John Lennon once quipped – “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans …”
The implication being that we may make our plans and set out goals, but life somehow manages to spin things around and take us where we may not intend nor expect to be. We have our ideas of what we want in life, but life, fate, God – whatever term you
choose – may have slightly different plan … or in some cases, our plans may be regarded as a direct challenge that needs to be addressed.
I can still remember sitting at our table in the apartment in Kingston when I began filling out the forms for settlement while still a student at Theology College in Kingston. One of the last questions on the forms was “would you be willing to serve in a Native Ministry? Yes or No.”
I answered the question “No.”
Now, to contextualize this a bit – when I was a humble University Student, I spent one summer painting with my life long friend Darin. We were painting an old farm house out in the wilds of Perth County and talking about what we wanted to do with our lives. Darin knew then he wanted to go into law and become a lawyer. I was struggling because I have known since I was 14 that my calling lay in ministry. But after the study trip I took to the Middle East in second year, I really wanted to do graduate studies and teach Religious Studies … so we were weighing the pros and cons as we painted.
I remember saying “I think it is Graduate Studies that has more interest for me …”
Little did I know … that fall I dully filled out the various forms for BOTH graduate studies at a number of universities, and for Theological Studies at a number of Theological Colleges … I never did hear back from ANY of the graduate studies programmes, but I heard back quickly from the various Theological Colleges … and here I am.
I SHOULD have learned in that moment, that when God has called you to something, don’t try to deny it nor run away from it. … You’re gonna get caught!!
When I applied for my student internship that first summer of Theological training, I asked for Newfoundland – I had Newfoundland first in my order of preferences … I was sent to BC – to the northern tip of Vancouver Island … my supervisor from Presbytery said – “well, it’s an island …” The OTHER side of the country – but an island !! … for the record I had recorded BC about 7th on my form.
So, as I checked off the form on my settlement sheets answering ‘No’ to the First Nations’ Ministries, I should have known better …I should have remembered my previous experiences and not tried to direct where I was going …
A few short weeks later I was offered a choice between Wawa Ontario or Bella Coola BC … a remote northern ministry, or a remote northern First Nations Ministry … like Lennon said – “Life is what happens when you are busy making other plans …”
I’m glad I went to Bella Coola and I had a good foundation for ministry formed in those years there – I learned a lot, and I left there four years later a better person for what I had experienced. Such is the vagaries of putting our trust in God and life and fate …
And that’s the lesson the writer of the Jonah story is trying to convey through the use of absurdly unlikely tale of the whale … I shared yesterday my experience once of telling the Jonah story to a group of kids during a childrens’ time at worship and having one delightful young person sit and listen to the WHOLE story before saying – “you expect us to believe that story? There’s NO WAY that guy could live in the belly of the whale for three days then be puked up on some beach and just walk into town …”
She was right.
The story is SO incredible it is intended to cause the listener to scoff and engage the teller in a conversation. The intent of the Jonah story is NOT the literal truth of Jonah being swallowed by a whale and being upchucked on a beach – the intent is to remind the listener that no matter what you try to do to run away from God’s calling for you, God WILL bring you back.
In Jonah’s case, he was swallowed in the Mediterranean heading WEST … the whale swallowed him, then barfed him up on a beach outside of Ninevah – far to the east … and, if you will permit – let’s do a quickly refresher in geography of that region …
Israel is just above Africa, nestled between Asia and Europe facing to the Mediterranean. Jonah hops on a boat and sets sail toward the west – modern Spain, Italy and so on … the whale swallows him at sea in the Mediterranean.
Until the building of the Suez Canal in the 1800’s that linked the Mediterranean with the Red Sea – the ONLY way to get from the Mediterranean AROUND to Ninevah – in modern Iraq, was by circumnavigating the entire continent of Africa – not something that ANY whale could do in three days.
So, the premise of the story begins with an impossibility:
The whale swallows Jonah, swims around the entire continent of Africa in less than 36 hours and spits him up on a beach in Iraq … the literary device at work is grounded in the absurdity of the story.
By using such an incredible exaggeration, the story teller wants to grab the listener’s attention and underscore, highlight, italicize and have flashing in bright neon colours the futility of trying to avoid what God wants of us.
The morale of the story is – “you can run the other way, but look at Jonah, he tried that only to be brought back to where God wanted him to be … so don’t even try. Just open yourself up to what God wants and do it …
The story of Jonah is using absurdity and humour to convey a lesson to the listener.
It is akin to the role of the jester or fool to offer lessons in the Royal Court.
The jester tells a story that causes the King and the court to listen, but then suddenly the King realizes that the subject of the joke – the very object of the derision is himself.
The king has an epiphany moment where he realizes that everyone is actually laughing at him … “Wait a minute,” he thinks, “that’s me the jester was talking about …”
And the lesson is learned.
The Holy Fool has taught the King the error of his ways.
In our modern world, many comedic voices continue that tradition by poking fun at happenings in our society, and opening our eyes and our understandings to the lessons we NEED to learn through the gift of laughter. Folks like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert have quite effectively managed to combined newscasting and humour to convey important and otherwise overlooked truths that other media chose to ignore.
Using humour is known to be one of the most effect ways to offer a morale or a lessons. People listen better when they are laughing and have an ability to take harsh criticism more easily if it is offered in such a way.
The ancient Jewish story tellers knew that, and they used that device ALL the time.
A humourous story works ALL the time …
By the time the listener gets it – they’ve been laughing and can see the absurdity in a positive light …
So the lesson for us today in our modern world where we KNOW that the story of Jonah is nothing more than a big fish story – perhaps there is a secondary lesson here about JUST how big that story of ‘the one that got away’ can get if allowed to be told and retold over a few millennia …
The lesson we are to pull from the delightful and humourous story of Jonah is an awareness of those moments in life when we realize and recognize that we are being called by God to act on our faith. Our response CAN NOT be like that of Jonah’s – running as hard and fast in the opposite direction as our legs will carry us. But rather our response should be like that of the disciples called to follow Jesus.
They left it behind and went the way God was calling them …
They saw the moment of call and answered.
They seized the moment – the opportunity and answered with an affirmative response.
ALL of us are called … individually, collectively and corporately – we are called to live our faith. The next step after seeing, experiencing and recognizing the call is to respond.
We are to be open to the call.
We are to be aware of the call.
AND we are to respond to the call by living and sharing our faith.
It took a whale of a tale to bring Jonah back to where he was supposed to be. For you and I, what is required to put us back on track should be a little less grandiose, and a little more straightforward.
We are called … now we need to listen and stop fighting what God wants of us individually, collectively, and corportately.
To borrow from the sci-fi show, Star Trek the Next Generation – if the story of Jonah teaches us NOTHING else, it teaches us that God’s call is similar to the arrival of the Borg in the STNG universe – ‘resistance is futile”. If God calls – we need to listen …
May it be so … thanks be to God … Let us pray …
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