True Prophet, False Info

(This is a first draft. There are probably errors in it that I will correct later. It's 8:00 Sabbath morning. I've got to go get ready to preach.)

Things were going pretty good in Jonah's world. He had prophesied that his nation would prosper. And his prophecy had come true. The king at the time was a man named Jeroboam II. Under his reign, Israel, the northern Jewish kingdom whose capital was the city of Samaria, (not to be confused with the southern Jewish kingdom of Judah whose capital was Jerusalem) experienced the greatest wealth and territorial expansion in its history. Times were good—for the nation and for Jonah, the prophet.

Then he gets this really weird message from God: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

When God referred to Nineveh as “the great city,” he was not exaggerating. Nineveh was the largest city on earth at the time. It had probably twice the population of Babylon. It was rich, famous, powerful. It made Samaria, the capital of Israel look like Nowheresville.

Nineveh was wicked. So wicked, it had come in for special notice from God.

Go to Nineveh, God said, and preach against it. Imagine a prophet in Iran being told, “Go to New York and preach against it.” Or imagine someone from Taiwan being told, “Go to Beijing and preach against it.” Not exactly a plum assignment. It sounded like a potential death warrant. At minimum it sounded like a pointless mission. Why go to the largest city on earth and announce to the population they were going to be destroyed?

Jonah understood God's call and then did the only smart thing to do. He went to the port city of Jaffe and bought a ticket headed the opposite direction from Nineveh. (The location of Tarshish is not positvely known. Ancient histories and modern scholars point to several different possible locations. One possible location is a place in what is now Spain. No matter, wherever it was, it away from Nineveh.)

The ship set sail. It was lovely weather for sailing. Every hour takes Jonah farther from Nineveh, farther from God's call. Jonah begins to relax. He has escaped. Nothing more to worry about.

He heads below deck for a nap.

While he's sleeping, a terrific squall blows up. It is so fierce the sailors begin heaving cargo overboard to lighten the ship.

It's not enough.

The sailors were all praying to their respective gods. This was no ordinary storm. It was like a divine fury. The captain notices Jonah is not on deck. He goes below and finds his passenger sleeping. He wakes him.

Get up and pray. We're lost.

As the storm rages on, someone suggests casting lots to see who it is that has brought the divine rage down on them. The lot singles out Jonah.

Okay, they demand, what's up? Who's responsible for all the trouble? What do you do? Who are you? Where do you come from? What tribe do you belong to?

“I'm a Hebrew. I worship the LORD, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the land.”

When they heard this they were mortified. They knew something of the reputation of Yahweh. He was the one who had brought Israel out of Egypt. He was known to be a fierce defender of justice.

Jonah had already told some of them that he was running away from his god, but they had no idea which god. Now they knew and they were terrified.

The waves were piling higher and higher. They were desperate.

What can we to make the sea calm?

Throw me overboard the prophet says. This storm is all my fault. If you throw me overboard, the sea will become calm.

The sailors refuse. They go back to trying to save the ship.

They do not refuse because they don't believe Jonah. They are sure he is a prophet. They are sure he is telling the truth. The storm is because of him. If they will just throw him overboard, the storm will abate. They will be saved. But they refuse.

Finally, the crew face the inescapable fact: Either they heave Jonah or the ship goes down and they all die. They reluctantly agree to do what the prophet has said.

They pray, asking God to forgive them, even though they are doing what he ordered them to do. Then they pick Jonah up and heave him overboard. The storm abates.

A message here: Even highly merciful people sometimes reach the place where they have to take action. No more! Enough is enough. Heave ho.

This holds in families, churches and societies. Justice should not be the first response to human failure and wrong doing. It must, however, be an available answer.

When there is strain in a marriage, splitting should not be the first response. But if there is abuse, at some point, there comes a time to give the abuser the heave ho.

We should not be putting every young person who foolishly plays around with drugs in jail. It's crazy that our jails should be full of young men whose crime is providing product for rich people who want to use drugs recreationally. Like the crew we should do everything we can to keep young, foolish people out of jail. We should look for ways to keep their futures open, their lives full of hope. But there comes a time when we have to give the heave ho.

I remember a woman in one of my first churches who was constantly obnoxious, cantankerous and mean. She was mean to kids. She made every board meeting miserable with her pugnacity. She offended visitors. We talked to her. Warned her. Then finally removed her from office.

It was amazing. Instantly, after we gave her the heave ho, the entire church became a peaceful, tranquil place. We worked with her over a four year period. We didn't throw her overboard immediately, but there came a time when we had done everything we could. Then we tossed her overboard and there was a great calm.

The sailors threw Jonah overboard. There was nothing else they could do.

But God was not through with him.

A great fish swallowed Jonah, then three days later spit him out on the beach. As Jonah crawled up the beach, he here's a voice. Jonah!

I wonder, did he groan? Was he thrilled?

I don't know.

But whatever he felt, he recognized the voice.

“Go to Nineveh and deliver the message I give you.”

So Jonah heads to Nineveh. Once there,he begins preaching the message God has given him: Forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed.”

Then the most astonishing thing happens. People listen. They begin praying. And repenting. The King hears the message. Instead of having the prophet kicked out of town or strung up, he issues a proclamation ordering the entire population to fast. They are to make even their animals fast. He removes his royal robes and publicly wears sackcloth. He descends from his throne and sits in a pile of dust.

Who knows, the king says, God may yet repent and with compassion turn from his fierce anger so that we will not perish.

Because we are Christians we are not surprised at what happens next. Nineveh is not destroyed. God repents. That is he changes his mind. The city is saved.

Jonah complains. Look God, isn't just what I said when I was still at home. I knew you were a gracious God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who repents from sending calamity and disaster. Now, just let me die. You've made into a false prophet just like I was afraid of.

So where are you in this story?

Adventists have traditionally been Jonah. God called us to announce to the world: Forty days and the world is going to be destroyed. Well, not exactly forty days. But soon. Not more than five or ten years. This generation. Surely before the turn of the century.

That's what my ancestors were saying in the 1800s. That's what I said in the 1900s. And now look at us. We're false prophets. It didn't happen.

We think of ourselves as false prophets only because we misunderstand the job of a prophet. A prophet's job is not to give people special information. The work of a prophet is not to serve as a conduit between God and people for specialized knowledge.

In Deuteronomy, Moses specifically cautioned the people of Israel,

What I am commanding you today is not too difficult for you or beyond your reach. It is not up in heaven, so that you have to ask, “Who will ascend into heaven to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it? Nor is it beyond the sea, so that you have to ask, “Who will cross the sea to get it and proclaim it to us so we may obey it?” No, the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart so you may obey it. Deuteronomy 30:11-14

There is a great debate going on now in the church about the respective role of prophets and science. On one side people argue we must look to the prophets for information. The information the prophets give us, that is the truth. Others argue, no, we must look to science for trustworthy information.

The story of Jonah highlights the foolishness of this debate.

In this story the words of the prophet were false—if you evaluate them merely as information. Nineveh was not destroyed.

The perspective of science would have proven useless. The routine of life in Nineveh would not have changed. There would have been no change.

Nineveh did not need information. They needed motivation and inspiration. The words of Jonah served that purpose perfectly. The city repented.

So today, Christians need to spend little time fighting over sources of information. What people need, people inside and outside the church, is not more information. It is motivation and inspiration. It is help to do the very things we are trying to do, the things we wish we were doing, the things that are already written deeply in our hearts and even in our mouths.

What does that mean, written in our mouths? It means we affirm the things we need to do. We give lip service. Everyone I know says, I need to lose five pounds. They do not need me to tell them they need to lose weight. They know it. They say it. They need help to do it.

How many people in your world do not know that we are supposed to tell the truth or honor our parents or focus our sexual desires or earn a living or help our neighbors?

Some people and some cultures are less aware of God's ideals for humanity than others, still the greatest challenge for nearly everyone is not acquiring information, it is practicing it, living it.

Twice in this story Jonah eloquently affirms God's mercy and compassion. Jonah knows God is merciful and gracious. It's just that Jonah doesn't like it when God's mercy costs him something. Jonah even would have been happy for God to show mercy to the Ninevites, as long as God left Jonah out of it. But being a prophet means Jonah cannot be left out of it. And being a prophetic movement, we as a church cannot be left out of God's intention to show mercy to the world. We must enter into God's mercy mission, even if it means we look like “false prophets.” Our goal must not be proving that we are “true prophets.” Instead, our goal must be to cooperate with God in leading people to repentance, thus setting up an opportunity for God himself to repent. (At least that's the way the old King James Version put it before more modern translators realized the indelicacy of attributing repentance to God.)

Another application of this story: Jonah's condemnation of the Ninevites and his radical commitment to being a “true prophet” is linked to his own self-evaluation. He runs from God. When God brings him up short, by sending the storm, Jonah writes himself off. “Throw me overboard.”

The sailors were closer to the heart of God than the prophet was. They refused to throw him overboard. They did everything in their power to save him. Even after they knew he was running from God. Even after they knew his rebelliousness had cost them a lot of money (all that cargo overboard). Even after they knew he was putting their own lives at risk.

When Jonah faced up to the fact that he had run from God, he saw himself as useless. The heathen sailors still saw him as a human being.

When the sailors were finally compelled to throw him overboard, after doing everything they could to save him, God confirmed their instincts. God sent a special submarine to rescue the miserable prophet. Then God gave him a second chance.

Are you ready to give yourself a second chance? I hope so.

I leave you with the final picture in the book of Jonah:

Jonah is sitting outside the city waiting to see if it is going to be destroyed. He already knows it's a pointless wait. He's observed the repentance of the people. /He knows God is going to repent as well. Still he sits there and mopes.

God, ever the gracious one, causes a vine to miraculously grow in a day to cover a shelter of sticks the prophet has made. Jonah is pleased. The vine gives him shade and pleasure. I think there is a hint as well that he takes pleasure in it as a living thing. Maybe he was a plant lover like me.

In any case a day after the vine has grown and Jonah has enjoyed its life and shade, God sends a worm to eat the root of the vine and it dies. Jonah gets mad.

God confronts him. “What's up with the anger?” You didn't make the vine, so why do you feel like you have the right to be angry if it dies? Jonah mutters back.

God has the last word. “You lament the death of a simple vine.

Nineveh has more than a 120,000 people—people who are so simple they can't tell their right hand from their left hand. They are mere children morally speaking compared to you. And besides all these precious children, there are countless cows as well.

If you are distressed at the death of a vine can you really wonder about my reluctance to destroy all these children? Is saving your reputation really more important than saving these people?