Famous Failures - Jonah

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, August 2, 2009

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Jonah. Jonah has to be one of the most famous characters of the entire Old Testament, maybe of the bible itself. Jonah has been taught in Sunday Schools for centuries upon centuries. Ask any child that you pass in the hallway this morning if they know who Jonah is, they'll say, "Yeah, I know who Jonah is." Certainly, of the minor prophets, if you even know what minor prophets are in the Old Testament, Jonah is the only one who you might recognize. Say the word Habakkuk, people think you have the hiccups. Say Malachi, you think Italian gangster. You think Jonah, ah, the guy with the fish. I know Jonah in biblical terms. Jonah is famous but Jonah is also a failure from beginning to end.

God commissions him, sends him off to Nineveh. Jonah, faithful prophet, jumps on the first ship, the Tarshish, the opposite direction. God sends a storm down to wake him up and to shake things up, a storm so violent all hands on deck are battling for their dear lives. Where's Jonah? Resting his eyelids, asleep in his cabin. Finally, God forces him to go to Nineveh. He preaches to the city reluctantly and he preaches a word of doom and gloom and he makes no doubt about the fact that he can't wait until it rains hail and brimstone down on the city.

But then what he witnesses may well be the largest conversion ever, the king and the entire city repent and throw themselves down at the mercy of the Almighty God. How does Jonah react to that? He sits down and pouts because he wanted to see them burn and he is angry at God. From beginning to end, Jonah just failed. And yet, in spite of his failure, God did some incredible things.

This morning, we want to learn from Jonah. We want to see what Jonah failed to see. If we're going to do that, we need to know a little bit more about Jonah and I don't want to talk about Jonah in the belly of the fish. I think we all know that story but let's get to know Jonah, the prophet, because that's what he was. He was a prophet in that day. Now this is the point in history in the Old Testament you may recall where the people had divided themselves. There was a northern kingdom. There was a southern kingdom. You had the northern kingdom which was Israel. He was a prophet up in Israel. It was not a good time for them at all. It was a time when scripture says there was one evil king after another evil king after another evil king. All of their enemies were coming at them, chipping away at them, taking away land at times, subjecting them to foreign rule. There were other prophets at the time of Jonah. His contemporaries were Amos, Joel and Hosea. And they all spoke to the people of God at that time.

Now the message of prophets at that time, most of the prophets, it wasn't a pleasant message at all because the people were doing evil in God's sight and God was trying to shake them up, wake them up, bring them back into faithfulness towards Him. A small sample from our buddy, Amos, here. This is the kind of thing that God was saying through His prophet, "Whoa to you who are complacent in Zion, you who feel secure on Mount Samaria," here's another little ditty, God says, "I hate, I despise your religious feast. I cannot stand your assemblies." How about this one? "The Lord Almighty declares, 'I abhor the pride of Jacob and I detest his fortresses. I will deliver up the city and everything in it.'" One more, "For the Lord declares, 'I will stir up a nation against you, O house of Israel, that will oppress you all the way from Lebo-Hamath to the Valley of Arabah.'" He wasn't a real cheerful guy. He wasn't the one you wanted to invite to the party. Don't bring Amos. He always has doom and gloom. He always has words of judgment that he's speaking against us. And that was typical of the prophets at that time.

Contrast that, though, to what little bit we know about Jonah. Jonah has a good gig because Jonah prophesied that much of the land that had been taken from them was going to be restored. Jonah prophesied that they're going to enter into a time where there is not going to be quite as much conflict as there was before. There is going to be sort of this uneasy peace and maybe even a little bit of prosperity. And we learn from 2 Kings that his prophesy was fulfilled. Much of the land that had been taken from Israel was restored to them. So Jonah, as a prophet, he has a pretty good gig. People don't detest Jonah when they see him. They don't sneer at him when he walks down the street. Jonah, he's kind of the good prophet. We like him. He has good things to say about us. So he's liked in life.

Imagine now God comes up to Jonah. "Jonah, I have a job for you." "No problem, God. A little more prosperity for your people? What would you like me to do?" "Jonah, I'd like you to go to Nineveh." "I'm sorry, God, did you say Nineveh?" "Yeah, Nineveh." A little side note here. Nineveh is the capital city of Assyria. The Assyrians are the number one threat to the people of Israel. They have been a menace to them for a long time. They are going to be a menace to them for a long time to come. On top of that, they were just nasty people, I mean wicked people. When they came in for war against their enemy, they'd chop off the heads of their enemies, they'd stick them on a pole and line the streets just to intimidate their enemy. Okay? These are not nice people. "Jonah, we need you to go to the capital city of our number one threat. Go to Nineveh." Right. "And by the way, Jonah, while you're there, I want you to give a message of judgment against them because they are wicked people." Okay. I suppose if we want to compare it to today, what if God said to you, "I'd like to send you to an Al-Qaeda training camp and talk about the prosperity of the United States and the power of democracy." Yeah. Multiply that by ten and you might get the idea of what God is asking Jonah to do. Go into the middle of the enemy, preach a word of judgment. Isn't it odd that Jonah went in the opposite direction? How strange that he catches a ship off to Tarshish instead of Nineveh.

As much as God is asking him, though, to go into the middle of the enemy camp, believe it or not, that's not Jonah's real struggle. This is where the book gets really, really interesting. Jonah's real struggle is not fear for his life. It's not fearing what the Ninevites will do to him. In fact, Jonah is more fearful about what God will do than he is about what the Ninevites will do. Let me explain. If you go to Chapter 3 in the book of Jonah, we find out that Jonah finally makes it into Nineveh. He preaches this word of judgment to the people. It takes him three days to cross the city and, lo and behold, the entire city comes to its knees. The king himself comes off of his throne, puts on sack cloths, rolls in ashes, repents and puts himself at the mercy of the one true God. Now how does Jonah react to that? This way: "But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. He prayed to the Lord, 'Oh, Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you're a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, oh Lord, just take my life.'" What should be a beautiful passage of God's love and grace, Jonah speaks as a word of indictment against God. He says, "I knew it. I knew it. That's why I didn't want to come here to begin with." He says, "I knew what you could do, God." Jonah never doubted that God could change the hearts of the Ninevites. He just didn't want Him to. That's the crux of his struggle. He didn't want the Ninevites to repent. No, as far as Jonah was concerned, they are outside of God's grace. They've gone too far. They were the enemy. Jonah's real struggle, the reason that he fled to Tarshish was not because he was afraid for his life. He was afraid that this very thing would happen, that God would change their hearts and they would repent.

Now before you get too down on Jonah, saying, "Well, that's odd. Shouldn't he be happy that the people repented? Shouldn't he be pleased that they responded to his message?" I think you need to understand a little bit more about the Ninevites. I told you the Assyrians were bad people. These were people you didn't mess with, okay? Nineveh, being the capital, even worse than that. Let's get a little glimpse from the prophet, Nahum, as he talks about the city of Nineveh, "Whoa to the city of blood," okay, "full of lies, full of plunder, never without victim," or he says, "many casualties, piles of dead bodies without number. People stumbling over corpses." In the arena of wickedness, Nineveh was of epic proportions. This is not a nice place and, as far as Jonah is concerned, he doesn't want to see repentance. He wants to see retribution. He doesn't want to see them fall to their knees. He wants it to hail down fire and brimstone. He wants to sit up on the hill and watch as God smokes them. "Get 'em, God. Give them what they deserve. Let judgment fall upon them because that's what they deserve." As far as Jonah's concerned, they're outside of God's grace. They've crossed the line. They've done too much. He doesn't want to see them repent. That's Jonah's struggle.

Is that our struggle? Is Jonah's struggle our struggle? Would we really have reacted any differently than Jonah did? Let's say when you go home from church this morning, all of a sudden, every major network, big announcement, Osama bin Laden has turned himself in and he's claiming that he has repented from all of his past sins. He's filled with remorse and he has come to faith in Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior. Would you be happy? Would you be skeptical? Would you be disappointed?

Within this past year, I had a gentleman talk to me about the death of his father and he was talking about how his father was not a good person, not at all. Alcoholic, abusive, just all of his life. But he told me that the pastor who had ministered to him in his dying days said that, in the hospital, he confessed his sins, he confessed faith in Christ and that this pastor had said that his dad was now in heaven. And this man looked me straight in the eye and he said, quote, "If he's in heaven, you can send me to hell because I'm not going to be where he's at." Is there a little bit of Jonah in us?

Are all people deserving of God's grace? What about the rapist? What about the pedophile? Should they be part of the kingdom of heaven? Or is there a little bit of Jonah in us?

Let's bring it home. Several years ago, I was standing right there. It was during Midweek service I think and I was preaching about the people who Jesus hung out with. And He didn't hang out with the nicest people of society back then. He hung out with tax collectors, sinners. Often times, He was preaching to the prostitutes of the day and trying to change their mind and trying to change their hearts. And the religious leaders of the day had a lot of problems with that. He wasn't supposed to associate with them and I was trying to get us to connect with them to understand how they were feeling. And so I said, "I want you to imagine here," and I went to great detail about describing what would happen if ten minutes late into service that this scantily dressed woman come walking down the center aisle, full of all kinds of makeup, spiked heels and sat down right there in the front seat. And all eyes were on her and all eyes knew what her profession was. And I went on to describe it a little bit more and said, "Now how would you feel about that?" After the service, I'm out in the narthex talking to people, one gentleman came up to me, red in the face and he pulled me aside. He pointed his finger at me. He says, "How dare you? How dare you bring such an image of a woman into my church? How could you do that?" And I've never seen him again. He stopped attending. Is there a little bit of Jonah in us?

Who is outside of God's grace for you? Who's gone too far? Who's crossed the line? Is it a parent? Is it an ex-husband? A friend? An ex-boss? Who's outside of God's grace? Is Jonah's struggle your struggle?

You see, Jonah missed the point. That's really Jonah's failure. He missed the point of what God was doing and the message that God was trying to communicate and sometimes I'm afraid that we do, too. The point is this: If you limit God's grace to one, you limit God's grace to all. Limit God's grace to one and you limit God's grace to all. Because how do you set up the parameters of who's in and who's out? How do you draw the line, saying, "If you're on this side, you're in. If you cross the line, you're on that side, you're out."

Or maybe the deeper question is what happens when you cross the line? Every one of us, at some point in our life, and probably repeatedly, have said the words, "I may do a lot of things but I'll never do," what? "I'll never lie to my parents." "I'll never cheat on an exam." "I'll never be unfaithful to my spouse." "I'll never do that to my body." "I'll never," whatever it is. And then you did. Does that mean now you're outside of God's grace? Does that mean now you've gone too far?

You see, you limit God's grace for one, you limit God's grace for all. But what Jonah failed to see and what God is communicating through this book is there are no bounds to God's grace. God's grace knows no bounds. Take a look again at what Jonah said but not now as an indictment against God but a description of our God, "You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love." We have a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love. Do we have a just God? Yes. A righteous God? Yes. But He's also a merciful God and a God who is full of grace, a God who wants all people to be saved, a God who was so serious about that He was willing to sacrifice His own Son so that all people could enjoy the kingdom of  heaven.

Listen to the words of His disciple, John, in his first letter, "If anyone does sin, we have one who speaks to the Father in our defense, Jesus Christ, the righteous one. He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins and not only for our sins but also for the sins of the world." You see, we have a righteous one which is Jesus Christ, which means we have the sinless Son of God, the only one who can stand in front of the Father and be completely holy and He becomes the atoning sacrifice. In other words, the punishment that you deserve, Jesus took upon Himself. The death that you should have died and I should have died, Jesus died in our stead. He's the atoning sacrifice for our sins. So that through faith in Him, we receive forgiveness and inherit heaven itself. But John adds, "Not only for us but for the sins of the world." He died for the sins of the Ninevites and the Assyrians, the sins of the terrorist and the rapist and the pedophile and the murderer and the thief and the embezzler and the liar, for the sins of the world. There are no bounds to God's grace. Through faith in Jesus, His sacrifice becomes ours. Through faith in Jesus, sins are forgiven and heaven is inherited.

There are no bounds to God's grace. You can't limit it for one because then it gets limited to all. The fact is there's nothing that you have done in the past and there's nothing that you can do in the future that is outside of the bounds of God's grace and His love and His forgiveness and not only you but that applies to all people.

So perhaps the next time we get just a little bit self-righteous, the next time we look at an individual for whatever reason and want to think, "You know, they're just outside of God's grace, they need to get what they deserve," maybe we need to think back to Jonah. Maybe we need to learn and to see what Jonah failed to see. There are no bounds to God's grace, for our God is a God of amazing love and amazing grace for all people, including you. Amen.

Copyright 2009 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church