Third Sunday in Ordinary Time, January 24, 2021 – Jonah 3:1-5, 10; 1 Corinthians 7:29-31; Mark 1:14-20

So, did you guess the modern city? It was Mosul, in Iraq. That has been a settled area of the world for more than four millennia, perhaps even longer than that. Today’s first reading is joined to the gospel because both of them have an image of people immediately dropping everything, and changing their focus or their outlook because God says to. But, in order to understand the whole meaning of the book of the prophet Isaiah, we have to know a little bit of the history behind the story. This is familiar territory. We’ve been there before.

During the height of Israel’s national life in the middle years of the millennium before Jesus, they were a great power. But, after the reign of King David, the kingdom was divided into two regions, which were called Israel and Judah, and although sons of his reigned on the thrones, and after them their descendants, and although they were all Jews, they did not get along well. The northern kingdom was called Israel. It was right on the border with Assyria. Take away the first two letters, the A and the S, and you get Syria. Modern day Syria and Iraq were ancient Assyria - a very powerful force in the Middle East then, as they are now. They were constantly threatening the northern kingdom, and eventually they overran the northern kingdom and took captive most of its people - at least the craftspeople and the royalty - and took them away to Assyria.

The southern kingdom, watching all of this, made an unfortunate alliance with its one time enemy, Egypt – “my enemy’s enemy is my friend.” Against the warnings of the great prophets, especially Isaiah and Jeremiah, they warned them that God forbade contact with pagan nations in that way. But the rulers wouldn’t listen and, eventually, Assyria also besieged, and then destroyed the southern kingdom, with its capital of Jerusalem, and those people, also, were led away to captivity.

The job of the next man with the name Isaiah, was to comfort the people in their time of exile. But during the century when the Jewish people en masse lived in that area, they began to have some understanding and appreciation for the culture of these pagan people, and to adapt themselves to some of their ways. So that, at the end of their exile, when Persia conquered Assyria, and King Cyrus allowed them to go back home, and sent them home with oodles and oodles of money to rebuild their kingdom, they came home with a different view. And the third Isaiah tried to convince the people that their task, as believers of the word of God, Yahweh, was not just to ridicule and belittle the pagan gods of the world around them, but rather to show people the true way, by opening their society and welcoming those of other beliefs to come and see the fullness of God’s goodness in Yahweh, God. But when the people came home, there were two factions that were in tension with each other. One group wanted to go out to the rest of the world with their message. The other group felt that, having suffered so badly under these pagan kings, they would have nothing else to do with the rest of the world ever, ever. Israel was closed, and no one was welcome, and they would not go out, except to do business. Unfortunately, those people prevailed.

That’s what you find when Jesus comes, is a nation closed to the outside world. Jesus comes in the northern kingdom, where there was some contact with pagans, one reason why, since the very beginning of His preaching, He was suspect.

So, with this as a background, you have to take another look at the book of the prophet Jonah, because it’s not really about any real prophet; it’s an allegory. It’s a story that was made up to teach Israel a lesson about their attitudes instead of xenophobia and isolationism. And it’s a story in five acts. Someday you should take out your bible, and read the whole of the story of Jonah. It only takes about ten minutes.

Act one. God sends Jonah to preach to the Ninevites. But Jonah doesn’t want to go for two reasons. First of all, they’re his enemy and he hates them. Secondly, he does not want them to be saved. He wants them to go to hell. He does not want them to be saved. And so, he books passage in the exact opposite direction, to a place called Tarsish - in the Psalms it’s called “the end of the world.” Tarsish is the last known civilized place in all of Western Europe. That’s how far he wants to go.

Act two. There is a violent storm at sea. He is the only Jew on board; everybody else worships pagan gods. They all kneel down and pray to their various gods to save them from the storm. Jonah will not pray to his god. He cowers in the hold of the ship, until they find him there and they say, “Why aren’t you praying? What did you do that your god is punishing all of us?“ They jettison their cargo, and along with it they toss Jonah overboard.

Act three, Jonah is swallowed - we say by a whale, but that’s not what it was - he was swallowed by a great sea monster. The sea monsters were used in Jewish literature as a symbol for pagan society. And so Jonah is swallowed up by the great sea monster. But then the sea monster, after a perfect journey of three days, spits him out on the shore. God says to him again, “Jonah, go preach to the Ninevites.” This time Jonah does it.

Act four. At the end of the first day of his preaching - it took him three days to go through the village - at the end of the first day, everyone repents. Instantly. Including the king, the symbol of pagan authority and power. Is Jonah happy? Jonah is furious. He did not want them to repent.

Act five. Jonah storms off into the desert, angry at God, and comes to rest, in the evening, under a tree, bitter, and angry, and hateful. The next morning, he wakes up to find his shade tree dead. He rails against God. And God says to him, “Have you cause to complain about this tree?” And Jonah says, “I have cause.” And God says, “if you are so upset over the death of one tree, should not I, the Lord of everyone, be even more upset that maybe one great nation that I’ve created may never see eternal life?” And that’s where the story ends. In act five. With a question.

We live now in a time of great xenophobia, fear and resentment toward people who are different from us in various ways. In a time of isolationism. Both in our civil life, and in our church life. St. Paul says, at the end of the second reading, “For the world, as we know it to be, is passing away.” I will leave you to make your own application of the parable of Jonah to the life that you live.