Text: John 3:1-5, 10
Theme: “Once Shy Twice Bitten”
3rd Sunday
after Epiphany
January 25, 2015
FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
Denton, Texas
Rev. Paul R. Dunklau
+In
the Name of Jesus+
Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah
a second time: 2 “Go
to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and
went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very large city; it took three days to go
through it. 4 Jonah
began by going a day’s journey into the city, proclaiming, “Forty more days and
Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The
Ninevites believed God. A fast was proclaimed, and all of them, from the
greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he
relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
“Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time… .” A “second time” implies that there must have
been a first. What do we have here? We’re not even told what happened when the
“word of the Lord came to Jonah the first time”. The first time, the word must have gone in
one ear and out the other.
“First time” takes us to chapter 1, verse 1: “The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of
Amittai: ‘Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its
wickedness has come up before me.’” Then
comes that magnificent Sunday School story about Jonah in the belly of the
great fish. He didn’t go to
Nineveh. He booked passage on a ship to
Tarshish. A horrible storm ensued. The captain and sailors -- who were religious
and superstitious to the extreme, it would appear -- confront Jonah. Maybe this nasty weather that could cause
shipwreck and disaster on the high seas was punishment for some sin. Jonah tells the truth; he’s running from God
(more specifically, from the paneh
Yahweh, the “face of God”). He
volunteers to have them toss him into the churning wake. They don’t want to do it at first, but then
proceed to ask forgiveness for what they are about to do and they do it anyway. Jonah gets the heave ho, and the seas calm
down.
Jonah chapter 1, verse 17:
“But the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah and Jonah was
inside the fish three days and three nights.”
Fast-forward to Jonah chapter 2, verse 10: “And the Lord commanded the fish, and it
vomited Jonah onto dry land.”
Good. Now we’re caught up.
There’s an old saying that goes like this: “Once bitten twice shy.” What this idiom means is that if something or
someone hurts you, you tend to avoid that something or someone in the
future. For example, Jill says: “Let’s go ride the rollercoaster.” Jane replies:
“No, thanks. I got really sick on
one of those once.” Once bitten twice
shy.
Jonah, interestingly enough, is this idiom in reverse. Instead of “Once bitten twice shy”, it’s
“once shy twice bitten.”
The first “bite”, if you will, is the first word of the
Lord. And Jonah is shy about that word –
that is, he is willing to obey that word but only up to a point he determines. The word of God said “go.” Jonah went.
But he didn’t go to the place where God told him to go. He was shy about the full import of the
word. He was shy; he got it only
partially right.
When was the last time the word of the Lord came to you like
it did to Jonah? Well, for my own part,
I have no experience of the Lord directly telling me to go to such and such
place and do or say this or that. Direct
revelation to me has not been my experience.
In my experience, the word of the Lord to me is what the Lord wants me
to do – based on what the Scriptures say, the counsel that trusted family
members and friends give me, discernment, and, at times, much prayer. I call it “the right thing.” What God wants me to go and do is the right
thing.
Have you ever had the experience where you know what God
wants you to do, the right thing to do, but you just can’t seem to get it
right, or do it right, one hundred percent?
“Bitten”, if you will, by the right thing to do, you become shy; you
become hesitant; you’re willing to go, but not wholeheartedly.
There’s a man I’m thinking of. Lets call him “John Doe.” John Doe is Christian, and he loves his wife,
Jane. Jane says, “You offered to help
me, and I really need to get a gallon of skim milk. I’m pretty busy at the moment. Do you think
you could run over to Kroger and get the milk? No hurry. I just need it by
tonight.” John, a Christian, knows the
Scripture which says of marriage:
“Submit to one another out of reverence to Christ,” and so he decides to
go! But then he remembers that new pair
of Nike running shoes that he showed to Jane weeks ago. Jane said, “Go ahead and get buy them.” John says, “Nah, I really don’t need
them.” But, on his way over to Kroger to
get the skim milk, he sees Sports Authority in the corner of his eye. What would he rather do, jockey for position
in the Kroger parking lot or pull into Sports Authority? That’s a no-brainer; the milk can wait. So he has gone, presumably, to do what his
wife told him. But it doesn’t end up
that way. In the end, he walks out with
those new running shoes and a few other goodies he convinced himself he needed. Skim milk was the farthest thing from his
mind. He starts to head home, but he
gets caught in a traffic jam on Loop 288!
(This is like the belly of the fish from the Jonah story!) Then the bad traffic finally “vomits” him
into his neighborhood, and he is bitten a second time: “Oh my!
I’m supposed to go get skim milk!”
He turns right around, gets to Kroger, only to discover that they’re out
of skim milk!
The comparison of the fictitious John Doe to Jonah is
certainly not perfect; I can’t really say it’s “apples to apples”. In fact, John Doe actually intended to pick
up the milk when his wife asked him.
When God said to Jonah “Go to Nineveh”, it says that Jonah “ran away
from the face of the Lord.” He had no
intention of going to Nineveh.
What about Tarshish?
Now THAT option held promise! Why
Tarshish? Here’s the reasoning presented
by Presbyterian pastor and author, Eugene Peterson:
For
one thing, it is a lot more exciting than Nineveh. Nineveh was an ancient site with layer after
layer of ruined and unhappy history.
Going to Nineveh to preach was not a coveted assignment for a Hebrew
prophet with good references. But
Tarshish was something else. Tarshish
was exotic. Tarshish was adventure. Tarshish had the appeal of the unknown
furnished with baroque details from the fantasizing imagination. Tarshish in the biblical references was a
“far-off and sometimes idealized port.”
Tarshish was like a paradise on earth, a shangrila! It’s “Vegas, baby”! For John Doe, it was Sports Authority. What is Tarshish for you?
Friends, we could spend an entire church year or more just
unpacking the gifts, teachings, applications, and insights that God gives us in
the book – and story! – of Jonah. Maybe
we should!
One initial lesson Jonah teaches is about humility. Jonah was shy because he was afraid: he was afraid of God; he feared failure; he
feared rejection. All those fears were
too much and Tarshish sounded so good.
To Tarshish he went. He disobeyed
God. That’s the first movement of the
story. The second time, after the belly
of the fish and the second “bite” (or word from the Lord), Jonah does
obey. But at the end of the book, he’s
still not happy. In fact, he’s angry –
angry that the Lord would show compassion and love to the Gentile Ninevites and
not keep divine compassion and love reserved for the Jews, the “chosen”
ones.
Again, Eugene Peterson:
The
first movement in the story shows Jonah disobedient; the second shows him
obedient. Both times Jonah fails. We never do see a successful Jonah. He never gets it right. I find this rather comforting… . This is training in humility, which turns out
to be not a groveling but a quite cheerful humility.
In all our disobedience AND obedience, we don’t get it
right. In the Christian reckoning, only
the One who was made known, made manifest in that first epiphany season gets it
right – even Jesus Christ.
In God’s reckoning, even the twice-failing, unsuccessful
Jonah was great. Nineveh changed its
mind; it repented. Mission accomplished.
Jesus says: “The men
of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it;
for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is
here.”
That greater One is the One we worship here today. And, our obedience and disobedience
notwithstanding, we, like the Ninevites, have, today, confessed our sins,
changed our minds, turned to God, and heard the good word of forgiveness. Now we get to serve in cheerful
humility!
Amen.
(Quotations from Eugene Peterson were
drawn from his work, Under the
Unpredictable Plant: An Exploration in
Vocational Holiness.)
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