(Jonah 1) 28 November 2021
Neil Millar
‘I’m done, I’m dead’: Man swallowed alive by humpback whale,reads a headline in Yahoo News, dated 12 June 2021. ‘A diver says he’s lucky to be alive after being swallowed by a humpback whale’, the article continues. Michael Packard, from Wellfleet, Massachusetts, was lobster diving in waters off Cape Cod when he felt a huge shove from behind and everything went black. At first, he thought he’d been attacked by a shark, but quickly determined it was another creature’s mouth he’d ended up in. ‘I could feel compressions’, he said, ‘crushing my legs …I was trying to swim out but nothing was working’ ‘I’m done, I’m dead’, he thought. Michael estimates he spent nearly a minute in the mouth of the beast before it rose to the surface and literally spat him out. Incredibly he remained conscious throughout the ordeal, and the only injury he suffered was tendon damage to one of his legs. He was taken to hospital for treatment and has since been released. Jooke Robbins, from the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, said it was likely the whale swallowed Mr Packard by accident.
Well, you may’ve read this piece or seen Packard’s interview on 60 Minutes. It’s an incredible story and I couldn’t resist using it to introduce this little Advent series. Though I hasten to add that, despite Packard’s experience, I don’t think the Book of Jonah is first and foremost a literal account. A carefully crafted, brilliantly creative and humorous literary piece conveying profound theological truth – yes! I’m convinced, which is why dismissing it because elements of the story seem implausible is to miss the point of the story, which is to stretch our perspective on God, and on who and what God cares for.
So, my friends, to the salty tale. Chapter 1, verse 1: And the word of YHWH happened to Jonah son of Amittai, saying: ‘Get up, journey to Nineveh the great city and call out against her because their badness has come up in my face!’ This is the translation of OT scholar, Jeanette Mathews, who teaches at St Mark’s, here in Canberra. This opening line is a clear commission from God. Things aren’t always as obvious when it comes to hearing God’s voice, but for Jonah there’s no mistaking it. And it’s big!! ‘Nineveh, the capital of the fierce Neo-Assyrian empire, is a great city, but for all the wrong reasons. Nineveh spells violence, death, torture’ (Anstey 2009.38). To use a contemporary analogy, it’d be like you or me being asked to go to ISIS headquarters, and telling them they’re doing it all wrong!! Jonah could be eaten alive if goes here (well, actually!!).
Nineveh; 500 miles in this direction. What did Jonah do? Went down to Joppa and booked a cruise to Tarshish; 2,500 miles in that direction – almost directly opposite!! I told you this was a humorous tale; and here’s the first laugh – Jonah evading God!! How will that go, we ask? Not well, we suspect. Verse 4: And YHWH hurled a great wind on the sea and there was a great whirlwind in the sea and the ship thought herself to be bashed to bits. And the sailors feared, and they cried out, each man to his gods, and they hurled the wares which were in the ship into the sea to make lighter for them. But Jonah went down to the remotest part of the vessel and lay down and fell into a deep sleep.
‘Yahweh storms, the sailors shudder,
Jonah snores.
Yahweh throws the wind, the sailors throw the cargo,
Jonah throws a blanket over himself’ (Anstey 2009.38).
His evasion of God and the call on his life is turning out to have consequences, not just for himself but for others. And that’s the thing – what we might think of as private refusals (infidelities) can have dramatic social and ecological effects.
Back to the story. The chief rigger finds Jonah curled up in the hold and questions him: What’s with your sleeping? Get up, call out to your god. Perhaps the God will consider us and we will not perish. At the same time, the stricken crew decide to cast lots ‘so we will know on whose account this bad thing is against us’. They cast lots, and predictably, the lot was cast (more hurling) on Jonah! ‘Tell us please on whose account this bad thing is against us? What’s your occupation and where are you from? What is your country and from which people are you?’ ‘Hebrew I am’, says Jonah, ‘and YHWH the God of the heavens I fear, who made the sea and the dry land. And the men feared with a great fear and said to him, ‘What is this you have done?’
At this point, the narrator makes it absolutely clear that all this disturbance is to do with Jonah, adding: For the men knew that he was fleeing from the face of YHWH, because he had told them so. They ask him, what they should do, and Jonah replies: ‘Lift me up and hurl me into the sea and the sea will quiet down from over you. Because I know that on account of me this great whirlwind is upon you’. Desperate as they are, the crew are reluctant, perhaps dreading greater reprisal from Jonah’s God. They take to the oars and try rowing for shore but are constantly thwarted by huge waves. Finally, defeated, they cry: ‘Please YHWH, please do not let us perish on account of the breath of this man, and do not give us the blood of the innocent one because you, YHWH, as you like, you do’. And they lifted Jonah and hurled him into the sea and the sea stood still from its raging. And the men feared with a great fear of YHWH and they sacrificed a sacrifice to YHWH and they vowed vows’.
And that’s where the Hebrew (Masoretic) text, concludes the chapter – with the pagan sailors vowing and bowing in worship to God, and the so-called God-fearing prophet drowning on account of his avoidance. In our English versions, the chapter division comes one verse later, with the narrative addition: ‘And YHWH appointed a great (lady) fish to swallow Jonah, and he was in the insides of the fish for three days and three nights’.
More of this next week. For now, a few more comments on this first dramatic chapter of the story.
Of the large cast of characters in this opening scene, the chief protagonists are YHWH and Jonah. YHWH is the first to be introduced, and very quickly we discover that he is a God who initiates contact and actively enlists human beings in his work in the world, and who is attentive to the operation of human communities, including communities that do not worship him, such as Nineveh (the great Assyrian city).
Jonah appears next, and though he is of the people of God (a Hebrew) and claims to ‘fear YHWH’, it’s clear from the outset that he has no interest in the task to which he’s commissioned. Though twice called to ‘get up’ (by God, and the captain) and once ‘lifted up’ (by the crew), Jonah is intent on going down – ‘down’ to Joppa, ‘down’ into the ship, ‘down’ into the hold, and ‘down’ into a deep sleep. This three-fold mention of ‘went down’ ‘underscores the deliberate movement of Jonah towards the depths in order to flee from the “God of the heavens” (1.9)’ (Mathews 204). To the audience, Jonah’s resistance seems pointless, for this God (whom Jonah himself has already acknowledged is creator of sea and dry land – aka everything) has a cast of non-human characters (aka circumstances) to assist in bringing Jonah to account – the wind, the waves, and the fish, for a start.
Which brings us to another characteristic of this God – persistence. Jonah is dogged in refusal, and YHWH matches him every step of the way; equally determined, steadfast, in his refusal to give up on his reluctant prophet and possibilities for his life.
So at the close of a chapter brimming with greatness – a great call to preach to a great city, a great storm, great waves, great peril, great fear, and a great fish, Jonah is looking pretty small. And at the close of a chapter in which he’s made a daring bid to break free of God’s call and his responsibility, he’s looking pretty constrained. In Michael Packard’s case, being swallowed by a whale seemed a quirky accident of nature; in Jonah’s case, it seems pregnant with significance. As in the season of Advent, something has come towards him from beyond – something which, though huge, dark and terrifying, holds mysteriously a promise to be realised in the fullness of time.
And for more of this, stay tuned folks – same time, same channel, next Sunday!!
References
Matthew Anstey (2009) ‘Becoming a Public Theologian: Jonah’s Journey to Nineveh’, St Mark’s Review, No. 207 (1).
Jeanette Mathews (2020) Prophets as Performers, Cascade Books, Eugene, OR.