A favorite childhood Bible story for many of us is the story of Jonah.  And, of course, the thing we remember about this story is the great fish—Jonah was swallowed by a giant fish, and spent three days in its belly.  As adults, we may be inclined to dismiss Jonah’s story as a fairy tale.  After all, we know it’s impossible to survive three days in the belly of a fish.  But for a moment, let’s suspend our disbelief and look at this part of the story metaphorically:  What could it mean to be trapped in the belly of a fish?

Jonah was swallowed by the fish and taken down to the depths of the ocean, to the very bottom of the world.  He was afraid and worried about what would happen to him.  His world became very small and contracted.  All he could think about was himself and his predicament.  And from this place of depth and despair, he did the only thing he could do:  He prayed.  And God heard his prayer and delivered him, sort of.

But let’s back up, because you probably don’t remember how Jonah ended up being swallowed by the fish.  Jonah was a prophet of Israel in the 8th century B.C.E., a time when Israel struggled with its faith and with the nations around it.  One day, out of the blue, the word of God came to him, saying, “Get up! Go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before me.”  Now Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, Israel’s longtime enemy, famous in the ancient world for its cruelty.  So what did Jonah, the prophet of Israel, do?  He went down to the port city of Joppa and boarded a boat headed for Tarshish, about as far in the opposite direction from Nineveh as you could get in the ancient world, to flee from the presence of God.

Of course, as readers, not to mention people of faith, we know that it’s simply impossible to flee from the presence of God—after all, where is God not?  God knew what Jonah was doing and sent a mighty wind upon the sea, making such a great storm that the boat threatened to break apart.  The sailors were terrified, and each prayed to his god.  But Jonah had gone down into the ship’s hold and fallen asleep.  Think about that—imagine how you must be feeling to sleep during the worst, life-threatening storm at sea.

Jonah really was trying to flee from God’s presence, in the only way he could—he shut everything out.  He was oblivious to the tempest around him.  He shut down his own mind and heart so he wouldn’t have to face God’s command.

The ship’s captain found him sleeping in the hold and said, “What’s with you, sleeper? Get up, call upon your god!  Maybe the god will be kind and we will not perish.”  The sailors decided to cast lots to find out on whose account this storm had come upon them—their version of CSI: Ancient Israel.  The lot naturally fell on Jonah—these ancient methods of investigation could be surprisingly accurate.  And the sailors asked him, “What is your business?  Where have you come from?  What is your country, and of what people are you?” Jonah replied, “I am a Hebrew. I worship Adonai, the God of Heaven, who made both sea and land.”  And he told them that he was fleeing from God’s service, from God’s very presence.  They were terrified.  Even as pagans, they knew the name of God—Adonai, the Eternal One; translated in the Bible as “the LORD” in small capital letters, and today sometimes pronounced as “Yahweh”.  The sailors knew that it is impossible to flee from Adonai’s presence.  And they asked Jonah what they had to do to him to make the sea calm.  Jonah instructed them to throw him overboard.  They couldn’t bear to send him to his death, so they tried to row for shore, to no avail.  And finally, they prayed to God—to Adonai, the God of Israel—that they not perish on Jonah’s account; and also that they not be held guilty for killing him.  They threw him to the sea, and it stopped raging.  And the sailors, in awe of God, offered a sacrifice and made vows.  At this point, God provides the great fish to swallow Jonah.

In some ways, this turn of events is exactly what we expected.  We know that Jonah can’t escape from God.  As the “hero” of the story, he is expected to do the right thing and save the sailors at his own expense.  But look at the sailors.  They had been good, caring people all along.  And  when they saw what was happening with Jonah, they immediately opened their hearts to God and took up Israelite worship practices.  They become models of ideal faith and practice.  Jonah the prophet, on the other hand, begins from a selfish, contracted place in the hold of the boat, and ends up in the belly of the fish—a contracted place at the lowest depths of human experience.  From this place, Jonah prays. And this is what he says:*

From my distress I called out to the LORD
and he heeded me
From the womb of Sheol I cried out
and you heard my voice.
And you cast me into the depths
in the heart of the sea
and the flood engulfed me;
all your breakers and billows overcame me.
And I thought I was expelled from before your eyes;
Would you ever again reveal to me
your divine presence?
The waters surrounded me
the abyss engulfed me
an end was bound to my head.
I sank to the base of the mountains
as the earth withdrew from me forever
yet you raised my life from the pit
O LORD my God.
When my life was ebbing away
I remembered the LORD
and my prayer came before you
to your divine presence.
Those who cling to useless vanity
abandon their loving-kindness.
But I, with a thankful voice
will yield to you
what I have vowed, I will do
towards salvation for the LORD.

In his prayer, Jonah tells the story of his spiritual spiral downward.  He describes how he was expelled from God’s presence, and finally remembered God.  And God answered his prayer and brought him to a new life.  In the end, this is a prayer of thanksgiving for God’s loving-kindness, with an implied promise to remain steadfast to God just as God has remained steadfast to Jonah.  It seems that Jonah has accepted his life as a prophet.  The fish spits him out, and the word of God again comes to Jonah, telling him to go to Nineveh and proclaim its impending destruction. This time, Jonah goes.  He marches through the city, declaring, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!”

The people of Nineveh believed God.  They proclaimed a fast and put on sackcloth, which is the Israelite sign of mourning and repentance.  Even the king, when he heard the prophecy, did the same and decreed that everyone wear sackcloth and fast—even the animals.  He said, “Who knows, maybe God will turn and relent?  God may turn back from God’s wrath so that we do not perish.”  And when God saw that the Ninevites did turn from their wicked ways, God did relent and did not destroy them.

A happy ending for everyone, right?  Jonah was a hero who with a few words not only saved a city but caused them to turn away from evil and towards Adonai, the God of Israel.  But that’s not how Jonah saw it.  He wanted to see Nineveh destroyed.  He cried out against God and prayed, “Please, God, take my life, for I would rather die than live.”  And God replied, “Are you that deeply grieved?”  Jonah didn’t say so, but his answer clearly was yes.  He was so deeply grieved.  He had his own ideas about what was supposed to happen.  He had again become contracted around his idea of how things should be, and around his own fortunes and feelings.  Just like Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus, he had hardened his heart—because he didn’t get what he wanted, a prophet of Israel became like one of Israel’s greatest adversaries.

Meanwhile, the supposedly wicked Ninevites became the models of virtue and faith.  They heard the truth of God’s word and turned to follow in the way of the Eternal One.  Jonah heard the same truth, the same word, but he turned away because it wasn’t the answer he wanted.  Jonah’s contracted state craved vengeance.  God’s open state brought compassion.  Jonah now went alone with his misery outside the city and built a booth so he could sit in the shade.  God provided a plant to grow over Jonah to shade him and give him comfort.  And Jonah was happy about the plant.  But the next day God sent a worm that attacked the plant and made it wither.  God also sent a sultry east wind, so the sun beat down on Jonah and he became faint.  Jonah again begged for death, saying, “I would rather die than live.”  And God asked Jonah, “Are you so deeply grieved about the plant?”  Jonah said, “Yes, so deeply that I want to die.”

God’s response gives the clear moral for Jonah.  God said:  “You cared about the plant, which you did not work for and which you did not grow, which appeared overnight and perished overnight. And shouldn’t I care about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 people who do not yet know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

We don’t know if Jonah ever learns his lesson.  We consider Jonah’s story a comedy, partly because of the fantastic elements, but especially because we see ourselves as being better than Jonah.  If God’s word came to me, after all—if I realized a great eternal truth—I would recognize it and obey, not try to flee.  I don’t cry out for God to destroy those I hate—I rejoice in God’s compassion.  I would never push my selfish agenda against God’s will.  I’m no hard-hearted Pharaoh.  But take a look at your own actions and your own feelings—your desires and your aversions.  I’ll bet there are times when you didn’t like the plan God seemed to have for you, and wished things were different—your heart became hardened and contracted.  Where are these places of contraction for you?  Where is there a pain, an anger, a sadness, a longing that you try to avoid, change, or satisfy by making things the way you want them to be?  And whom have you hurt in the process?  Like Jonah, we all lose sight of God at times.  When things don’t go the way we want, we really do flee from God’s presence.  And since this is impossible, we do the only thing we can:  We contract to hide God from our eyes and shut God out of our hearts.  Our world becomes very small, and we can think only of ourselves.  As we see from Jonah’s experience on the boat, from this place we do harm to others.  And as we see from Jonah sitting under the tree outside Nineveh, from this place we do the most harm to ourselves.

But look also at the wonders of this fantastic story: pagan sailors who become God’s faithful at Jonah’s word.  An entire cruel, violent city of 120,000 who change their ways just because Jonah tells them to.  God’s presence and compassion—the love of the Eternal—were there all along, and led to wonderful things.  If only Jonah could have opened to it and rejoiced in the way things are.  This is our challenge as well.  Can you see the contracted places in your own life?  Can you see where you are refusing to accept what is, where you are refusing to let God in?  Can you see the presence of the Eternal in your life, and set your contractions aside to discover its expansiveness?  And do you have the courage to open to what is, and the faith that you will rejoice in what you find?