10 th Sunday after Pentecost, 08/05/2007

Sermon on Jonah 1:12-17, by Jim Mueller

"A Charicature of Jonah"

This sermon is meant to be presented as the character of Jonah. The Bible verses provided are to be used on screens to supplement the presentation. Although the character could be dressed in appropriate attire, it was originally done with all black clothes.

You've got to be kidding. Ok! Sorry! Jonah 1:17 This is not good. He said go to Nineveh and preach against it. The people that hate our guts. The last place a Jewish prophet is going to go. I almost made it to Tarshish. What have I gotten myself into? You've got to be kidding. I never should have told them to throw me into the sea. What was I thinking? Throw me into the sea. At least I saved their lives. Just stay on the boat and ride out the storm. Then He probably would have sent a 200 pound pterodactyl to swoop me up. Come on! Why did I run? I don't want to go to Nineveh. I'm not riding a camel across the desert and I'm not going to talk to those people.

Why did I fall asleep below deck - I could have seen it coming. The sailors were so scared. They were interrogating everyone. Who is responsible for this? Where do you come from? Who are your people? What do you do? I'm a prophet who ran the other way - now God is on my tail. And now, I'm in the belly of a whale. What was I thinking? Tarshish, southern Spain. Beaches, sangria, little cabana by the sea. That's all I wanted. Even prophets deserve a break. I don't want to go through the desert, and I definitely don't want to be in this stinky whale.

At least send me to a Jewish town. There's lots of cities that could use a good preacher. Instead God sends me to sin city. Nineveh Vegas Sign Picture You know what they say about Nineveh. What happens in Nineveh stays in Nineveh. Sex, drugs, and Assyrian rock-n-roll. No thanks, not for this Jewish prophet. Why does God want me to go to them? They're not Jewish. They don't have prophets there, they've got witchdoctors. But God wants me to warn them. He wants me to tell them natural catastrophes are coming. Earthquakes, wars, the black plague. Real life consequences for spiritual problems. And they totally deserve it. They're going to get the same thing as Sodom and Gomorrah and they deserve it. Anybody who says otherwise hasn't been there. A little Jewish guy like me would have to be crazy to ride 500 miles on a camel, through a desert, to tell people like them to watch out. What makes God think they'd even let me in the city?

Didn't God get the memo? Nineveh is hopeless. Israel has been at war with the Assyrians for close to a century. They are the true Biblical bounty hunters. People of mass destruction. All's fair in love and war. Especially when they're fighting the Jews. Sorcery, strip clubs without a cover charge, and you can even buy liquor on Sunday. Did I mention witchcraft? Sacrificing people. Yes. In Nineveh they burn children alive. Not the rich important ones, but they do it none the less. It's an election year in Nineveh. Death penalty, lethal injection, how about torturing people by skinning them alive and then baking them in the burning, desert sun. Only two things can happen out of me going there. Either they'll laugh and skin me alive, or they'll take it seriously and repent. Not sure which is worse. The people there have a reputation. They are the worst of the worst.

Why warn them, why give them a chance to repent? Frankly when God came to me I wanted to remind him of the Amittai family. Generations in my family have fought those people. Jonah 1:3 Perhaps you can understand why I hopped on the Princess Tarshish cruise ship and headed 2,000 miles the other way. It's a smelting town - silver, iron. Lots of jobs refining metals. Maybe the people there are also refined. The perfect place to get lost in all that smoke. Tarshish was my will, Nineveh was God's will. When I found the ship heading to exactly to where I wanted to go, I felt justified. What a coincidence! It's a marvel that the Devil always has a ship waiting. Always, always, always. Just leave God behind. Skip the desert.

People often ask how I got in the whale. Did you know I'm not the only one? Whale harpooners have been knocked overboard by whales and have even been swallowed. Ending up in the belly of a whale is no new thing. There's even other stories of a couple of other guys who survived a day in the stomach only to be cut out when the whale was gutted. Alive. Now in terms of God using an experience to get a prophet's attention, sure I know I'm unique. It takes a lot to get my attention and God knows that.

People often ask me what I did in the whale. Dialed 911. What do you think? Jonah 2:1 Mostly I prayed. Let him know that he was in control - not me. Basically it was 3 days of prayer. Nothing to do, nothing to see, just pray. Next time I'll obey. And that's when the fish did it. Jonah 2:10 Guess he had too much to drink the night before. Perhaps he didn't like the taste of prophetic plankton. I got vomited onto the land. Couple things happened as a result of this prophetic puke. #1 - I'm alive. #2 - The Assyrians actually listened to me. Apparently a chief god from their voodoo religion is half fish / half man. Ruler of the seas. When a prophet gets vomited onto the land from a whale, these people take notice. Especially on the coast of Phoenicia so the word can get around. Perhaps I had supernatural significance. God said go to the great city of Nineveh and preach all I tell you. This time I did. Word for word. Not taking any chances. So I preached. "Forty more days and Nineveh will be overturned because of your wickedness." Word for word.

The mound where I preached from was named Yunas Nebi - Jonah Prophet. Still to this day. Can you imagine naming a landmark after a Jew in the middle of Assyria? That's because the king took notice as well. He didn't want Nineveh destroyed. He issued this proclamation - "By decree of the king, do not let any man or beast, herd or flock, taste anything, not food or drink. But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth. Let everyone call urgently on God. Let them give up their evil ways and their violence. Who knows? God may yet relent and turn from his anger. Maybe we won't perish." And everybody did it. Jonah 3:5 They fasted and they prayed. Just like me in the fish. Did not eat a thing, drink a thing - not even the animals. The city that never sleeps started to pray. 40 days to change everything. Not sure that's enough time. Get rid all that evil. Even the sickos were praying. The city of sin was shut down. It was so embarrassing. I'm not sure I've ever seen Jewish towns ever react so strongly. So humbly. So prayerfully. Here I am a Jewish prophet and I know my own people, my own family wouldn't have believed so easily. They're making us look like the heathens.

I knew what was coming next. I knew what God was going to do. They deserved hell, fire, and brimstone - they knew it, God knew it, and I knew it. But he wasn't going to give them what they deserved. He saw their repentance, he saw the evil stop and he had compassion. We all like second chances. We all like to know one mistake isn't going to ruin everything. But I've watched compassionate people get walked on. Used like a rug. Beggars on the streets, food stamps. Compassionate people are often used. Helping the needy is one thing, but handouts? And that's what God did. A spiritual handout. A spiritual food stamp. He changed his mind. No destruction. Our enemy will live to fight another day. All thanks to me. They actually listened and believed a Jewish prophet. It was a million to one shot and it paid off.

Jonah 4:1 Ridiculous. I knew it. I knew God would be nice to them. The people that destroyed the Jewish city of Samaria. By saving them God in effect is destroying us. Our enemy is around for another day. So I left. I pitched a tent outside the city. I had to think. Probably could have stayed in any home I wanted. I still wanted nothing to do with those folks. Kind of threw a tantrum with God. Maybe if he saw how mad I was he'd change his mind. I'm sure you've done that too. Little emotional manipulation with God. I found shade under a vine and slept. Rested. Still not going back into Nineveh. The vine died the next day. I woke up sun burnt and sweating. At that point I was screaming, and cursing. I had had enough. Just kill me. It always seems like I can take all the stress in the world. Just pile it on. I'll deal with it. But the vine was like the feather that broke the camel's back. With everything else going on I didn't need this. You send a storm, you send a fish, you hurl me onto the beach, you force me to preach to my enemies. I could've been under a cabana in Tarshish on the Spanish beaches. Instead I'm sunburned in an Assyrian desert. So God shows up and we go face to face.

This is what he had to say. You are so concerned about this vine. Screaming, cursing. But you did not tend it or make it grow. It's not yours. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. But Nineveh has more than a 120,000 people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city? Jonah 4:11 Little reality check. They were horrible people, because they didn't have a clue. Couldn't tell their right hand from their left. Apparently, they hadn't heard many warnings before. God gave them a chance and they took it.

God controls the sea, the storm, the fish, the vine. All to nudge me where he needs me to go. He's not going to just let me run away. He didn't want them to run away either. God didn't want the Ninevite spiritual authorities to win. I always figured the Ninevites were too far gone. God never sees it that way. He knew how evil they were. So, how could he so easily forgive? To be honest, forgiveness is hard, dirty work and it can come back to haunt you. Why would you give someone something they don't deserve? Frankly, God's love shocks me. He is so easy to forgive and so fast to forget. He doesn't hold grudges because he doesn't care about getting his due - he just wants to love people. Two powerful lessons. First of all, the power of forgiveness is incredible. There was truly a change in that city. God's words changed their entire world. Their understanding of family and love changed forever. Ninevites aren't the kind of people to all of sudden turn religious. Not wholesome kind of people. But now I've come to realize that all of us receive things from God we could not have earned. The second lesson has to do with me. My anger and jealousy drive people away. Probably why we've been at war for close to a century. God was tired of all that. He saw 120,000 people that he loved. That is who God is.

God's message to me was really pretty simple. If I'm going to follow God's lead I have to be concerned about what God is concerned about. And God is concerned about people. People are important to God. You are, I am, the world is. I tend to get concerned about little things but end up blind to the big things. I complain about vines when God is saying, "Hey, make sure your heart beats fast over the things that cause My heart to beat fast, and that is people." Today I helped convince 120,000 people to turn to God for the first time in their lives. 120,000 people changed overnight. I tried to put God in a nice little box. Every box I try to put God in, He gets out of it. God doesn't like boxes. Before I finish let me say this. If you've only heard about the whale you haven't heard anything. The real question to be answered is this. Are some people too far gone? How much sin is too much sin? God's answer? I love people and I have compassion for people. Tell them to turn back to me. Go to Nineveh.

Matthew 12:40 (cue each Bible verse - 15 sec. each)

Matthew 12:41

Matthew 5:43-44

Jim Mueller

E-Mail: mueller0024@yahoo.com

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