Jonah

Last Sunday Morning at church my youngest son was given a Jonah story book as a Christmas present.  Just before nap time he asked me to read it to him.  As 3 year olds are want to do, he asked me to read the book over and over and over.

It was only 4 pages long, so I felt compelled to oblige.

Since the book was short on pages, it left out a good bit of information.  It was fun to see what my boy of 3 years knew as I asked him questions and he filled in the blanks.  (He and his brother are both big on the idea that it was a 'big fish' not a 'whale' that swallowed Jonah. Where they learned the distinction I'm not sure, but it is important to them.)

Always looking for a moral to apply to familiar stories, we talked about the idea that Jonah's disobedience put other people in danger.

This is one of those stories where it is tempting to argue that God was somehow being unfair to the poor innocent sailors.  Why put everyone on the boat in danger when Jonah was the problem? Why not have a swarm of bugs come bother just Jonah, or cover him with leprosy until he straightened out his act? Why did God choose to put dozens of lives in danger over Jonah's sin?

God is a teacher and always looking to get His point across, and I believe his choice to put the entire ship in danger because of one man's sin was made to teach us.  Here are a few thoughts on what that might be.

1. Our sin affects others. Like it or not, none of us sin in a vacuum. We like to believe that our sins only hurt us, but it isn't true, and this is just one of several places we see the theme repeated in scripture.

Think of Abraham. He decided that waiting for God to fulfill his promise of giving him a son needed some human intervention, so he sired a child with his hand maid. Her descendants are still at war with the children of the promise, and we cannot turn on the news without hearing about it. One guy a few thousand years ago stepped outside his marriage in a culturally acceptable way with his wife's blessing, and millennia of bloodshed ensued.

If only I could keep that perspective when tempted.

2. Sometimes you have to throw someone overboard for the good of the ship.  The sailors didn't want to throw Jonah overboard.  They did everything they could to solve the problem in their own strength before they threw him over, but it wasn't until they tossed him in that the storm stopped.

Jonah knew it had to happen.  He is the one who told them to do it.

I'm trying to imagine being one of these sailors. Hearing this runaway prophet tell me that the only way to survive the storm is to throw him in the ocean, would have perplexed me. On one hand I'd doubt his credibility. Here he is claiming divine knowledge about how to solve the problem, when clearly his deity is not pleased with him. But after I threw him in and it worked, I'd probably wish that I had listened to him sooner, because I would still have some of the cargo that I had thrown in before him.

There may come a time, when you and I have to decide to let someone go, for the good of the ship. Maybe that will be in our personal life, or in a business or ministry setting.  We may not be able to continue in the direction we need to go with them on board. We may feel horrible about it (and we should), but God will take care of them, we have a responsibility to the rest of the crew, to the mission, to the people that entrusted us with their cargo. Usually this just means making decisions that will cause them to jump over board (quit the job, storm out vowing never to speak to you, find a new church etc.)   But sometimes more extreme circumstances call for more extreme measures.  For all of his insight into the problem, Jonah wasn't jumping overboard, he waited to be thrown, knowing he was putting lives, and the mission of the ship, in danger.  Proverbs says "drive out the scoffer and contention will go out, even strife and dishonor will cease.  We see similar ideas as we read 1st Corinthians 5 or Joshua 7.

What do you think?  Am I reading too much into this? 

I have a post on the importance of unity going up tomorrow. That will probably make it look like I disagree with myself (again).  So tune back in tomorrow then let's talk. I would love to discuss this further.

DISCLAIMER:  This thought is not complete, and it is important to note, before letting todays thought simmer, that there is a well outlined plan for how to deal with someone who may need to be thrown overboard in Matthew 18 as well as serious restrictions on when to do it found throughout scripture.  Just like the sailors did not take tossing Jonah overboard lightly, this should only be done with extreme caution under extreme circumstances.