When you hear the name, “Jonah,” what immediately comes to mind? If you are like most people, it is the image of Jonah in the belly of a fish; or, perhaps, if you know the story well, it might be his pouting under a worm-eaten, withered bush.
Both of these images are somewhat fantastical, which means that sometimes we don’t identify with Jonah in the ways that maybe we could. After all, who hasn’t been where Jonah was: running from God; somewhat petulantly acquiescing to God‘s call, only when all other options have been exhausted; and then sulking with deep umbrage when things don’t turn out the way we want. Whatever the 21st-century equivalent of the belly of a fish is, I’ve been there. And so have you.
However, the irony is that although Jonah is arguably God’s most reluctant prophet, he also is arguably the most successful. In record time, with the world’s tersest and least-compellingly delivered prophetic message, he converts a whole city, ending with even the animals in sackcloth.
But while Jonah is clearly fine with God‘s mercy for himself, he doesn’t want it for others, especially when those others are his enemies. Jonah shows himself to be small-minded and small-hearted, jealous that God is generous, sure that he knows better than God what the Ninevites deserve.
And so maybe we are a little like Jonah in this way, too: dividing God‘s mercy from God‘s justice, hoarding the former for ourselves, while we self-righteously call down the latter on anyone we think deserves it. Our hearts, too, are often small—even as God is constantly at work in us, stretching and pulling to expand the reach of our own compassion.
So, this Lenten season, the call to repent—to turn from our own self-absorption to God—is also a call to turn with an open heart to the other: to extend our own experience of God’s lavish grace and forgiveness to others; to let go of our bitterness and sense of offence and instead embrace God’s all-encompassing vision of reconciliation and a new beginning. I like to think that, eventually, Jonah got there, at some time beyond the bounds of the text; and I like to think that we will get there, too—by the grace of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit.
Rev. Kristin Johnston Largen, PhD
President
Wartburg Theological Seminary
