The late great mythologist Joseph
Campbell said that it did not matter if an account was an historical account or
tale of fiction – what mattered most was that it contained an eternal truth as
its foundation. So even though most
Catholics think of the Old Testament tale of Jonah is an allegory or myth, it
still contains so great truths about God and about faith within it. Even though some might consider Jonah a tale
that would appeal to the imagination of a child, the
real message of the book of Jonah is a very adult one that gives us all an
opportunity to stretch our understanding of God & his salvation.
Today, our reading recounts God's 2nd
call to Jonah and his less than enthusiastic response. God tells Jonah "to go to Nineveh, the
great city." Nineveh was 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. The Assyrians were a brutal occupying force that forever changed
Israel's future. Thus, Jonah is called by God to go and 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. With the tasks we are called to do in our
modern world, we could consider Jonah a patron saint of ours to whom we could ask
for intercessory prayers. The message we
receive from our modern secular world is that we cannot make a big difference
in the world, that we might as well just fall in line and try to make a living
as best we can. Our calling from God and
our values may tell us we need to head East to Nineveh, but we all too often
turn around, walk away, and get on the boat with Jonah as a means of
escape. Perhaps we find it too difficult
or too lonely to walk the way of faith, to choose the path of faith over the ways
of our secular world. By running away,
perhaps we find ourselves in the belly of the whale, or out of touch with our
calling from God, or very distant from a sense of meaning and purpose.
We need to think about those things that we try to flee in our life of
faith, things that we are being called to do by God, but we are scared or
uninterested or just don’t have the inclination to do what God is asking us to
do. This story of Jonah’s calling gives
us pause to think, doesn’t it?
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