Rev. Jean's Bible Study

Jonah 3   Change Happens! Nineveh was an exceedingly large city.   Jonah was just one person walking through town and calling out the impending destruction.   Yet the people heard and believed and changed their evil ways.   I wonder how long it took for the king to hear the news.   It seems that everyone great and small had already put on their sackcloth before the king got around to making his proclamation.   It makes me think about our politicians finally setting targets for electric vehicles when most of us have already decided that our next car will be electric.   Can we use our imaginations and stretch this story to reinforce the idea that what we do also affects the animals in our midst?   They too suffer, fasting and putting on sackcloth, in order for us to be brought to the point of repentance, of change, of turning from evil and violence with the hope that we will not perish. photo by Jean in Yellowstone Park  

Jonah 2:1-3:3   How Bad Can it Get? Photo by Chris Gallagher on Unsplash From the belly of the fish, Jonah prayed to God.   How bad does it have to get before we give up and get on with God’s plan?   We have seen towns, “cast into the deep, surrounded by flood”.   Do we need to wait until “life is ebbing away” before we remember God?   God answers Jonah’s prayer and he is spewed out onto the shore. Before he can catch his breath, God sends him on his way to Nineveh.   God doesn’t rescue us from our troubles; God sends us into those troubling situations that we have the power to change.   Thankfully we don’t go alone.  

 Sacrifice   Jonah 1:11-16   The theology of sacrificial atonement is repugnant to me.   The idea that God demanded or planned that Jesus should be tortured and die “in my place” or “for my sin” is ridiculous.   How could Jesus “pay the price” in order to redeem my sin?   Are my sins, or yours, so great that they demand torture?   Who is Jesus paying?   Is God so vindictive that the only way to satisfy God’s anger is with murder?   I have no desire to be washed in the blood of Jesus. It just doesn’t make sense to me.   (Excuse the rant.) However, I have experienced the sacrifice of one for the salvation of many.   Sometimes a dangerous situation requires someone to put themselves at risk so that others can be saved.   In that sense, Jesus died for the sins of the world and Jonah was sacrificed for the sake of the other sailors.   Sometimes evil or nature, is going to take its toll. Jesus stood firm in his resolution to follow the way of God’s love and forgiveness even on the cross

Jonah 1:4-6    If God is active in the world, why is it such a mess?  One can only conclude that God is not active or that God is a mess.  Or one could accept that unfathomable mystery that God expects and requires human activity to complement and accomplish God’s work.  The struggling sailors prayed to every god they knew but they also lightened the load.  Jonah, running from God, slept in the hold.  He had already decided that he didn’t want any part of God’s plan, was only interested in his own safety, hoped that if he kept his head down he would be ignored and survive.  If everyone chooses to run and hide, we all go down with the ship.  Karl Barth, a German theologian writing between the wars, said that he did his theology with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.  Our prayer is only sincere if it is accompanied by our actions.   Our actions will fizzle and fail if not sustained by prayer.   

Jonah 1:1-3   Becoming an Activist Photo by Ehimetalor Akhere Unuabona on Unsplash In a conversation about the state of the world, a friend expressed that perhaps it was time that he and others become activists.   He wondered if there was any point to becoming an activist around an issue if there was no guarantee that your activism would be successful.   We assured him that success couldn’t be the motivating factor.   Yes, you hoped to make the world better but you did the right thing just because it was the right thing to do.   That better world that you helped to create might not come to reality in your lifetime.   Jonah knew that the task God set for him, to chastise the people of Nineveh for their wickedness, would not likely be successful, however one chose to define that success.   It would likely mean ridicule, harassment, maybe even physical danger for Jonah.   He decided the risk wasn’t worth it and ran in the other direction.   What excuses do you use, what calls do you

Week 1 To Hell and Back Again  Jonah The story of Jonah is an Easter story.   Like Jesus, Jonah went to hell and back again in three days.   It is a story of grace, repentance, forgiveness, of dissatisfaction, of judgement and evil, of resisting and answering God ’s call, of prayer in desperation, of God’s mercy and humanity’s desire for and capacity for punishment.   Let’s begin this week with the story.   It is all of two pages and will take less than 10 minutes to read.    Photo by  Rémi Boudousquié  on  Unsplash