I often think of Jonah as the archetype of the typical
disciple of Jesus. Jonah is the quintessential reluctant disciple.
God gives him a mission that he so absolutely abhors that he
decides to get out of town and go as far away as he can from where God wants
him to be. Of course, God will not be denied and coerces Jonah, or more
accurately, the sailors of the ship upon which he is traveling, to pitch Jonah
overboard. Jonah is then granted free passage in the belly of a huge fish to
shores of where he was supposed to have gone. The fish summarily pukes Jonah,
like some bad food eaten, onto the beaches of Nineveh, where Jonah, reluctant
to the extreme, prophesizes the downfall of Nineveh unless some very serious
repentance takes place. Having accomplished what God intended him to do, he
goes up on the hill and awaits the complete destruction of Nineveh with
unbridled glee.
Much to his displeasure, Jonah’s most perverse prejudice
does not come about. Not only did the hated people of Nineveh heed his words
and repent, God spares the city and all is forgiven. To say the least, Jonah is
most displeased with the outcome.
Is this not true of us? How many of us hear God calling us
to do something we do not want to do? Does not this invoke within us a desire
to flee from the task? My kids often responded to correction with the words, “I
don’t want to hear these truths!” While we may not say those words verbatim,
have not our actions to God’s call come out the same, “I don’t want to hear
these truths!”? What are the truths that God is calling Jonah to hear? What are
“the truths” about which Jonah does not want to hear?
In the story of the prophet Jonah, he is instructed to
preach repentance to his most hated enemies. But who in the story is really in
need of repentance? Is it not Jonah who really has the need to repent? His
prejudice and his hatred of Nineveh was eating away at his soul in much the
same manner as the worm ate and killed the gourd plant at the end of the story.
For myself, the climax of the story comes at the very end,
when God confronts Jonah’s hatred and prejudice. We really never do find out
whether Jonah heeds the word of God and repents.
In the gospel, we hear Jesus continue to refine and expand the
message of the imprisoned John the Baptist, calling the whole world to
repentance. Jesus calls people to repent, but from what is the
world suppose to repent?
The sins of people in our world are many. We see these sins
documented in our newspapers, on the radio and television, and in the
commentaries and responses to articles on the internet. The volume of sin in
our world is so overwhelming one feels defeated from the start.
The core of Jesus message and mission is the compassion, the
mercy, and the love of God. Jesus’ mission was to deescalate the hatred that
drives the world and eats away at the hearts of people, and restore the world
to its pristine state of love and grace.
The hatred and prejudice that filled the soul of Jonah fuels
disorder in our human structures and societies. The same hatred fills the souls
of many fundamentalists in world religions, Christian traditions, and even our
own Roman Catholic Tradition. The darkness of human hatred tries desperately to
block out the light of God’s love, compassion and mercy. However, light trumps
darkness. Love will always triumph over hatred.
Jesus’ message of repentance to the world of his time,
remains the mission that we, his disciples, are called to preach and live
today. We are to drive out the hatred and darkness of our world, by living
lives of God’s compassion, mercy and love. This is not an easy mission. I, as
much as any, often want to flee from this mission. It is so very difficult to
do. To live and preach God’s compassion, love and mercy is to take upon oneself
a world of pain from the many attacks of those consumed in darkness,
bitterness, and hatred. People do not want to “hear these truths” and often
react violently in word and action.
This call to prophesy the repentance God desires for our
world, requires us to rid our own selves of the hatred, the darkness, and the
prejudices we harbor. Sadly, I am aware that I can be a safe harbor for the
very things against which I prophesy. I do not want to “hear these truths”
about myself, but like Jonah in the story, I must hear these truths and daily
work to filter them out of my life. Perhaps, the self-awareness of my own sinful
state is the very thing from which I want to flee the most.
All of the people of Nineveh, from the King to the lowliest,
put on sackcloth and sat in ashes. So, we, as reluctant prophets and disciples
are required with the rest of our world to clothe ourselves in sackcloth and sit
mutually with one another in ashes. Hopefully, it won’t be required of us to
have to literally or figuratively be pitched into the sea or vomited forth in
order to accomplish our mission.
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