Sermon for June 18th, 2017

Jonah 2:1-10

1 From the belly of the fish he (Jonah) prayed to Yahweh, his God; and he said:

2 Out of my distress I called upon Yahweh, And he answered me; from the belly of Sheol I cried. You heard my voice. 3 You cast me into the abyss, into the heart of the sea, and the flood was all about me. All your waves, your billows washed over me.

4 And I said: I am cast out of the sight of your eyes. How shall I behold again your holy Temple? 5 The waters surrounded me even to my throat, the abyss encompassed me. The seaweed was wrapped about my head 6 at the roots of the mountains. I went down into the countries beneath the earth, to the peoples of the past. But you raised up my life from the pit, Yahweh, my God.

7 While my soul was fainting within me, I remembered Yahweh, And my prayer came before you into your holy Temple. 8 Those who serve worthless idols forfeit the grace that was theirs.

9 But I with song of praise will sacrifice to you. The vow I have made, I will fulfil. From Yahweh comes salvation.

10 And Yahweh spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah out upon the shore.

Jonah: From the Belly of the Whale

The NRSV, as well as the translation I used today (and most translations, to be honest) have Jonah speaking to us from the belly of a "big fish" rather than a whale. But to be fair, in the ancient world, there wasn't really a solid distinction between mammalian and non-mammalian aquatic creatures. If you saw a whale, you'd probably call it a big fish.

So on that basis, I feel reasonably justified in telling you some very juvenile "whale jokes" today:

Why did the whale cross the road? To get to the other tide.

What did the southern whale mamma say to her three babies? Whale, whale, whale, I do declare...

What do whales eat? Fish and ships.

How are a dog and a marine biologist alike? One wags a tail and the other tags a whale.

Fact: Did you know that a blue whale is so long, if it were laid out lengthwise on a football field, the game would totally have to be cancelled?

How do you make a whale float? With root beer, ice cream and a whale?

Meanwhile, back to our tale. The second chapter of the book of Jonah, unlike the other three chapters, is poetry. And because it's an extended prayer, because it doesn't have the same narrative flow as the rest of the story, it often gets skipped over, or summarized by simply saying, "Jonah prayed to God in the belly of the whale, and he repented."

But to summarize or skip over this part of the Book of Jonah would be kind of like going to see William Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, and having the director come out on stage and say, "Two teenagers fall in love and then they die. The end. Go home."

The second chapter of the Book of Jonah is the most beautiful part of the story, the most personal, and perhaps the oldest part as well. It begins with a double cry--an accusation AND a plea for help--both addressed to God.

"YOU cast me into the abyss, into the heart of the sea, and the flood was all about me. All YOUR waves, YOUR billows washed over me." That may seem a little bit odd for those of us who remember just one chapter ago, Jonah was clearly the one saying to the sailors, "Throw me into the sea." But this is also an ancient recognition that God is in control, in charge of ALL things, good and bad. That includes nature (the billows and the waves) but also human nature, all of our decisions and actions come back to God's plan in the end. So God, YOU did this.

Ironically, Jonah was running to get away from Yahweh, which seems pretty futile to us, but now he says "I am cast out from the sight of your eyes." In other words, he finally got his wish. But that vision goes both ways--if God finally cannot see me anymore...that means I can't see God anymore: "How shall I behold again your holy Temple?" (the Temple is a common euphemism for God).

Then beginning in verse 5, we get this wonderful and poetic water imagery: "The waters surrounded me even to my throat, the abyss encompassed me. The seaweed was wrapped about my head at the roots of the mountains." In other words, I have sunk down as far as it is possible to go in this world.

Verse 6 is a bit difficult to translate in Hebrew. Our translation says "I went down into the countries beneath the earth, to the peoples of the past" which would be a poetic way of saying the land of the dead. A more literal translation would be "I went down to a land where bars were shut upon me forever." Another possible reading would be "As I went down (further and further), the land (the earth up there) became barred/locked away from me forever." However you read it, the situation is dire. There is no hope.

And right at this lowest point, the point of death, the point of complete darkness, come these unexpected words:

"But you raised up my life from the pit, Yahweh, my God."

This is the turning point; from here the motion is all upward: 7 While my soul was fainting within me, I remembered זָכָ֑רְתִּי (zachareti) Yahweh. Or, Yahweh "came up" in my mind. Then "my prayer came before you into your holy Temple." Prayers going up, too.

Verse 8-9: "Those who serve worthless idols (literally, those who send up the vapor of vanity) forfeit the grace that was theirs. But I with song of praise will sacrifice to you. The vow I have made, I will fulfil.

Vanity going up in smoke, Song of praise going up, sacrifice going up, promise going up...and presumably Jonah and the Whale going up again, too. Finally, "From Yahweh comes salvation." In other words, ultimately, everyone is going up.

So. There is beautiful imagery, movement, and comfort in this poem, this prayer, when we take the time to actually read it. And if you've spent any amount of time reading another book of the Bible, the Psalms, the second chapter of Jonah may even sound familiar:

Psalm 69: "Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me."

Psalm 42: "Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts; all your waves and your billows have gone over me."

Psalm 88: "You have put me in the depths of the Pit, in the regions dark and deep. Your wrath lies heavy upon me, and you overwhelm me with all your waves . . . They surround me like a flood all day long; from all sides they close in on me."

The metaphor of the drowning man crying out to God is a recurring theme throughout the Psalms. In fact, there's a really good chance that the second chapter of Jonah began its life as a Psalm.

One possibility is that the author of the story gets to the point where Jonah is in the belly of the whale, and needs a really good, moving musical number to stir the hearts of his audience, to capture Jonah's cry and repentance, and he thinks of this old Psalm that would fit really well, one with lots of watery images.

But there's another possibility: Instead of the psalm being added as ornamentation for a pre-existing story, many biblical scholars have speculated that the entire story of Jonah may have been crafted by the author as a vehicle for a famous and well-loved Psalm.