The word of the Lord came to Johan saying “Get up, go to Nineveh the great city, and call out against it, for their evil has risen before Me.” Jonah gets up but flees, from God, from the mission to Nineveh, the capital of the hated Assyrians who utterly destroyed the northern kingdom of Israel and seriously wounded the southern kingdom of Judah. Jonah is meant to prophesy to these people that God will destroy them for their wicked ways and Jonah refuses, fleeing from God across the sea. Now Jonah, he knows this won’t work. God is the one “Who made sea and the dry land!” and how can His purposes be frustrated? We know they can’t and we know what happens next. The Lord whips up a great storm to confound Jonah’s flight. By his own suggestion Jonah is thrown overboard to abate the storm, leaving the crew much grieved and Jonah himself bobbing in the water. Johan knows he will die, heading down, down along his flight from God. As Jonah sinks he’s swallowed up by a great fish, saved by the mercy of the Lord and held in that fish’s innards. Jonah prays, thankful for his rescue:

Water lapped about me to the neck, the deep came round me, weed was bound round my head. … To the roots of the mountain I went down… But You brought up my life from the Pit,… Rescue is the Lord’s.

Hearing Jonah’s prayer of thanksgiving the Lord, after three days and three nights in the innards of that fish, has him vomited back on dry land.

And the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying “Get up, go to Nineveh the great city and call out to it the call that I speak to you.”

Jonah obeys, goes to Nineveh and calls out. The people hear him, fast, pull sackcloth over their bodies and repent, crying out to the Lord. Even the animals pull sackcloth on themselves and take part in the fast!

And God saw their acts, that they had turned back from their evil way, and God relented from the evil that He said to do to them, and He did not do it.

Now, friends, why does Jonah flee the Lord?

I beseech You, LORD, was it not my word when I was still in my land? Therefore did I hasten to flee to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in kindness and relenting from evil.

Jonah knows that when he declares the punishment of the Lord if the Assyrians repent then God will forgive them. Jonah was not called to declare punishment that might relent if the people repented but only, simply, that Nineveh would be destroyed in 40 days for the peoples’ evil. The Assyrians believe Jonah and repent just in case that they might be spared! Then why does Jonah flee knowing what he knows of God? Because he will look foolish, appear to be a false prophet. Because these people he is instrumental in saving are not the people of the covenant but enemies to them. God instructs, are not these his children too? And they are. We know that they are, at least intellectually. We know that we are all God’s children, Jew and gentile alike, siblings to each other and plain in the sight of the Lord from the day we were made.

God knows us. Do we not do the same as Jonah? God knows that we will hear His word and flee from it. “Give to the one who begs from you, and do not turn away from one who wishes to borrow from you.” Christ teaches us in Matthew. Or, “I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you…” Or, “Follow me, and leave the dead to bury their dead.” Or, “… when you pray, enter into your private room and, having closed your door, pray to your Father who is in secret; and your Father, who watches what is secret, will reward you.” We are taught to rejoice in the coming of the prodigal son, though we are the diligent children. How often have I known these demands, known that the sight of God is on me and fled? How often have I been asked for help, for time, for money and begged off, setting myself up as above God in my knowledge of the person asking. Get up, give to those who ask. That is the plain and simple instruction. What we give, we give ultimately to God as a form of worship in prayer for the well-being of our sibling in Christ. Do I have better knowledge than God of those who ask? No. But I flee. Not always, but enough, with shame in my heart as I do it. How often have I deserved to be tossed into the stormy ocean! But, I haven’t been. I haven’t been and we all know why. Jesus Christ, God clothed in flesh, has lived and died and rose again and overthrown death and brought us all into this new era, a time when the world has turned and the Kingdom of God is come. God saw us, saw our weakness and misery unto death and saved us. Repent and be saved. Change your heart and be saved. Follow Me. This is the grace of God, a pack of Jonahs though we are. We will get up and flee, repent and obey, hear and flee and repent and obey all the remaining days of our lives. We are saved by Grace, and Grace alone, a costly Grace. We must take up the yolk of Christ and follow Him. We must get up and go to Nineveh, we must love those who wrong us, we most take up the burden of Christ, seek the still and quiet voice of the Lord and find in it that Christ’s burden is light.

Jonah got up and he fled the Lord. I got up and I fled the Lord. But, God is gracious and compassionate to us, protects us from ourselves, guides us back to His will, that we may be Christ’s body on earth, His disciples, together as a community united in worship, to do Christ’s work on earth as He wills it. This is the Grace of the Lord, for Jonah, for me, for you.

Amen.