Jonah 1.1-3: Silly, Senseless, but Held in God's Faithfulness
This sermon was preached on May 5th, 2024.
One of my favorite moments in high school was in an English class. The teacher was seeking to birth in us a love of literature, and helping us to see that stories can often be a whole lot more than just cool stories. About allegories and metaphors, and how stories can sometimes surprise us with insights and depth.
We had read the story Young Goodman Brown. I won’t summarize the whole thing, but it’s a short story about a man in a season of doubt, who is considering doing something extreme to secure his family’s future. His wife’s name is Faith, and she is being pulled in two directions: supporting her husband or doing what is right.
Our teacher had given us construction paper and told us to use it to tell the story to our classmates. As we were telling it, I had a ‘aha’ moment, grabbed the piece of paper that represented his wife and said “and his faith was TORN” and ripped the paper in half. It was like it had hit all at once—this wasn’t just a cool short story about a guy named Goodman Brown. It was a story about people wrestling with a changing world.
The book of Jonah is one of the most famous stories in human history. If I say the word “Jonah,” a lot of images will come to mind. If you grew up around Children’s Bible and Sunday School, you’re immediately picturing a man being swallowed up by a whale, right? A story about a man who disobeyed God and faced the consequences.
But the story of Jonah isn’t actually about Jonah. This will show itself to be true as we go through this book together. The book of Jonah is a story about God’s people. Our prejudices and attitudes and actions. And, ultimately, it’s a story that points to Jesus—Jesus who came into our world about 700 years from the time of Jonah, and grew up less than 3 miles away from Jonah’s hometown. A story about God’s silly and senseless people who Jesus sought out to find and save.
Today we’re just looking at the first three verses of this book to introduce us to the whole thing—a way for us to understand what’s going on in the background of this book.
1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”
3 But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish. He went down to Joppa, where he found a ship bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and sailed for Tarshish to flee from the Lord.
What’s In a Name?
Jonah son of Amittai. Every part of this name has significance. To the ancient Hebrews, names meant more than something just sounding nice. When parents named their children, it was often a name filled with hopes or wishes for the child—or something that reflected what was happening when they were born.
“Jonah” is a name that means “dove.” We don't know what Jonah's parents would have had in mind when they named him that, but a dove is often a symbol of peace, and a symbol of God’s Holy Spirit, how God’s presence hovers over his people to protect and renew.
But during the time of Jonah, it had come to symbolize something else when applied to God’s people, because during this time it looks like God’s people have gone entirely off track in taking him seriously and taking the idea that He is up to something more than just giving them a physical kingdom. We can see it in the prophet Hosea, where he says that his people “are like a dove, silly and senseless.” Silly and senseless.
In the book, this name is proven to be a fitting one. He shows himself to be silly and senseless over and over. He tries to run from God’s call to him, because of his prejudice and fear. He claims to believe in the one true God and even fear him, but his actions show him to be someone who disregards God and other people. Silly and senseless.
But like I said earlier, Jonah is not just about Jonah. It’s about God’s people. I am, so often, absolutely silly and senseless. And that’s been true of all of us. Not just in this generation, but throughout history. We are meant to see ourselves in Jonah. God calling to us, but us running away for whatever reasons we may have.
Silly and senseless. But that’s not all of Jonah’s name. He’s Jonah son of Amittai. In the ancient world, there was no such thing as last names as we think of them. And just like Jonah meant dove, his dad’s name meant something—Amittai is a word that means “my faithfulness.” God’s faithfulness. So that Jonah’s full name is this; “silly and senseless, but kept in God’s faithfulness.”
Not just silly and senseless. That’s true enough. BUT that’s not all. A son of God’s faithfulness. Kept in his faithfulness. That’s why I’ve called this entire sermon series: Silly and Senseless, but Kept in God’s Faithfulness. Because this is our story and truly our hope. As this story unfolds and we see Jonah’s silliness and senselessness we see God’s faithfulness, which is the greater story, the greater truth. Jonah is a man who is far from perfect. He’s a prophet of God, someone with a serious calling on his life. But when he proves to be silly and senseless in the presence of God, he learns what we all learn. We are kept, our confidence is the faithfulness of God. We are faithless. He is faithful.
The Place of His Calling
God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh. The people that Jonah would have hated the most. And Jonah knows what this means, As he says at the end of the book:“this is what I was trying to stop—I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” Jonah flees from God because he doesn't want the people in Nineveh to be forgiven and find God's grace.
But the only kind of grace that exists is grace given to people who don't deserve it. This is what Jonah resists. There isn’t one kind of grace for people who are mostly okay and didn’t do the really big sins, and something else that exists for those who have really messed up.
But Jonah cannot stomach that these people would find God's grace, which is why he runs. His running away is born out of prejudice—but to better understand what may be going on inside of him, it’ll help to look at the other place Jonah is mentioned in the OT. Because Jonah had a calling before the calling to go to Nineveh.
In 2 Kings 14, we see that he had been the prophet active in his home country of Israel—someone who had actively worked to inspire the king of Israel to reestablish the boundaries around the kingdom of Israel—Jonah had been called to help strengthen his land that he loved. He loved his place and he loved the idea that what God was calling to something that worked for the good of him, his family, and people just like him. He got to be a hero, a champion who saw his vision come to life.
And now God is calling Jonah to go to the people that they had had to reestablish the borders against. It’s hard for me to communicate how repulsive Jonah would have found this call to go to Nineveh. His hatred of Nineveh was founded in what Nineveh represented. An empire that lasted for hundreds of years and was especially known in the ancient world for its cruelty. In fact, in only a couple of generations after the time of Jonah, the Assyrians would be directly responsible for the destruction of the kingdom of Israel.
Let’s put ourselves in Jonah’s shoes. Imagine you, as an American, have been in charge of national security. You’ve worked hard and can go to bed every night knowing that you have made your country more secure for your fellow Americans.
Then you receive a calling from God to go to the Islamic State. The people you have protected your country from. And you know that God is a God that abounds in mercy and forgiveness, and that you going there will mean these people you do not like will receive mercy and forgiveness.
It’s easy for us to scoff at Jonah, as if we would never respond like he did. But for us that’s probably more dependent on circumstances than not. After all, the places God has called us to may be things we just naturally love. Serving people we love. But sometimes God calls us to things that may be downright repulsive. To love and care for people who we may not think deserve it. To love and care for people we don’t like.
The places of our calling may be different in different seasons of our lives. But whatever season it may be, God is faithful. We don’t control his grace—but we are those who are called to be receivers and givers of his grace, sometimes in places and to people we would not choose. And what God is calling us into may very well mean coming face to face with prejudices and things within us that we don't realize are there.
Run, Jonah, Run
The call to Jonah was one that demanded he extend his boundaries. Literally, in the sense that Nineveh was 550 miles north of Jonah’s hometown. But it was an extension of boundaries in his heart as well. One he was unprepared for. So he ran the opposite direction. He goes to Tarshish. We don't know exactly where this was, but most scholars guess somewhere in modern Spain.
But he isn’t just physically running away. As it tells us “Jonah ran away from the Lord.” Jonah may have thought that if he fled as far as he could, he’d eventually reach the line where God wouldn’t chase him any further.
But what Jonah discovers is that God has chosen Jonah to be the one who speaks to the people of Nineveh so that God will show them grace, and God will not be dissuaded from showing his kindness. This word that he has declared will not return void, but will accomplish what he intends.
God’s purposes will not be frustrated by Jonah’s silliness or senselessness. But Jonah himself will also not be let go. Because the story of Jonah isn't just Jonah being forced to do what he doesn’t want to do—it shows us God who is not content to let his son run away into death, but is intent to save Jonah along with the people Jonah does not want to see find his grace.
Jonah runs but finds that he cannot outrun God’s grace. He can go as far away as he can and he will discover that God is there. Which may, at one point, seem like a terrifying thing of course. But when we see it through the correct leans, it's a profoundly comforting thing.
For this grace that will seek out the people of Nineveh despite their wickedness, this grace that will seek out Jonah despite his rebellion and prejudice, is the same grace that will seek us out in our darkness to find us and free us. God’s love is a never-stopping, never-giving-up, un-breaking, always and forever love. A love stronger than your sin, stringing than your silliness and senseless. A love dependent on his faithfulness.
The Question to Us
This is not a mere story, but in reading Jonah as God’s people, we ourselves are confronted. It’s why the book ends with a question—not merely the reporting of a question asked to Jonah, but a question that all of God’s people must face. The last verse of this book is a question by God to Jonah: “should I not care about this great city, where there are more than 120k people?”
God calls Jonah’s heart to the great matter here: In Nineveh there are 120k people made in his image and likeness, marred by sin and in need of his grace. Should God not show mercy to them? After all the only grace that exists is the grace that is given to the ungodly—the grace shown to those who don't deserve it.
The truth is that Jonah isn’t about Jonah, but it’s also not just about us either. Ultimately, it points forward to Jesus—the true and better Jonah.
Jesus who heard the call of God but did not run the other way, but ran directly into what that would mean for him. Jesus who left his home to run—but not to run from God’s will, but to run to us in our darkness.
Jesus who was the Word of God incarnate—the word that will not return void, but will accomplish all that God intends. Jesus, the one and only who loved us in our foolishness, who truly proved that God’s faithfulness is greater than our silliness or senselessness.
Jesus who followed us into the deepest and lowest parts of our human experience to find us, who faced the wrath of God against sin for us, who was raised from the dead victorious and turned to give us, by grace, the benefits of all that is his by right.
In the next month we’re going to be looking more at the book of Jonah as a whole, to see how this story unfolds as so much more than a story in a children’s bible. To see what it shows us about ourselves and, most importantly, what it shows us about Jesus. May God bless our time in this small book.