God to deliver a message to God’s people. 

          Although not always;

               The message is usually a message about disobedience and the                              Lord’s anger and displeasure, and a
                                      plea for the people to repent or be punished.

And so as you would expect,
          The prophetic books of the Bible are the
                   Oracles or messages of the prophets to the people of their time.

But Jonah is different.  Although The Book of Jonah is considered a prophetic book, and Jonah is a prophet, it is not just relating prophesies. It is not filled with messages given to Jonah by God.  The Book of Jonah is telling a story. If you grew up in Sunday school, you probably learned the story about Jonah – Jonah is a popular children’s Bible story. But, you probably learned it a little bit different than scripture tells it. So you may be disappointed by the actual story if you have not read the Book of Jonah before. 

As you can see, Jonah is a very short book - Four chapters.  A total of 48 verses. Jonah is an action-packed book. It is filled with drama and intrigue, suspense... and some moral lessons that are relevant for us today. I thought it would be fun for us to look at it for a couple of weeks. The Book  of Jonah is more than just a children’s Sunday school story. It’s a story that we can all relate to as adults today.  It has lessons for us to learn.

We really don’t know much about Jonah.   Until the Book named after him, Jonah isn’t mentioned.  He’s introduced to us simply as “Jonah, the son of Amittai” and we are told that “one day, the word of the LORD comes to him.”  Perhaps he’s sitting drinking his morning coffee or sitting in his easy chair reading the newspaper after a long day.  We don’t know.  But God comes to Jonah and says,

          “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, 
         because its wickedness has come up before me.”

Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.  Nineveh was the capital of Assyria – an enemy of Israel.  It was a city great in size and strength and status.   The way of life in Nineveh was unacceptable to God – he calls it wickedness. After all they are a great enemy of God’s people. And it is to this place
          To this enemy of Israel
                   That God tells Jonah to go

Well….
          God doesn’t just tell Jonah to go to Nineveh.
                   He tells him to go and preach against it.
                             He tells him to tell them they are being wicked;
He tells Jonah to tell them that God is going to destroy their great city.

And….. well…..

    Jonah doesn’t want to go!

Verse 3 tells us that

 “Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish.”

Jonah ran away from the God!  Jonah disobeys God and instead of going to Nineveh, he runs away from God and heads for Tarshish.

 Now we might laugh at that.  I mean, that sounds pretty dumb, doesn’t it?!  Thinking you can run away from God.  Who would try to run from God?! But who of us has not run from God in our life?  How many times has God asked something of you that you decided not to do?  And imagine God asking you to go to a great enemy, one who is known for their evil, wicked ways.  One who would not hesitate to cause you great harm.  And God asks you to go and tell them that they are wicked and God is going to destroy them.  You may feel like running too!  But we turn our backs on God for much smaller reasons.  When we choose not to help someone in need.  When we choose not to speak the truth.  When we choose to say unkind things.  You see, each time we are disobedient to God – just like Jonah – we in effect, run away from God.  (Pause)

God sends Jonah to Ninevah, which is east of where Jonah lives and Jonah heads in the opposite direction – Jonah heads west toward Tarshish.  He probably figured God would never find him there!  God would never guess Jonah was going in the opposite direction, would he?!  God would look to the east for Jonah but surely he wouldn’t look to the west.  So Jonah goes to Joppa which was a port city. He buys a fare, gets aboard a ship and sails for Tarshish.  I’ll hide there, he thinks.

Jonah’s on the run!

But then….   Then -  The LORD sends a violent storm on the sea that is so wild that it threatens to break up the ship.  I’m thinking Jonah’s plan didn’t work!  There’s no running away from God!  God knows exactly where Jonah is!   God strikes back against Jonah’s disobedience.

But Jonah’s disobedience doesn’t affect only Jonah.  That’s the problem with disobedience.

 

Jonah’s disobedience affects the sailors.  Their lives are at risk because Jonah defied God.  The sailors, who are surely used to storms at sea, know that something is up.  This storm is different.  The sailors are terrified.  The sea is violent, and they cry out to their own gods for help.  The ship is rocking and rolling about. The waves are banging against the sides of the ship. The water rolls over the ship soaking everything in their way; threatening to pull all it into the sea. The sailors throw cargo overboard hoping to lighten the ship so that it can ride higher on the tempestuous sea.  But nothing works.  The storm gets harsher and harsher. The storm gets wilder and wilder.

And their only passenger, well he’s down below – sleeping.  The captain is outraged.  “Get up here and call on your god!  Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not die!”  This is interesting to me. 

          Jonah –     
              Who has run away from God in disobedience
                             is told by the captain of the ship
                                      to call on his god to calm the sea.

How often do we run away from God in disobedience and then run to God when we are in trouble; crying to God to help us? Get us out of this mess, God, we cry!

 Well.  Jonah is caught.  The sailors throw one question after another at him. Jonah identifies himself as the one who has brought on the evil.  He proclaims the all-encompassing power of God.  He tells them, “I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, The God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”

Jonah didn’t understand the power of God – after all, he thought he could run away from him.  But these pagan sailors do.  They understand the power of Jonah’s God.  They are terrified and they say to Jonah, “What have you done?”  What have you done?

 The sea continues to get rougher and rougher and rougher.  God is mad at Jonah and everyone who is with Jonah on that ship is suffering because of his disobedience.  “What should we do to you to make the sea calm down?” The sailors aren’t interested in punishing Jonah.  They just want to quiet the sea which just continues to get more and more dangerous. 

 Jonah tells them to pick him up and hurl him into the sea.  That will quiet it he says.  It is my fault God has brought on this great storm.  He’s mad at me. 

That sounds noble of Jonah, doesn’t it?  It’s my fault.  Throw me over and save yourselves.  Of course, Jonah doesn’t offer to jump over, does he?  But if he gets thrown over -

          If the sailors do the dirty work for him.
                   Surely he will die and he STILL won’t have to go to Nineveh!
          Jonah is STILL running from God! He’s still thinking about himself!

 The sailors really don’t want to throw him into the turbulent sea to his death.  They row and row and row trying to get to land but their strength is no match for the sea.  Seeing no other way, they pray to the LORD – to Jonah’s God for forgiveness and throw him overboard and immediately…..

Immediately…. The raging sea becomes calm. The storm is over. And the sailors make a sacrifice to the LORD and worship him. (pause)  Something good has come of Jonah’s sin.  The pagan sailors are converted.  They believe in the Lord.

But Jonah doesn’t die. God loves Jonah. God saves Jonah from drowning. God provides a great fish that swallows Jonah whole and Jonah lives inside that fish for three days and three nights.  (Notice scripture doesn’t say anything about a whale.  It says a great fish.)

Let’s review.  God calls Jonah.
          Jonah is disobedient.
                   He’s self-centered.
                             He’s rebellious.
                                      Jonah runs away from God. (Or at least he tries!)

God gets Jonah’s attention and in the process others suffer because of Jonah’s disobedience.
          Jonah never repents.
                   But God saves Jonah.
                             He sends a fish to swallow him!
Now that’s a story!

Chapter 2 is Jonah’s prayer while he’s in the fish. 

 Inside the fish for three days, Jonah has some time to do some thinking.   We really don’t know what’s going on in his head.  He’s probably thinking, well darn…. That didn’t work out very well!   He’s probably wondering …. mmmm …. How mad IS God at me?    So Jonah prays.

Now I don’t mean to make fun of Jonah.  Not really.  After I’ve been disobedient; after I’ve messed up; I’m very quick to let God know how sorry I am; I’m quick to ask for forgiveness. I’m quick to ask for help.  In fact, that’s what we are supposed to do.  Right?

But as I read this prayer, think about Jonah’s behavior, and ask yourself if his prayer is consistent with his behavior?

 Read chapter 2:1-9

Jonah’s prayer is full of “I’s.”  It sounds pious.  It sounds self- righteous.  But I think it also sounds boastful.  I’m not sure that it matches with Jonah’s behavior up to now.  And yet somehow I find comfort knowing that God called such an imperfect person to do his work!  It’s a reminder that God can use me and you, as imperfect as we are, to do his work.  And when we mess up, he will find us and give us another chance.  He’s not a one-chance God.

And now, the last verse of chapter 2 - where we are going to start next Sunday.  This might be my favorite verses in the whole Book of Jonah.

“And then the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.”

 God calls Jonah to do a job.
     Jonah doesn’t want to do it, so he runs away from God.         
It doesn’t work.  God knows where Jonah is all along.
               God forces the issue.
                   Jonah intends to lose his life.
                             God saves Jonah’s life by sending a fish to swallow him!                                      God preserves Jonah for his assignment!

 Moral of the story:   You can’t run away from God!  He will find you. 

You must come back next Sunday and find out if Jonah learned his lesson! Amen.