Whale Vomit

"THE WISDOM OF THE WHALE"
Jonah 4:1-10
Faith United
January 25, 2009


A pastor in Pennsylvania told the story a few years ago
about being on a flight from Johannesburg, South Africa
to London, England
After he'd gotten settled into his seat,
a woman with a thick European accent got on the plane
She came down the aisle looking for her assigned seat
When she found her seat, she discovered a man sitting next to her
He was dark-skinned and had an African accent
She looked at her ticket again to make sure she was at the right seat
She was
So she said to her seatmate,
"Excuse me, sir, are in the right seat?"
The man smiled and nodded yes
The woman turned around to see if there were any empty seats
in that section, and there weren't, except for this one
So she approached the flight attendant
and touched her on the arm
"Excuse me," she said, "as you see, the seat that I've been assigned
is next to…. uh… someone whose skin color is different than mine."
She smiled sweetly

The flight attendant looked at her with some confusion
and smiled and said, "Yes, ma'am, I see that…"
"Well," the woman said, "I can't sit there. Is there another available seat?"
The flight attendant looked at her strangely again,
and replied, "I'm sorry, ma'am, it's against our policy
to move people unnecessarily."
The wealthy woman sighed very loudly and dramatically,
"You don't understand," she said, "I can't sit there.
I am prepared to pay to arrange an alternative…"
The flight attendant kind of chuckled and said, "you are?"
"Yes," the woman said, "now, honey, would you please go up
to first class and see if there is an available seat?
I am not going to sit next to that person!"

The flight attendant turned away but some saw her roll her eyes
as she headed up to first class
The woman stood in the aisle, waiting
A few minutes later, the flight attendant returned
and brushed past the woman with her wallet open
She leaned over and tapped the shoulder of the man
with the African accent
"I'm so sorry, sir, I hate to do this, really. But I must make a seating change
and I'd appreciate your cooperation,
If you follow me, we have a place for you up in first class."

Everybody knows the story of Jonah
well, at least they think they do
we all know that some guy was swallowed by a fish
Even people who don't come to church
know about Jonah and the whale
although, I would bet that a lot of people
don't know the WHOLE story
Like, WHY was he in the belly of a whale anyway?
How did he get there?
And did he ever get out?
Jonah's story is a short book of the Bible
tucked in between many other books
so it's not easy to find
unless you have those nifty book tabs in your Bible
In Sunday School our kids sing songs
about Jonah being in the belly of a whale
and how finally the whale spit him out
But really, believe it or not,
the whale is only a small part of Jonah's story
when you read the whole thing

As the story goes, God comes to Jonah
and tells him, "Jonah, I want you to go to Ninevah..
I want you to tell those people to get their act together,
to stop being so wicked…."
Jonah doesn't reply, doesn't say anything to God
instead, Jonah heads to the harbor at Joppa
and instead of getting a ticket to Ninevah,
which would have been east--
(and I only know this because of the commentaries!)
Instead, Jonah gets a ticket WEST…
he finds a ship that is going to Tarshish --
the exact OPPOSITE direction from Ninevah
He thinks he's pretty clever
He thinks God doesn't know!!
He thinks he can sneak away

But it turns out a mighty wicked storm suddenly comes up
on the sea
and the ship to Tarshish is being tossed and thrown
All the sailors on the ship are terrified that they are all going to die
and they cry out to their own gods
Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down into the belly of the ship
and was taking a peaceful, untroubled nap
The captain of the ship came down
and found him
and starts screaming at him,
"What are you doing??
How can you sleep through all this??
Call on your God, perhaps your God will spare us
so that we don't die!"

But before Jonah could hit his knees in prayer,
the other sailors decided to cast lots
to decide whose fault this life-threatening storm was…
and guess what?
Jonah picked the short stick
So they grabbed by the shirt,
held him up against the wall
and said to him, "Who are you? Why are you here?
what have you done? Who are your people?"
"I am a Hebrew, a Jew," Jonah said, trembling under
the man's grip
"I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea
and the dry land.."
The man immediately let him go, and Jonah slid to the floor
All of them were terrified
"What have you done?" they said, staring at him
"What are we going to do?" they all cried
Jonah, still sitting on the floor
straightened his glasses
and sheepishly told them to throw him overboard
that he knew that God had sent the storm
to get to him,
because he had run away

At first, the men were merciful
and tried to keep the boat afloat without doing what Jonah said
But it was useless
They prayed to God loudly,
"spare us, God! We are innocent! Do not let us perish
on account of this man's life!"
And they all grabbed Jonah and hurled him overboard
into the violent sea
and immediately, the sea was calm…
The men on the boat celebrated, made offerings to God
and gave thanks

It didn't go so well for poor Jonah
because that's when a large fish --
we don't even know what kind, we've always assumed it was a whale
hey, it works,
but a large fish opened his mouth
and swallowed Jonah whole

You have to admit this story if funny
It's just crazy, absurd
this poor spineless nerd
called to be a prophet of God
he tries to run away
and he gets thrown overboard
he starts to swim, and he gets swallowed by a fish
he can't get a break
no wonder he knew that God was after him !

It's also funny that the whole of chapter 2
is a very eloquent prayer by Jonah
perhaps trying to stay upright on his knees
on the slipper floor of the fish's insides
One can only imagine what else was down there with him
After this really nice prayer,
it says the Lord spoke to the fish
and the fish spewed Jonah up onto dry land
Spewed, which literally means, the fish threw up
and Jonah came out
If the guy didn't feel bad yet, he was now whale vomit!

As Jonah himself is cleaning himself off
and getting his bearings,
God says to him,
"Alright, listen up, NOW I want you to go to Ninevah
and proclaim the message I give to you to tell them."
So a very humbled Jonah,
stinking of fish and fish guts,
makes the long trek into Ninevah
It was a huge city, a three-day walk across
and Jonah walked a whole day into the heart of the city
and said,
"Listen up! 40 days! you've got 40 days
and then the city of Ninevah will be overthrown!
Destroyed!"
One would think that they'd laugh at him
Who is this smelly guy
with fish guts all over him, telling us what to do?
He's a Hebrew, we can just kill him,
I mean, he was only one, and they were many
But that's not what happened
Instead, the city was upset
they heard the message of the Lord
The king was horrified
he removed his robe and put on sackcloth and ashes
which is what Hebrews did when they were in mourning
When they grieved
He declared a city-wide fast
No one was to eat or drink
everyone was to call out to God, and repent of their wickedness,
their selfishness and greed
All were to wear the sackcloth and smear ashes on themselves
All were to repent of the violence of the city
And the king prayed that God would change his mind
on what to do with them all

And it says when God saw their sincerity,
their humility and deep desire to be different, to change
from their wicked ways,
God decided not to destroy them

Jonah, meanwhile, was standing on the hill
waiting for the show
waiting for the fire and brimstone to come down
He hated the Ninevites,
that's why he never wanted to go there in the first place
Jonah was an Israelite
a Hebrew
And Ninevah was the capital of Assyria
who had long been a bitter enemy of Israel and her people
Jonah, like many Israelites, believed that God loved Israel
and only Israel
and would destroy all her enemies
He couldn't wait to watch
When he found out that God had changed his plans
he threw a hissy fit
literally

He said to God, "I KNEW this would happen!
isn't this what I said would happen when I was back in my own country?
This is why I went to Tarshish in the first place!
I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love!
I knew it!
Just kill me, God, kill me right now, it would be better for me to die
than to see those people live…"
And God told him he didn't have a right to be angry
he didn't have a right to be angry at God for being merciful
So Jonah went off and sat down on a hill east of the city of Ninevah
He built himself a little shelter there,
and he … pouted
The longer he sat there, and the longer he thought about it all
the angrier and angrier he got
So the Lord gave him a bush for shelter
to keep him out of the sun
and Jonah was very happy about the bush
But the next morning, a worm ate it up and it died
and Jonah lost his temper again
he begged God to just let him die, kill him!

Jonah's got some issues
The most disturbing part of this story is that he never changed
At the end of the book, Jonah is still pouting
still wanting to die, still so consumed by his own anger and hate
that he waits to die
And God says to him,
"you are concerned about a bush, for which you did not labor
and which you did not grow
it came into being in a night and perished in a night
and should I not be concerned about Nineveh,
that great city,
in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand
people and many animals?"

That's the end of the story
The story ends with a question
The so called hero of the story ends up being a jerk
Nothing better than whale vomit
What was Jonah's problem?
Well, first of all, he thought that God only loved Israel
He had a "God Bless Israel" bumper sticker on his car
He didn't really think that God loved anyone
outside of Israel
and Jonah would have been all too happy
to sit and watch all those other non-Israelites
blown to bits
as if they were merely characters
in a video game
He had no love and compassion for the stranger
for the person in another city, another country

Jonah's got major issues
He wants to control his own destiny
and he wants to determine who should and should not
be punished,
and he would always be on the good side of God

The funny thing is, the whale was only a minor character
The whale actually provided Jonah with a time out
Jonah could have used that time in the whale
to think about what was going on and why
To think about why God was so stubborn
about getting him to Nineveh
Isn't it true, that sometimes we need to be brought down
a few notches in order to get the lesson?
An alcoholic needs to reach rock bottom before he or she
can admit she has a problem?
Often it is only when things fall apart
that we are humble enough to think that maybe,
just maybe, we need to do something different
we need to learn a lesson here
We need to consider that maybe, just maybe
we were wrong….
I know it's painful
but the only way we often come to admit we're wrong
is when we have been brought low
and you can't get much lower
than being whale vomit

I think maybe sometimes God lets us get that low
in order for us to get our perspective in shape
to see that we are not God
and we never will be
and that we are no better and no worse
than that person across the aisle on that plane
who we hate so much we won't even sit next to them
Jonah was ticked off at God
Jonah was ticked off
"I knew it!" he said,
"I knew it! I knew you were merciful and gracious,
slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love!
I just knew it! and it makes me sick!"
He was angry because God is merciful
and yet if God weren't merciful
he would have let Jonah be worse than whale vomit
But Jonah never gets it
He never learns
and so he spends the rest of his life being bitter and angry
and just waiting to die

Now, the odds aren't good that God is going to call on us
to be prophets
but I think that we can all relate to Jonah nonetheless
Hate is easy
Hate is very, very easy
Love is the hardest thing in the world
We like easy
And it is easy to justify hate, we even use the Bible to do it
It is really hard to be a lover in a hate-filled world
It is hard to be gentle in a violent world
It's easier, much, much easier
to join the mob
to forward those emails that are cruel and mean and evil
to listen to hatemongers on TV spew out their hate
and we can say, "yeah, preach it.."
And yet we come here, and we worship a God of love
the God who is merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love
the God who calls us to reach across the aisle
and love the stranger
Not kill him
not call for his destruction
God is not present in hate
When we hate, we repel God from our presence
because God does not dwell in hate
The Goodnews Badnews is that God loves everyone
even the plants and animals that he created
the beauty of creation
God is willing to love anyone
Even Jonah
Even you
and me