And they all lived happily ever after…

Jane Denniston September 21, 2022 0 0

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Jonah 3 (NRSVA)

a The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2 ‘Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.’ 3 So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4 Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ 5 And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

6 When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8 Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9 Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’

10 When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

A happy ending! For me, the greatest miracle in this story is not that Jonah was saved from drowning, nor that he survived three days in the belly of a fish, nor that he finally, albeit reluctantly, agreed to take the message of destruction to Nineveh. No, the greatest miracle is that the people of Nineveh, and in particular the King, listened to Jonah, an unlikely and reluctant prophet, and changed their behaviour, so that the promised destruction did not take place.

We have prophets today who are foretelling doom to come if we don’t stop poisoning our planet. But, unlike the people of Nineveh, not enough of us are listening. And, in particular, too few governments are listening. Despite the magnitude of the crisis, and unlike the King of Nineveh, the governments of the world are putting popularity before posterity and are avoiding their responsibility to take the hard decisions which will save our planet. Can we too have a happy ending?

PRAYER:

Lord of the miracle,

speak to the hearts of the powerful.

Take their hearts of stone and give them hearts of flesh.

Open their eyes to see

their ears to hear

and their minds to understand

that you are calling us to repentance.

Help us to shout louder

in defence of this beautiful world

that those with the ability

and responsibility

to make a difference

have no choice but to listen and respond. Amen