Jonah

Chapel this morning was totally for me. The speaker talked about in the midst of our problems, we forget that others have problems, too. Yeah, I definitely needed that after last week being Hell and a half. It was all brought into perspective, but I also loved her preaching on Jonah, though I got something completely different from it than what she preached. First of all, when God tells Jonah that He wants Jonah to go preach against Ninevah, Jonah ran away. Ninevah was a terrible place, full of sin, even blatantly working against God. Now, why Jonah thought he could run away from God, I'm not sure. So Jonah gets on this boat headed to Tarshish, and he's sleeping underdeck, and a storm kicks up. Jonah wakes up and goes up on deck, and the sailors, who have been shouting to their gods, tell Jonah to shout and pray to his God. The text never says whether or not Jonah cries out, but it does say that they cast lots to see who the calamity fell to, and guess what? The lot fell to Jonah. The sailors knew Jonah was running from the Lord, because he had told them so. Why they even had to cast lots, I'm not exactly sure, but at that point all signs point to Jonah. Here's the part of the story where people may think Jonah is being a great guy and saving the sailors, being sacrificial for their sake. Jonah tells them to throw him overboard.
I have a new spin on this, that I've never heard, but is starting to occur to me the more I read this book. Jonah probably could have cried out to God, repented, and committed in his heart to go to Ninevah, and the storm would have abated. Not Jonah. Jonah is running from God, and he shows no sign of stopping. This time, he figures he'll hide from God in the sea. Maybe he'll even die. Of course, then he would have to face God face-to-face. Jonah must realize this, because he then calls out to God, and God sends a giant fish to swallow him and spit him up on dry land... right outside of Ninevah. Jonah by now knows that he isn't going to get out of what God wants him to do, so he decides to go preach to Ninevah, and he does.
Let me compare this to Abraham going to Sodom and Gomorrah. Sodom and Gomorrah were like the Ninevah of back in the day. The cities of blatant sin, where they would even have sex with angels. Abraham, like Jonah, is God's prophet, and goes to the city. Jonah, in his situation, has no desire or intentions of going to Ninevah, and would prefer God to just smite the crap out of the city like it never existed. Abraham, on the other hand, willingly goes to Sodom and Gomorrah, and petetions God not to destroy it. He talks God into saying that if there are 10 righteous people in Sodom and Gomorrah, He will not destroy it. Jonah just wants God to destroy Ninevah. After Jonah preaches to Ninevah, the people do the unthinkable... they repent!!! Jonah hates it. And then God did the unthinkable... He had compassion on them!!! That was exactly what Jonah didn't want. But it's good that God works on His agenda, and not ours.
Jonah then did the unthinkable... he got ticked off at God. He has a little hissy-fit and whines to God "This is exactly what I warned you about. I didn't want to come here, because I knew you would have compassion on them." And then Jonah tells God that because God had compassion on these people, it would be better if Jonah were dead! He storms out of the city and makes himself a little shelter. God, in His goodness, makes a vine grow over Jonah to give him shade, but the next morning God makes a worm chew through the vine. Once again, Jonah gets extremely angry and wishes he was dead. Jonah cares more about the stupid little vine than about the fact that there are 120,000 lost people in that city that God loves.

Kinda reminds me of Christians who get more offended with curse words than the fact that many millions of people die everyday without knowing the name of Jesus.