Religion
Jonah's message
Martin Sullivan
Three hundred years before the birth of Christ a thoughtful man was concerned about the narrow exclusiveness of his church. To challenge this attitude of withdrawal he wrote a short story which was both amusing and evangelical. It ran to just under 1,400 words in length. In the course of it he told a joke in order to make his point, and he devoted about fifty words to it. Ironically, the book is remembered only for this aside which has been treated with the utmost gravity. Indeed for some people, their faith has depended upon the literal truth of this passing reference. I am referring of course to the Book of Jonah and the incident of the whale: If the author is aware of the disastrous effect his clever little book has had, he must still be turning in his grave. It is dangerous to try to be funny in religious circles.
Well, as the current jargon has it, what was this author 'on about'? He wanted to halt his people as they were embarking on .a full-scale retreat. They had certainly been through the fire. Their country had been overrun and despoiled, the best of the population taken into captivity, and their religion trampled upon. In time, those who wanted to return home were allowed to do so. Shaken and -bruised, they began at once to. rebuild their waste places, to restore their religion; and to re-shape their national life. Their search for,security was quickly evidenced in their religious attitudes. Because they were now determined to consolidate their position, they rapidly built fences, not only to protect themselves but also to keep all strangers, even peaceful ones, at bay. The circle was a closed one. They were proud to be God's people, and they believed He had journeyed with them in their exile and that He had safely brought them home. They were determined now to hang on tightly to Him and not to share Him with anyone else. The God of all the nations of the earth had become a tribal Deity once more. This was not something new in their national life. They had had bouts of this all through their long history.
The Book of Jonah was written to blast these ideas. The hero, who bore a recognisable historical name, was sent on a mission to take the good tidings of his faith and proclaim them in the City of Nineveh to a foreign and heathen people. He refused the •challenge and fled to sea. A storm wrecked his ship and his presence, on his own admission, was regarded as the cause of it. So he was thrown overboard; but not before the heathen sailors had done all in their power to bring the ship to land. In this brief reference there is a satire within the satire. A big fish cruising about took Jonah on board and without devouring him regurgitated him three days later on dry land. Here was the picture of the vicissitudes of a nation, taken into exile, and finally restored after it had abrogated its responsibilities. It was to be given a second chance.
Jonah accepted the invitation this time and dashed off to deliver an ultimatum to Nineveh. "You have forty days to repent or you will be wiped out." Notice again the barb the writer uses. The prophet accepts the challenge of mission this time, but still he misses the point. He interprets it as if he were commissioned to act as a judge and to pass sentence. One is reminded of those enthusiasts who ask "Are you saved?" in the hope that you are not, so that they can rain the fires of Hell upon you. To Jonah's intense annoyance, the people accepted his message and forthwith repented. In a fit of fury he stumped off sulking and complaining and camped alone under a booth whose leaves suddenly withered and left him exposed to the blistering sun. His fury mounted at this cavalier treatment by God of one of his special agents. The writer then draws the threads together with words put into the mouth of God. "You are angry," He says to Jonah, "about the way things have gone, and now about this booth. Just think. You are concerned about nothing except your plight and all your pity is poured upon yourself. Shall not I have pity on Nineveh that great city wherein are more than six score thousand persons that cannot discern between their right hand and their left, and also much cattle?"
Two centuries later fiction becomes fact, and another Prophet embodying this same teaching in His life and message could say, "Behold a greater than Jonah is here."
Martin Sullivan is Dean of St Paul's
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