God's Diplomacy

Years ago, a parishioner in her work and in her life, seemed always to strive effectively to be diplomatic. But get this: whether original or borrowed, she clarified in this way, “Oh yes, I work to be diplomatic when it is called for; diplomacy is the art of allowing others to have my way.” It is an impressive approach if you can pull it off. Now, when the diplomat is God, that definition fits well indeed. The One who is perfectly merciful and perfectly just uniquely practices the art of diplomacy in precisely this way.

The wondrous record of faith, the perplexing library called the Bible, shows us a loving Creator of the Universe giving us one opportunity after another to have things God’s way. That Creator alone justly offers one-sided diplomacy. This is what we find in the marvelously unique prophetic book of Jonah. The prophet Jonah resists the mission given to him by God. Persuasively, God brings Jonah around. Why am I exploring the Jonah story? Well, the dramatic outcome of his resistance and eventual acquiescence to God comes up Sunday in the first lesson of Scripture.

Have you ever avoided work given to you by an authority in your life? You probably haven’t. I remember a breakthrough of maturity for me was to get over myself and be happy to do what was mine to do. It is a miserable experience to spend more time and energy avoiding work than what it would take simply to do the work. My classic memory was the task of a number of spring-cleaning campaigns I hated as a child. It was my parent’s request to straighten and organized the garage. I resisted, postponed, and slithered my way out of the task. When I finally just got in there and did it, I experienced the reward of seeing the result emerge. I learned to drop the resistance. I learned to enjoy responsibility and work for the good it was bringing about.

The garage clean-out given to Jonah was to go to Nineveh and warn them their destruction could be avoided through repentance. If they humbly came to their knees, their huge city would be saved; if they did not, it would be destroyed. It was up to Jonah to deliver the message. The guts of the drama consist of the massive effort Jonah puts out in his refusal to do this thing. I do not know if it was his fear of going into a massive population of foreigners, his disdain for people outside the region and faith of his home base, or a specific irritation with God that such a chance for mercy was offered at all to the undeserving Ninevites.

Jonah is just stubborn enough he brings existential demise on himself trying to get away from his job as a prophet. His foolishness brings him to be swallowed in three ways. He finds himself first in the bowels of a ship headed away from Nineveh, then in the belly of a great fish, and finally in the middle of a city so large it cannot even be visualized in such an ancient setting. Nineveh, it is told, is a city three days journey across, which would be ninety miles in diameter. A population filling a region greater than that of today’s Los Angeles is pretty hard to picture. We thought the ship for his escape was big, as we picture Jonah hunkered down in the hull. We thought the fish was big that swallowed Jonah for his three days of terror, moving back in the direction of his assignment. Now, picture him in the belly of a city this big, to give bad news to the strangers of the mega-metropolis.

I am embarrassed to say my shortest sermon, when I was really trying with all my heart to keep it short, was eight minutes long. It happened only once. Look at Jonah’s sermon; the way it is preserved in the succinct final scene of the book, it is just eight words long. He stands among all those listening and says, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Did the people storm the prophet and take him into custody; did they tear him apart? No. Here is what happened: “And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.” The word quickly gets to the ears of the king, and what does he do? Does he order guards to scoop Jonah up and throw him into the bowels of a dungeon? (That would fit with the motif.) Does he order his immediate execution? No. He orders a citywide fast, oddly, even for the animals:

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything.  —Jonah 3:6-7

And here is the result. In the end, three parties are brought around to the heart of God changing their ways or their plan. First, Jonah stops running from God and the command given.  The people of Nineveh stop their pagan ways: they come around to repent and to follow God. Most impressively, the great Sovereign of the Universe makes a reversal, from the order of justice against Nineveh to the place of mercy and forgiveness:

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.  —Jonah 3:10

It is such an odd story, and so profound. The Hebrew Scripture scholar, Robert Alter, finds nuance and symbolism throughout the book. He points out the name “Jonah” means “dove”. He notes how in the more ancient story of the flood, the hopeless cataclysm is looming. Just as in the Noah story in which the dove is pressed into service to show the emergence of hope, so, “the dove” Jonah, leaves the ship and at length shows the whole world a new start is possible with God. Second chances and perpetually subsequent “second chances” are the surprising offer from a God of justice, who is also the God of mercy and resurrection.

How about you? Here are some questions for all of us. Are you the reluctant one who needs to be brought around to deliver a message of mercy and forgiveness? Will it take you being swallowed up in three frightening dilemmas before you come to be the agent of challenge, change, and renewal? Are you the one determined to exact punishment, or are you open to let the other part of your heart, the chamber of mercy, hold sway? Are you caught up in your seemingly autonomous distance from God, or will you be brought around into friendship and reconciliation with the Holy One? I don’t care how stubborn or dedicated to the resistance we have been. The Creator of all, the Architect of Love, will not drop the persistent, glorious art of letting us have God’s way.