When God Calls your name: Jonah- you can run but you can’t hide CFUMC March 24, 2019

 When God Calls your name: Jonah- you can run but you can’t hide

CFUMC March 24, 2019

Human beings have a fight/flight/freeze instinct. In dangerous situations, it can save our lives. If we are attacked by a lion we must choose between fight, flight or freezing. The wrong choice can be the difference between life and death.

Sometimes that instinct kicks in when it is not really a life and death, such as any new experience, a job review, or an emotionally charged discussion. Hearing God’s call is one of those times when fight/flight/ freeze is not necessary but sometimes it happens. Sometimes we fight, protesting, “Not me.” like Sara, or making excuses like Moses. Sometimes we just freeze as though we think if we hold real still maybe God won’t be able to see us and will go away. This week, however, I want to talk about the flight response. When God calls Jonah to go to Nineveh, he chooses flight: he takes off the other direction as fast as his legs will carry him.

The book of Jonah tells a story about an 8th century BC prophet named Jonah, who is also mentioned in 2 Kings chapter 14. Jonah is from a town near the sea of Galilee. He had it pretty easy as prophets go. Most of the prophets brought messages that no one wanted to hear. Jonah had a message that pleased people. He said that Israel would expand its borders in certain regions and Jeroboam II did just that.

Then Jonah’s luck runs out because he received a message that HE didn’t want to hear. “Go to Nineveh for their wickedness has come to God’s attention.”

That doesn’t sound so bad, but we need to understand a couple of things. Nineveh was the capital of Assyria, and the Assyrians were notoriously cruel in battle. They did things to their enemies that we can’t talk about before lunch. Let’s just say they enslaved, abused and tortured them. The Assyrians had not yet attacked Israel or Judah, but they were the greatest military threat of Jonah’s day. Jonah was frankly afraid of them.

He also hated them. The Assyrians were militantly pagan and forced their beliefs on conquered nations.

Finally, fear and hatred toward the Ninevites, Jonah had a bad feeling. He knew God was a God of steadfast love and mercy and grace. Steadfast love and grace is great until God offers it to those whom you fear and hate.  Jonah was afraid of the Assyrians, he was even more afraid that God might bless those wretched dogs. Jonah wanted Nineveh to be destroyed.

So, Jonah came up with a plan… run away, run away.

Do you just want to run away sometimes? I don’t mean run away from dishes, and taxes, and house payments, and kids (or parents) … We all want to do that at one time or another. I am asking you to dig deep inside and tell yourself the truth, do you ever want to run away from God? Have you ever received a nudge from God and when you couldn’t ignore it, you ran away? If you say “no”, I think you could be the exception. Most of us struggle mightily with hearing and responding to God’s call.

Samuel, Isaiah, and others say to God: “Here I am, send me.” Jonah says: “There I go! Get some other chump!” Which will you be?

 If you do want to run from God… we can learn some lessons from Jonah.

First, if you are going to run from God, you have to go further than the middle of the ocean. Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying, 2 “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” 3 But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.

 God calls Jonah to go 600 miles East to preach in Nineveh. (That is the House to the Gold star).

 Instead, Jonah traveled 66 miles to the South West in order to hire sailors to take him 4,714 miles to Tarshish in Spain. The only reason he didn’t go further is that he didn’t know about North America. 

God tells him to go east and Jonah sets off to the west and just for good measure, he goes 8 times further than God wanted him to go. That ought to be far enough don’t you think? You don’t think so?

You are absolutely right. No matter how far Jonah went, God knew exactly where he was. It is no fun playing hide and seek with a God who is everywhere and knows all things.

Psalm 139 helps us to understand:

 Where can I go from your spirit?

 Or where can I flee from your presence?

If I ascend to heaven, you are there;

 if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there.

 If I take the wings of the morning

 and settle at the farthest limits of the sea,

even there your hand shall lead me,

 and your right hand shall hold me fast.

 If I say, “Surely the darkness shall cover me,

 and the light around me become night,”

even the darkness is not dark to you;

 the night is as bright as the day,

 for darkness is as light to you.

 If you are going to run from God, you better go further than God can reach. The problem is God is Omnipresent… everywhere… God is Omniscient knows all things. So, you must go a lot further than in the middle of the ocean. Too bad Jonah didn’t hear this sermon first.

 Second, Jonah teaches us that If you want to run from God, don’t start praying when you get in trouble!

God meets Jonah’s ship in the middle of the ocean and sends a terrible storm upon it. The Sailors who were not followers of God prayed to their own Gods, they lightened the boat, they did everything good sailors knew to do. They finally woke Jonah to pray to his God and soon discovered that they are harboring a fugitive from God’s call. Jonah told them to toss him overboard and the storm would stop. Still, they tried everything they could, including rowing to shore, and nothing calmed the storm. Finally, they prayed to Jonah’s God for forgiveness, threw Jonah overboard kind of like human sacrifice, and the storm stopped. (incidentally, they soon began to believe in God.)

God provides a fish to protect Jonah. It doesn’t say whale like you might have been taught, but it says God prepared a fish. Now, I don’t know what it would look like in a fish stomach, but just consider it an educated guess that it wouldn’t smell very good.

After Jonah set up camp, (I love that picture)… After Jonah sets up camp, what does he do? Does anyone know? He prays… that’s right. The one who is trying to run from God… the one trying to play hide and seek with God… the one going out of his way to do the opposite of what God calls him to do… prays from the belly of the fish.

I understand. It is natural human instinct, to grab for anything we can if we are about to fall. It is natural to reach out to God.  But you can’t have it both ways.

Jonah prays…

  “I called to the LORD out of my distress, and he answered me;

out of the belly of Sheol I cried, and you heard my voice.

You cast me into the deep, into the heart of the seas,

 and the flood surrounded me; all your waves and your billows

 passed over me.

Then I said, ‘I am driven away from your sight; how shall I look again

 upon your holy temple?’

The waters closed in over me; the deep surrounded me;

weeds were wrapped around my head at the roots of the mountains.

I went down to the land whose bars closed upon me forever;

yet you brought up my life from the Pit, O LORD my God.

As my life was ebbing away, I remembered the LORD;

and my prayer came to you, into your holy temple.

Does that sound like someone trying to run away from God?  Let’s put it this way. You don’t set off fireworks when you are playing hide and seek. So, if you want to run from God make sure you don’t start praying when you get in trouble.

 Finally, If you want to run from God, you better hope God is merciful and lets you out the front door.

I look at it this way… There were only two ways out of that fish… When God had the fish spew Jonah out the front door he was being merciful. The back door would have been even worse.

In other words, if you are going to run from God understand that there will be consequences. Mostly you will be found because you can run but you can’t hide. But Along the way intentionally disobeying God never turns out well. You might not be eaten by a big fish… but you may run into all kinds of unpleasant complications in life. Until you finally decide to run toward God instead of away.  God will try anything he can to get your attention. Before it is all over you may think Jonah got by pretty easy being vomited out on the shore.

 Maybe running from God is not such a good idea. I guess when you consider that God is all present, all knowing, all seeing, and all-powerful running doesn’t seem like a very good idea.

Nonetheless, I kind of like Jonah – I like his story. He’s real – and he struggles with issues I struggle with:

*What do you do when you don’t want to do what God wants you to do?

* What do you do when you know what’s right, but that’s just not the path you want to travel?

* What do you do when God’s plans and your plans just don’t match?

* What do you do when you don’t know if you can trust God?

* Perhaps the worst struggle of all – What do you do when God asks you to do something… you know God asks you to do something… you have heard God’s voice… and it is undeniable… but it is something that you resent, or fear, or don’t believe you can do… What do you do?

These are Jonah’s dilemmas. These are my dilemmas. Are they yours? I suspect there’s a little of Jonah lurking in the heart of every one of us –our human will is locked in a power struggle with God!

If you listen carefully enough and long enough eventually God may say, obey!

And you may say, “No way!”

You would not be the first. Names that immediately come to mind are Noah, Sara, Isaac, Moses, The Israelites in the desert, David, Daniel, Hosea, Joseph, Peter, Paul… get the idea… and me too. It’s OK to add your name to the list of those who have tried to run from God, but notice we all end up running right back into God’s arms.

You could run from God… or you can try… but you can’t hide!