Today’s first reading is from the prophet Jonah (3:1-10).In the gospel (Lk 11:29-32), Jesus refers to the ‘sign of Jonah’ to give some indication to the gathered crowd about the prospects for his own life.
The story of Jonah is classic, and from childhood on, Christians have loved to hear and tell the story.God commands Jonah to preach repentance to the people of Nineveh.Jonah, wanting nothing to do with it, hightails it out of there, boards a ship, the storm comes up, Jonah is thrown to the sea, swallowed up by a large fish, and three days later spit up on the shore.Taking the hint, he goes off to Nineveh, shouts out “Three days more and Nineveh will be destroyed.”To his chagrin, however, Nineveh is not destroyed because God responds in mercy to their sincere repentance.In the end, there is Jonah sitting beneath a gourd plant, completely bewildered by the action of God is his life and in the world.
The Irish Dominican, Fr. Paul Murray, has written a wonderful little book on Jonah, Journey with Jonah:The “Spirituality of Bewilderment.”He reflects on the ‘stormy’ experience of Jonah in the light of Christ.I would like to share a couple of thoughts with you from his book.
“But what of the Christian experience?What of life in Christ? As believers can we not expect to enjoy the security, the serenity, of faith?Are we not protected from ‘the shocks that flesh is heir to’ and from the storms of fate? We are protected, I would say, and we are not protected.Life in Christ—true religion—does not take the cross out of our lives.It does not render us immune to great suffering or misfortune.And yet, because Christ himself is at the heart of the storm, and because, as our Redeemer, he lives within us, and we in him, we have no reason to be afraid” (41).
And a bit later, more directly from the experience of Jonah, he writes: “So the moment of actual failure and breakdown—the experience of bewilderment in our lives—can be the moment of breakthrough, the moment when God’s grace finally shakes down all our defenses.And then, to our amazement, from out of the belly of failure, from out of the death of false dreams and false ideals, and even from the jaws of a living hell, we can begin to experience the grace of resurrection” (43).
That is the ‘sign of Jonah’ Jesus speaks of in the gospel.Look, there is the tomb, a place of death.But in his enormous love for the Son, the Father draws him forth from the belly of the earth to life.
A couple of days ago, I shared with you how I think about faith as a way of seeing.Here it is again.As Christian people, we just see differently.Into the hardships of life, the breakdowns in communication, the disruptions of our days, the pains of an illness, and even, somehow, the moral failures—we see the opportunity for growth, renewed relationship, healing, mercy, and life itself.
You know, Jonah, all and all, comes off rather cynical.Cynical about doing the task God as asked of him.Cynical about the people of Nineveh.Cynical, even, about how God finally reconciles those people.
I can see myself in Jonah.I have a real cynical streak—about people, the world, the church.At the moment, I sense the call to repent, which means, in the end, a call to see things differently.I need to pray that I might at last, more deeply grasp the meaning of the ‘sign of Jonah’ and turn my cynical eyes in for eyes of hope and expectation.