The Old
Testament tale of Jonah is often thought of as a children's story complete with
a whale & a great adventure. However,
there is a real message found in the book of Jonah, and this message gives us
an opportunity to stretch our understanding of God & his salvation. It doesn’t
matter if the story of Jonah really happened or not – the truth contained in
its message is what matters to us. Today, we
hear about Jonah’s second call from God. He
responds to this call, but not very enthusiastically. Jonah is
called to go to Nineveh, the capital of Assyria, the nation that had destroyed
the northern kingdom of Israel and held the southern kingdom of Judah as a
vassal state for almost one hundred years. Assyria
was a brutal occupying force that forever changed Israel's future. We can
imagine who difficult it is for Jonah to prophesy to the capital city of
Israel’s enemy.
We could
berate and criticize Jonah for his little faith. However,
it might be more helpful for us to identify with Jonah for a moment rather than
to criticize him, to empathize with the seemingly impossible mission to which
God has called him. Sometimes
God gives us a calling that we don’t understand or that we think is
impossible. Sometimes
we respond like Jonah did, getting into a boat, trying to escape Perhaps we
find it too difficult or too lonely to walk the way of our faith, since it can
be so out of step from what is mainstream in our secular world. Like
Jonah, when we run away from God, we can find ourselves trapped in the belly of
the whale, or out of touch with our calling from God, or distant from a sense
of meaning and purpose if our life of faith.
Let our
Lenten journey wake us up from the ways we try to flee from God in our life of
faith.
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