Classic for a Reason
I was
sitting in my Introduction to Music History class during my freshman year as a music
student at CSU when I first learned what makes a masterpiece. I expected this
class to cover esoteric and hidden music from Western history. Much to my surprise, we covered Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Stravinski, and Philip Glass. I had already
heard all those composers. When would we get to the obscure stuff? My
professor, dressed in a suit, with his shirt half untucked, and a bow tie holding
together the ensemble. Imparted some
great wisdom that has stuck with me ever since: “You know, Brad, the classics
are the classics for a reason!” I thought getting a music education would mean
that I would know all the obscure composers and compositions, and when asked
what my favorite composer was, I could half close my eyes and say: “You’ve probably
never heard of him. After all, I have a music degree.” Later in that course, my
professor would define a masterpiece as a piece of art that offers fresh
insights, regardless of how many times you listen to it.
Jonah is a Classic
This leads
us to the book of Jonah. Jonah is one of the first Bible stories that most
people encounter, and the one that people remember best. It is iconic in literature
(see Moby Dick), entertainment, and art. Surely the fantastic nature of the
miracle is compelling on a lot of levels. The length is short enough that you
can read it in less than 10 minutes if you are a fast reader. Yet this classic regularly
returns to our attention, and while I wouldn’t pull a Father Mapple and preach
from it every week (really, you need to read Moby Dick), I find myself revisiting
this account time and time again for its narrative power and shocking theme. The
book of Jonah is about what happens when God’s grace is too much for us. If we
read it correctly, we will find it among the most compelling indictments of our
hardened hearts and our threadbare practical faith.
The Story
The
story presented in Jonah is quite simple. God tells His prophet Jonah to go to
Nineveh (the capital of Assyria – a hostile nation) and preach about his coming
judgment. Jonah runs the other way and books a boat trip to Spain (or
thereabouts). While on the way, God sends a great storm. Jonah gets thrown overboard
and is swallowed by a huge fish, which pukes him up on dry ground three days
later. Jonah submits to God and goes to preach in Nineveh. Nineveh repents, God
spares them, and Jonah has a temper tantrum. The End.
The
basics of the story are done in less than a paragraph! How could this account be
so very powerful? It has to do with understanding what happens when God’s grace
makes us uncomfortable. We get God’s wrath. Righteous anger, thunder and lightning,
earthquakes, and punishment of sin. We like it even more when we can convince
ourselves that we are in a protected crowd. When THEY are getting judged, they
deserve it, when we are getting judged…well, let’s hope there is grace for that.
A Reason to Hate
Jonah
had every reason to hate the Assyrian Empire. They were the cruelest nation
that the world had ever seen. They were gunning to overtake Israel and make
everyone in Israel a slave. Actually, they would first kill as many as they
could, skinning them alive and celebrating with their corpses. Those who were
left would be deported, the land would be taken, families separated, and THEN
they would be enslaved. There was every reason for Jonah to be salty about
preaching in Nineveh. He just got a lot more salt than he bargained for.
Jonah
reveals his reasoning at the end of the book, but he was not deterred from his divinely
appointed task out of fear for his own safety, nor because he didn’t want to go
tell Assyria how awful they were, straight to their faces. He would have enjoyed
that task, we can safely assume. Something different caused Jonah to reject
this task. Something darker. Jonah was a prophet of Israel. God had warned them
plenty. In the Torah, through the Judges, and by the prophets. A warning was
only needed if there was a chance that they could change course – and that was unthinkable
to Jonah.
It was
all well and good for God to show mercy and grace to Israel; that was the
gracious and loving character of God…but saving the Assyrians? That would not
be okay. But not only was Jonah meant to know that God would extend this opportunity
to turn…he had to participate! Jonah must have been choking on his tongue.
A Moment to Reflect
We must
take a break here. This is where we jump on our high horse, “Jonah just didn’t
want them to get saved…I am so glad I would never be that way.” Well, hold your
roll for just a moment and let’s think about that. You might be the perfect
one, and I hope you are, but if you are like the rest of us, there is always a “them”
who we really can’t stand. It may be those folks from a different political
party. You can find them if you think about who you like to call names, you
know – the real scumbags. It could be racial, ethnic, ideological, or personal.
For some, it is the entire other half of the human race who is of the opposite
gender. If we are honest, there are probably a bunch of people who could disappear
from the earth, and you would be tempted to say that it served them right. I
know there are in my deepest, darkest thoughts. Individuals and groups.
This
account is not powerful for most readers because most people are deeply self-deceived.
To benefit from the word of God, we must let it be the mirror that God designed
and hold it up to ourselves. Take a minute, if you haven’t already, and figure
out who “them” is. Discover who it is that you are ready to assign to the rubbish
bin. Get out a piece of paper and write down all your reasons. If you are not
too much of a coward, write “Why I hate Chicago Cubs Fans,” “Communists,” or “people
who take calls on speaker phone in public” at the top of the page. Got it? Now we are ready to get back to the
book of Jonah.
Grace and Gracelessness
The
amazing irony of this book is that everybody in the story shows Jonah grace.
God could have simply struck Jonah dead or let him go, but instead, he pursues
him in his disobedience and rebellion. The pagans who discover that Jonah is the
reason for their personal danger don’t immediately throw him overboard, but
rather strain against the oars to see if they can preserve his life (Jonah 1:3).
Even the people of Nineveh don’t shoot on sight, but rather give Jonah a sympathetic
audience that few prophets to Israel ever enjoyed in their homeland. They repent
in sackcloth and ashes! (Jonah 3:5-9)
The
last chapter of Jonah is the real pinnacle of the account. Jonah gets good and
mad and goes off to the edge of town to pout and hope that God kills everybody spectacularly. When the Lord does not do that, he pops off at God
directly:
“But it displeased Jonah
exceedingly, and he became angry. So he prayed to the LORD, and said, “Ah,
LORD, was not this what I said when I was still in my country? Therefore I fled
previously to Tarshish; for I know that You are a gracious and merciful
God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, One who relents from doing
harm. Therefore now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is
better for me to die than to live!”” (Jonah 4:1–3 NKJV)
Jonah is so mad that he wants to die. That is some next-level human hatred. To Jonah, it would be totally defensible. Israel was God’s
chosen people; the Assyrians were violent pagans of the worst order. They were
going to take away everything, destroy and loot the temple, and scatter the
people of Israel and Judah among the nations. They were, quite literally, the
enemies of God. They were not just fighting a war of words – they wanted to eradicate
God’s people from existence. He was just hating God’s enemies. Surely that was the
right thing to do!
The Final Word
God gets
the last word on this matter, and the ending of Jonah feels almost unfinished,
because we don’t know what became of Jonah. The Lord’s message is clear and poignant:
“But the LORD said, “You have had
pity on the plant for which you have not labored, nor made it grow, which came
up in a night and perished in a night. And should I not pity Nineveh, that
great city, in which are more than one hundred and twenty thousand persons who
cannot discern between their right hand and their left—and much livestock?”” (Jonah
4:10–11 NKJV)
Jonah’s lack of compassion was exposed. But the point of
this account, and the abrupt ending, is to bring perspective. Who is not worthy
of our compassion? Who is that terrible person whom God had better not save, who
is it that could never be forgiven?
Can God
save them? Is that okay with you?
The
book of Jonah does not teach universalism in any way, shape, or form. The Lord
saved the citizens of Nineveh from a physical, catastrophic judgment. Their
individual salvation would be decided by their individual faith in the God of
Israel. Furthermore, the temporary reprieve would end with the destruction of
Assyria as prophesied by Nahum. The attitude in the spotlight was Jonah’s attitude,
and hopefully ours.
Oh, and in case you are wondering. It’s JS Bach. JS Bach is
my favorite composer of all time. Well-known, incredibly prolific, and certainly
not obscure at all, he is probably one of the most recognized composers of all
time. Bach changed music in a way that nobody else ever has, and there is nothing
in this enormous catalog that I don’t absolutely celebrate. Because the classics
are the classics for a reason.
