Nationalism and Jonah (Part 1)

Not for Children Only

We spend so much time obsessing over what really happened that we leave stories like Jonah’s for children’s Sunday school.  The political backdrop gets lost among coloring pages and craft-time with whales and bushes and giant worms.  But the story has much to say to our current day.

The primary point of this story is that Jonah, who represents the people of God, doesn’t tell God who God can love! Jonah was called to bring God’s news to the powerful Assyrian city of Nineveh. And Nineveh was the enemy. Ancient Israel was rocked by trauma over and over again throughout its history. She was a divided nation, Northern Israel and Southern Judah. And one or the other was conquered and occupied by a number of foreign states and empires. Assyria is described as particularly nasty and savage in its treatment of the Northern Kingdom of Israel.  No wonder Jonah seems to care more about his shade tree than about the thousands of people living in that “godless” city.

The When

Jonah is portrayed as a reluctant prophet who flees from God’s summons to prophesy against the wickedness of the city of Nineveh. Let’s be clear as to what it means to “prophesy.” When you bring warning, you also bring hope—the opportunity to change (repent!). That’s the prophet’s calling—let folks know that change is both necessary and possible. This is what God is asking Jonah to do and Jonah gets it. Jonah knows exactly what God is asking of him. His is the calling that no one wants, to let your enemy know that salvation is possible.

According to the opening verse, Jonah is the son of Amittai. This lineage identifies him with the Jonah mentioned in II Kings 14:25 who prophesied during the reign of Jeroboam II, about 785 BCE. However, the Book was written at least 400 years after the actual time of this particular prophet. It was written after the Babylonian exile (6th century BCE), probably in the 5th or 4th century and certainly no later than the 3rd, since Jonah is listed among the Minor Prophets in the apocryphal book of Ecclesiasticus, composed about 190.

Chosen not Special

Like the Book of Ruth, which was written at about the same period, the Book of Jonah is a “push-back” writing. Both Ruth and Jonah oppose the narrow Jewish nationalism characteristic of the period following the reforms of Ezra and Nehemiah. Not surprisingly, given the trauma of exile, the emphasis then was on Jewish exclusivity. If you think about the modern state of Israel formed after the events of the holocaust, then you begin to understand the time of Ezra and Nehemiah.

Foreign wives and their children were to be sent away from households led by a Jewish male. Others who might want to help rebuild the wall and then the Temple, such as the Samaritans, are not favored to do the work. They are not pure, so they are turned away, and then demonized by the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. You might think of the way that Palestinians are viewed today.

Thus the prophet Jonah, like the Jewish people of the day, hates even the idea of God’s love for the Gentiles. It brings to mind the experience of Jesus as recorded in Luke 4. Jesus dares to suggest that in the past God showed mercy and grace to foreigners. For that blasphemy, Jesus is nearly thrown off a cliff—and by his own family and friends it would seem.

So Many Second Chances

God chastises Jonah for his attitude, and the book affirms that God’s mercy extends even to the inhabitants of a hated foreign city. No one wants to hear what God is doing in the lives of their enemies, especially if it’s something good! And if that is an enemy on a national scale, that feeling is even stronger. Lest we forget, it was Assyria that wiped Northern Israel off the map. So Jonah, in spite of being a prophet, is just as human as the rest of us.

Who among us doesn’t champion the cause of justice? And, of course, we are all in favor of God meting out judgement. In fact, we mostly wonder why it takes God so long. This is, of course, only so long as God’s hand is directed toward our enemies and not ourselves.

And so it is the same with Jonah: his myopic nationalist prejudice overrides his sense of God’s compassion. He doesn’t like where God has sent him, and he doesn’t like the people he’s supposed to help.

It’s Hard to Be God

I can’t imagine how hard it must be to be God. Some days I struggle to believe there is a God, and then on days like today I wonder who in their right might would want the job. The Bible portrays God in so many different ways. It’s hard to juggle all of the attributes attributed to God, mostly by folks reading into the Bible, not necessarily by the book itself. God is almighty and all knowing and all loving and all just and it goes on and on. And yet, God is also limited in what God can and cannot do.

God can’t create in us a clean heart, no matter how hard God tries. We are tribal, selfish, narrow minded to our own detriment. We don’t play nice. And, of course, we are not predisposed to share anything with anyone outside our comfortable silos. We’ll share God, but not God’s love. It’s subtle, the difference, but it’s important. God’s love and mercy is reserved for us and those who are willing to be like us. For two thousand years mission endeavors have made this mistake, and still—God will love you if you become like us.

God can’t speak if we won’t listen. Here is a word from God: You don’t tell me who I can love! Let’s talk more about that next time.