Poor Jonah

Long-term readers of this blog (are there any short-term readers?) will recall that Jonah is my favorite book of the Bible.

They won’t be surprised, then, to hear that I was excited about the new sermon series at my church: “Jonah: Not the Story You Remember.”

(I’d helped to put up the letters of the church sign that announced this series’s title. On its reverse side, the sign admonished: “Tweet Others as You Would Have Them Tweet You.”)

And yet, I doubted: Would I really hear anything new (or unremembered) about Jonah?

It transpired that I would. Our new young pastor began yesterday’s sermon by having us recall Jonah’s brief appearance in 2 Kings 14:25:
Jeroboam II recovered the territories of Israel between Lebo-hamath and the Dead Sea, just as the LORD, the God of Israel, had promised through Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath-hepher.
[New Living Translation]
Equipped with this verse, our pastor eagerly described the historical context of the book of Jonah. He was guilty of three inaccuracies:

(1) He said that during Jonah’s prophesying, Israel’s king was Jehoash II. (It was Jeroboam II.)

(2) He said that Assyria and Israel were archenemies. (Not quite: Assyria and Israel were less like cat and dog and more like lion and mouse.)

And (3) he said that the book of Jonah could be dated to approximately 750–800 years before Christ’s birth. (Again, no; it was written during the post-exilic period.)

Then he performed an exegesis of Jonah 1, highlighting three costs of Jonah’s disobedience: the financial cost (Jonah had to buy a ticket for his voyage), the physical cost (Jonah was so tired, he slept through the storm), and the social cost (Jonah retired to the hold of the ship, away from his shipmates).

Despairing, Karin & I turned to the commentary in Karin’s Jesus-Centered Bible (NLT). This was much better:
There’s humor in how Jonah is a successful “evangelist” in spite of himself, in the same way Inspector Clouseau is a successful detective in the Pink Panther comedies. He does everything wrong, but it always turns out right.

There’s an unmistakable element of Jewish comedy in the story of Jonah, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a very serious message – a theology of mercy – buried in the humor. In the story of Jonah, the Jewish people learned to regard their election as God’s chosen people with humility and even self-deprecating humor. God would prop up the nation of Israel as a light to the Gentiles, not because they were better than other nations, but simply because God had called them just as he’d called the irascible Jonah. And Jonah is a good prophet not because he is a good man, but because God is a merciful God.

Later, this theology of mercy will find full expression in the life and teaching of Jesus.
Cheered by this commentary, I’ve decided to pray: Lord, exercise Your mercy: Let our new pastor be successful in the manner of the prophet Jonah.