Why Aren’t We Laughing at Jonah?

Three times in the last month, in three different settings, I’ve gone through the biblical book of Jonah with someone. In December, it was with a high schooler I have lunch with every week. That was a good time. She is insightful as heck, and I’m often challenged in the best possible way by her observations and questions when we contend with Scripture together. Last weekend, the whole book was read aloud from the pulpit as our local church started a short series preaching through it. On Monday, my sixth graders added it to our repertoire of books surveyed in Bible 6 at BFA. For that one, we didn’t read the whole thing, but there were multiple dramatic reenactments. You know what happens every time I read Jonah, including all three of these occasions? That book cracks me up.

If you’re reading Jonah and not laughing, may I invite you to see the absurd humor of it? I don’t know how our local pastor made it through with a serious face. I don’t understand why everyone else wasn’t choking back chuckles. That book is bananas. Jonah is ridiculous. And as I snort my way through it, I see myself in that fishy prophet. As much as Jonah makes me laugh, the joke turns back on me.

For starters, bro heard the voice of Yahweh directly - knowing full well that this is the Creator of the sea and the dry land - and immediately ran away. He didn’t even have the decency to hem and haw, to drag his heels while considering disobedience. I am a champion at hemming and hawing; I have won the Dragging Heels Grand Slam. Jonah? He just runs. Verse three. We haven’t even finished the sip of coffee we took as we started reading.

He ran to the sea - to the place he knows full well that Yahweh creatively hovered and separated and set boundaries - as if, what? He’d hide? And when he is asked about the storm that suspiciously knocks the boat around, Jonah claims without any apparent irony that he worships the God who created all this business. Do you though, Jonah? Do you really?

His suggestion (to be thrown overboard) isn’t even a good idea, because guess what happens if he dies? He doesn’t have to go to Nineveh. And just wait until we get to the reason he didn’t want to go to Nineveh. It’s my favorite thing about this book. No - second favorite. We’ll get there.

So the storm calms, and the sailors who had claimed to follow pagan gods actually worship Yahweh, while Jonah, who claimed to worship Yahweh, keeps trying to hide from obedience to him.

The fish scene is what makes this prophet famous. Raise your hand if you’ve heard snippets of even one other “minor prophet” in Sunday School. Amen, I see no hands. But Jonah? Every single evangelical KidzPlaze covers Jonah. How can you not? A fish! Swallows! The dude! And then! Spits him up! What is happening?

Jonah goes to Nineveh and it gets even funnier. Such shade in the narrative here: “Nineveh was such a big city, it took three days to walk through. And on the first day…” Do you see that? On the first day of a walk into a city that took three days to walk through? Jonah didn’t even bother to get to the middle! He could not be more reluctant even as he finally “obeys” Yahweh. He basically walked through the city gate and thought, good enough. And do you see the “sermon” he preached? Zero invitation to repentance. Zero explanation of why Nineveh is in trouble.

And now my favorite part. The king repents, including a beautiful thought I’ll write about sometime in a more serious post, and calls on the people and the cows to repent. And the cows! “Let’s all refrain from eating and drinking, and let’s clothe ourselves with the uncomfortable clothing of grief,” says the king. “Everyone! Dave, Lisa, your kids, your cows…” I just have to imagine the livestock of Nineveh watching their water trough getting drained while sackcloth is tossed over their backs, thinking, what did we do wrong?

Yahweh forgives them. Just as their evil had gotten his attention, so does their repentance. What a beautiful turn of events. What an incredible plot twist. What a tender Creator.

And Jonah cannot. He is livid. This is my favorite part to act out or, better yet, to see my sixth graders act out. “I KNEW IT!” Jonah accuses, probably wagging a finger toward the sky. Please read this in the angriest, most petulant preschooler voice of accusation you can imagine. “I knew you were forgiving! Why do you always have to be so kind? Why are you so compassionate? I can’t stand your goodness! This is why I didn’t want to come to this stupid city in the first place! This is what I was afraid of! Your grace is my worst nightmare!”

Jonah goes on to wish he was dead rather than bear witness to God’s grace. More than once, y’all. I’m not making this up.

Amid my chortling, the question is resounding: aren’t I just like Jonah? This is an uncomfortable and unavoidable confrontation. Jonah didn’t avoid Nineveh because it was a costly mission, or because he feared failing, or because obedience is just tough, man. He avoided it because he found Yahweh’s goodness offensive.

Don’t I?

I do. More often than I wished were true.

I want Yahweh, the Creator, the Just God, to be against the same people I feel like being against - an audience which could change on any given day, if I’m brutally honest in the way I think a reading of Jonah demands. I’m so thankful for God’s gracious compassion toward me and those in my circles, and in my most Jonah-ish heart, I’d really prefer that his gracious compassion end there. I’d like it to match my own. This is ugly, y’all. This is sackcloth ugly. Where are my cows? I wonder how many people have been offended that God has forgiven me. I wonder who has seen Yahweh’s kindness and compassion on me and grumbled, really?

It’s hard to be confronted with the scandal of mercy. I’m reading a book with some friends (Unoffendable) that asserts this idea: we hang onto anger and offense because we don’t trust that God will make all things right. We trust our own understanding of justice and we give our motives the benefit of the doubt. Hot dang. No thank you. I’d prefer, à la Jonah, that the folks with political policies and theological leanings that match mine are inside the circle of God’s goodness and that others are firmly out. Yuck. Should I be airing such dirty laundry? Does anyone know the way to Tarshish?

So I go back to that king and his cows, to those pagan sailors, and I remember what it looks like to embrace grace. And then I go back to Jonah and I just laugh. I get it, man.