Sermon Jonah 1 Running Away from God

Rev. Jeffrey T. Howard

Sermon - Jonah 1 – Running Away from God

Beaver Dam and Pitts Creek Churches

13th Sunday of Ordinary Time

July 8, 2012

Next month a group from the church will travel to Lancaster PA to Sight and Sound to watch their production of Jonah. Grace and I had the privilege of seeing this show earlier this Spring. It is a wonderful show and I hope everyone has a good time. But before they go, I think that it is necessary for us to study the Book of Jonah from our Old Testament. So, I am beginning today a four part series drawn from this wonderful book. Before we get to Jonah, let's pray.

“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)

Jonah was a prophet in the eighth century before Jesus Christ. He came from the region of Galilee and a village near Nazareth where Jesus would grow up eight hundred years latter. So it is not surprising the Jesus grew up knowing the story of Jonah not only from the Hebrew Bible, but probably also from a community who remembered their own prophet from years before.

Jonah is an unusual book. First, “Jonah” is a Hebrew word which means “dove”. This is a most unusual name for a prophet. Consider the prophet Elijah. His name means “Yahweh is God!” Calling a prophet “dove” is strange because it sounds a little passive and prophets are active. Another thing that is strange about this book is that even though it is a prophetic work it doesn't sound like one. Most of the prophetic books are written something like this: “The word of the LORD came to Elisha ...” What follows is God speaking through the mouth of the prophet. But in the Book of Jonah there is no such pronouncement. Rather we have a story about Jonah. So we have to find the meaning of the book in the story, just as we find meaning in Jesus' parables.

In the verses you heard earlier the Prophet hears a command from God to go to the place he most wants to avoid, Nineveh. Nineveh is the capital of the hated Assyrians. God had promised to destroy them because of their wickedness. So why would God want to send a prophet to these evil people? Could it be that God wanted to call them to repentance? Was it possible that God wanted to forgive them? Jonah was incapable of thinking in this way because he hated them so much. How could he proclaim God's redemption and love to the enemy?

So Jonah just refused to do it. Instead of traveling east toward Nineveh he went west to the Mediterranean and booked passage on a boat heading to the coast of Spain, the end of the known world, and as far from Nineveh as Jonah could get. He was determined to flee from God as far as he could.

Don't we face the same thing. God tells us to evangelize our neighbors and we find this command so difficult we run from God as fast as we can. When God asks us to do the impossible we flee from Him going as far as we can to get away. God calls us to reach out to sinners and bring them to Christ. But who among us wants to recruit child molesters, drug addicts, or adulterers and bring them into our church? Do we really believe that our God wants to redeem the most wicked people in our society? And if so what would our church look like if we did that? These were the kind of questions that went through Jonah's mind, and he decided that he was not going to proclaim God's word of salvation to the most depraved people on earth. That's why he fled, and we would run away too. Now, let's see what happened when Jonah tried to flee from God.

Jonah 1: ⁴ Then the LORD sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. ⁵ All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god. And they threw the cargo into the sea to lighten the ship. But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. ⁶ The captain went to him and said, "How can you sleep? Get up and call on your god! Maybe he will take notice of us, and we will not perish."

^{So God's reaction was to prevent Jonah from getting away, and to convince Jonah to obey Him. God did this with a violent storm and a test. The test was: which god would save them, one of the gods of the sailors, or Jonah's God? But Jonah was not up for the test. Unlike Elijah, who created a spectacular test on Mt. Carmel and proved that God was superior to Baal, Jonah remained silent. His faith was just not strong enough. Our we willing to allow our faith to be put to a test? Are we willing to step out of our comfort zone and do what God wants us to do? Or like Jonah, do we roll over a fall asleep whenever God asks us to do something difficult? Do we lack the faith that God can use us to do things that ordinarily would be impossible for us to do?}

^{The sailors on the boat with Jonah were desperate. They needed a god to save them. They needed a sacrifice for this god to appease him. What should they do?}

⁷ Then the sailors said to each other, "Come, let us cast lots to find out who is responsible for this calamity." They cast lots and the lot fell on Jonah. ⁸ So they asked him, "Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us? What do you do? Where do you come from? What is your country? From what people are you?"

^{So finally they knew that Jonah was the source of their problem. He had done something to bring this calamity upon them. They demanded some answers for their questions. And Jonah gave it to them.}

⁹ He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land." ¹⁰ This terrified them and they asked, "What have you done?" (They knew he was running away from the LORD, because he had already told them so.)

^{The sailors were terrified because the God that sent the storm was not some insignificant local god. Rather the storm was a result of the anger of the very creator of the world. Jonah had manage to anger the most powerful God of all, and there was nothing anyone could do about it.}

¹¹ The sea was getting rougher and rougher. So they asked him, "What should we do to you to make the sea calm down for us?" ¹² "Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you."

^{The sailors asked Jonah what to do appease this creator God. And Jonah said, make me your sacrifice. Throw me overboard and you will be saved. But the sailors refused and tried to save themselves.}

¹³ Instead, the men did their best to row back to land. But they could not, for the sea grew even wilder than before.

^{Then the sailors, facing certain death, did the only thing that was left for them to do. They prayed.}

¹⁴ Then they cried to the LORD, "O LORD, please do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, O LORD, have done as you pleased." ¹⁵ Then they took Jonah and threw him overboard, and the raging sea grew calm. ¹⁶ At this the men greatly feared the LORD, and they offered a sacrifice to the LORD and made vows to him.

Like Jonah we have been called to go to our own Nineveh. Remember Jesus' words from

Matthew 28:19-20. 19 Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

If we do things to reach out to people in our community and around the world our church will be blessed. But if we refuse to do what Jesus commands us to do we will be facing violent storms.

If our faith is strong enough we can do what God wants us to do. We can proclaim the gospel of forgiveness to our own Nineveh. We can approach sinners and tell them that new life is available through repentance because of God's overwhelming love. We can wake from our sleep and reach out to people in our community whom God loves and wants in church. We can do this because God empowers us to do the seemingly impossible if we are not afraid to use it.

Lord Jesus we confess that we have let your church decline. We run away from your command to reach out to others and make them your disciples. We prefer the comfort of the church we are in to the church that could be. And we are suffering the storms of our complacency. Fill us with your Spirit and with faith so that we may go into the world, into our Nineveh, and make disciples for you. Amen.