God Comes and He Stretches Us

By: Howard Vanderwell

Scripture Reading:

December 14th, 2008

The Story Begins

I’m intrigued by this fellow Jonah. Somehow I have the feeling that he’s a lot like me…just a regular man of God who got the call to be a prophet. I’m sure he considered it a privilege to be a prophet. Most people would. But when God came to him with this call it turned out to be a whole lot more disturbing than he originally thought.

We should be aware that the days in which he lived were no picnic — nationally and spiritually, I mean. The relationships between the nations were very unsettled. Power struggles were the theme of the day. Wars and invasions were very common. And it wasn’t any better spiritually. Many of them had lost their faith in God and had taken his care for granted. And so God was losing his patience with these people and he was about to bring judgment on them.

So when Jonah agreed to be a prophet, my guess is that he thought it would give him an opportunity to bring hope, comfort and perhaps a revival to these people of his. Perhaps he pictured God as some kind of Shepherd, or King, or Protector who could help in times like these. And then judge their enemies who threatened them.

Instead he found out he had to begin thinking of God as a Disturber. That’s right…a disturber! It’s really a strange story.

Prophets, like Jonah, expect to receive assignments and calls from God. But this one doesn’t go as he might have anticipated. He got a call from God alright, and it was to go and preach, and preach in a big city. But the city to which he was directed was Nineveh and that did not meet with the prophet’s approval at all. He simply didn’t want to go to that city. And so… instead of going he ran away.

A little geography will help us here. Jonah is living in Palestine. But Nineveh was a very prominent and powerful city hundreds of miles to the east, north east. Actually it’s in the territory that we now know as Iraq. So Jonah is told to head northeast to preach. And instead he headed west, the opposite direction, on a ship to Tarshish. That’s most likely all the way across the Mediterranean Sea. But notice how it says specifically that he "ran away from the Lord". It’s not just that he wanted to get away from Nineveh, but he wanted to get away from the God who had called him to go there.

It must have been a very testy conversation between the two of them that went something like this:

"Jonah, I want you to go and preach to Nineveh. It’s a big city but they need you to preach there. I know this surprises you. I know they are your enemies. But that’s where you need to preach, Jonah."

"No way, God! It’s not that being a preacher is so bad, but not there. No way! Anywhere else but there! I’m not going! I can’t and I won’t do it."

And so Jonah went off to Joppa, down to the harbor, bought a ticket, got on the ship, and when it left the harbor he settled down with a big sigh. Whewww…made it! Safe finally!

Well, maybe you know the rest of the story. God stepped in and made it clear to Jonah that he wasn’t going to let him get away with that. So God did a number of things. First, a big storm stopped him dead in his tracks. Secondly, a plan among the men on board arranged to have Jonah thrown overboard, convinced he was the cause of this storm; and then God somehow brought a big fish to swallow and protect him after they had thrown him overboard. And, finally, the fish managed to deliver Jonah back to land and spit him up on the beach, safe, sound, and a bit frightened.

In those events, Jonah encountered "God the Disturber". Yes, God can indeed be a disturber, especially for those who try to run away from him.

You see, here’s what happens. Sometimes we get stuck in our own ruts; we become too narrow in our thinking; too centered on ourselves; we take control of things away from God; and we think we can chart out our own course. And we become so comfortable in that way of thinking that we are not willing to examine it. We’re just locked into it. That’s our way, and we’re going to keep it our way!

But it isn’t God’s way and so he has to push us out of our comfort zone; he has to disturb us. That’s when he becomes God the Disturber.

It reminds me of the story that C.S. Lewis wrote, the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, in which the children in this fantasy tale are introduced to a lion, and it becomes clear this is Christ, the Lion of the tribe of Judah . And then one of the girls asks, "is the lion safe?" and the answer is "Safe? Oh my, no. But he’s good!"

Now some of Jonah’s peers had found that God could be "good but not safe". They found out he could be a disturber. Isaiah had the task of going to God’s people and telling them that he wouldn’t be listening to their worship anymore because their lives were so evil. And some time later Haggai told them that when the Messiah comes he would "shake the heavens and the earth and the sea and the dry land." "I will shake all nations," he said (Haggai 2:6, 7) And on the closing pages of the Old Testament, the prophet Malachi explained that when the Messiah would come they may not be able to endure the day of his coming, for, he said, "he will be like a refiner’s fire and launderer’s soap," and "he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver" (Malachi 3:2, 3). That’s all bound to be pretty disturbing, don’t you think?!

Well, can you think of times in which he’s had to do that to you? I’ve had it. Have you? Times when you were so stuck on your own way, and we could think of so many reasons why it had to be that way, but it wasn’t what God had in mind. And so he disturbed us and our neat little ideas.

The Story Continues

Well, let’s go back to this story of Jonah. He got God’s call; he tried to run away; God stopped him by the storm; he did a lot of soul—searching in the process; and finally God brought him back to shore with a big fish.

That second conversation between God and Jonah there on that beach must have been quite an encounter. Those few days underwater undoubtedly were a frightful hair—raising experience for Jonah. Now here he is, back on dry land, probably quite surprised to be alive, but very humbled, and (I’m sure) a mite embarrassed.

And now God comes to him again, with his call, the second time. But it’s the same call, to the same city, with no change at all. "Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you."

Jonah really doesn’t have much choice this time. He knew he had to go to Nineveh and preach. So he went. And he preached. He preached exactly what God told him to preach. Back and forth through the city he went, "Forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed!"

And then something very surprising happened. They responded! They repented! They really did! All of them, from the youngest to the oldest, from the folks in the street to the king on the throne! There is just no other way to describe it other than a mass conversion in Nineveh.

And…God forgave them! It says he "had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened." What a story! God is forgiving the wicked people of Nineveh, the very ones who’ve been the prime enemies of Israel! Imagine that! Enemies are now in the kingdom of God! What grace on God’s part! Now if the story ended right there it would be such a great story. That’s the kind of a story people write books about.

The Harsh Confrontation

But, the book has a fourth chapter, and it’s not a very nice one. As a matter of fact, it’s a rather sour one, I think. Or worse! Oh, it’s nice that God forgave them, but that’s in chapter 3. When chapter four opens you find something very different.

Chapter four is not about Jonah’s preaching; it’s not about the repentance of the Ninevites; and it’s not even about God’s forgiveness. It’s about Jonah’s anger at the way God responded in extending his forgiveness to them. And what ensues is a rather stern argument between God and Jonah.

You see, Jonah, very displeased, even angry, blurts out some pretty harsh words to God, "God, I told you this is exactly what would happen, you are always so ready to forgive people, and now we’ve got this mess on our hands — of Ninevites in the kingdom of God, our enemies right in church with us…nice play, God! Well, I’ll tell you what….I quit, and, by the way, I’d just as soon die!" That’s what he said.

So he and God have a very disturbing conversation. In the process Jonah finds that God ruins a vine that was at least giving Jonah a little shade. And in the end their conversation gets even more firm. It’s like God sets him right down and talks like an old uncle. It’s like he’s saying, "look fellow, sit down a minute and listen to me. Let me tell you a thing or two…you’ve gotten all peeved abut that little vine which you didn’t even create, or plant; well how do you think I feel about 120,000 children who can’t even yet tell their right hand from their left, let alone all their parents and grandparents. I created them! Don’t you get it? Don’t you think I have a right to be concerned about them??!!"

And it stops there, just stops right there! There are no more chapters in this book.

What was happening there? Do you see how God just keeps breaking in? He just won’t let Jonah go. He broke into his life to call him, to rescue him from the fish, to call him the second time, but even that doesn’t end it. Now he breaks in with some verbal confrontation — "do you have a right to be angry?" he said. And then he breaks in with some nice shade (perhaps to cool him down a little) and then breaks in with a worm to destroy it, and then with those words again ("do you have a right to be angry?") and then after that with an even stronger rebuke in the last couple verses of the book. (Do you have a right to be angry? You didn’t even create the vine. Well, I created Nineveh; I have a right to be concerned about the people of that city.")

It’s not really a very nice story — of God and this preacher.

It reminds me of another story…one Jesus told in the New Testament, the one we call the story of the Prodigal Son. The best part of the story is that the son comes to his senses and returns home seeking forgiveness…and the father embraces him, puts a robe on him, and a ring, and calls for a celebration. But that story has a strange ending too. We find the father and the older brother out on the back porch having a heated argument about whether the father should have welcomed that lousy younger prodigal back home at all! That story, too, ends with a disappointing twist. This brother wants nothing to do with this fellow whom the Father has been so willing to welcome back!

Some Things to Learn

Well, let’s step back from this story a little bit and ask ourselves — just what it is that is happening here? Why does this preacher find God so disturbing? Or, why does God find it necessary to disturb him so? If we can peel back some of the layers we’ll not only understand what is happening here, but we’ll also understand what we must be prepared for as we consider the birth of Christ.

The first thing we see is that God gave Jonah a call he didn’t want. Oh, it seems he was quite willing to be a preacher for the Lord. But he had his own plans on where he wanted to preach and to whom he wanted to preach; and for that matter he had his own ideas of whom he wanted in the kingdom of God, and also who he believed didn’t belong there. And preaching in Nineveh was certainly not a part of that plan. He was stuck in this narrow kind of thinking that says "I want my kind of people in the kingdom of God"; that says "I want only my kind of folks in my church". And he had some pretty firm ideas of whom he did not want in his church. The church and the kingdom were for Jews…only. Oh, we might let a few others in, but certainly not those from Nineveh. He had his list of those who didn’t deserve to be there, and Nineveh was on that list.

You see, the problem with that kind of thinking is that the Bible tells us that when Jesus Christ comes as the Messiah he will come to bring salvation to all the peoples of the earth. He won’t be drawing the firm lines we do about who is in and who is out. In early history, Abraham was told that through him and his seed "all the peoples on earth would be blessed". And Simeon spoke clearly in the Temple when he welcomed the Christ Child claiming that he would be "a light for revelation to the Gentiles". So, when people draw tight lines to exclude certain groups and classes, then God has to stretch their thinking, and that, of course, becomes very disturbing to them.

Maybe you are aware of the same thing that’s happening today. Are there certain people you’d never want in your church? Are there certain classes of people you don’t think fit into the kingdom of God? If you are more restricting than God is, then when the Messiah comes you may find him rather disturbing to your narrowly drawn lines.

The second factor that complicated Jonah’s situation is that he got a reaction he didn’t want. He was willing to say, "Ok, I’ll go to Nineveh if you insist, but when I get there I’m going to preach judgment — "Forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed" — that’s what I’ll preach! Judgment! And, God, I expect you to bring that judgment on them. They are outsiders and they deserve to be destroyed". He could go under those circumstances, with that message. But that didn’t happen. They repented — young and old, people on the streets and the king on the throne. They turned to God, put on sackcloth, and told him they were sorry for their evil ways. Of all the unexpected things for them to do!

You can imagine the crisis that creates for a man like Jonah who so badly wants these people to remain as outsiders, to receive God’s judgment. First he doesn’t want to go to them, and then he’ll go only if he can bring God’s judgment, and now they repent. They actually turn to God.

And then to make matters even worse, a third thing happened, you know what God did — he forgave them! He went and saved them. He showed that he is compassionate, gracious, merciful. He turned away from the judgment he had threatened and welcomed them into his kingdom. As far as Jonah was concerned, that was about the worst thing God could do! He didn’t want God to do that under any circumstances.

And so the bottom line in this story is that Jonah simply could not love whom God loved. That was his problem at heart. It was a heart problem! God loved those Ninevites, outsiders though they were; and Jonah didn’t. God had compassion; Jonah didn’t. To God, they were his creatures who needed to know of his grace; to Jonah they were outsiders who ought to be kept outside. Jonah was busy erecting fences to keep people out; God was busy changing hearts to bring people in.

And then this story ends…well, it doesn’t really end…it just stops…right there. It becomes the unfinished story. There seems to be no closure, no resolution. And I wonder if there is a message in that…that many times when God does try to stretch us, disturb us, it doesn’t go so well…it just sort of hangs there unresolved?

Advent Questions

So, as we prepare our hearts during this Advent season, may I ask the question about whether there are some pressing lessons here for us and for the church today?

Could it be that many of us have to wrestle with the fact that God has bigger plans than we normally do. I think it’s always been that way. He has been aiming to do more things, bigger things, reach farther, reach deeper, include more people than we ever dreamt of. His plans are so much bigger than ours. Right from the very beginning, God has spoken about his Son that way. The Messiah would be a light to the Gentiles, to all peoples of the earth, but Israel missed that. And by the time we get to the book of Revelation, we’re told that the crowd coming into the New Jerusalem is from "every nation, tribe, people and language" (Revelation 7:9) So beware of a mind that, like Jonah’s, is smaller than God’s mind. Christmas is about God’s big plans.

So we have to be ready for God to stretch us so that his work can go on. He did that with Jonah, did it with Peter, and Paul, and a lot of others too. He’s always busy stretching us, and that’s hard, and it’s very disturbing for us. Think of how often he did it during the ministry of Jesus; while the Jews and their Pharisees were busy complimenting themselves at being the genuine insiders, Jesus was off having dinner with publicans and sinners. While the Jews were huddling together, Jesus was healing Gentiles. The big thing is this — God’s work and God’s plan is primary. It must go on, even if we have to be stretched a good bit for that to happen. I know, stretching isn’t always so easy. Being pushed out of our comfort zone brings a lot of anxiety. But the work of Jesus Christ in drawing folks from everywhere into the kingdom of God is far more important than our comfort level.

And this story also prepares us for the fact that there will be some big surprises at the end. There surely was for Jonah. Lo and behold, he found the Ninevites in the same church. We’ll have that too. When we get there to the New Jerusalem, we’ll find that we aren’t everything, that every language, nation, color, and culture is there. And that most of them are not even our kind, not even our class of society.

So as the season of Advent passes and Christmas comes closer, there are two questions for each of us: First, do you personally know this compassion of God through Jesus Christ? Have you repented of your sinfulness? If a wicked city like Nineveh, living under the threatened judgment of God could find compassion and mercy, so can you. After all, that’s why Jesus Christ came here as the Messiah, to bring the mercy and compassion of God to repentant sinners. His heart is open to you. His love will welcome you. No matter who you are!

And secondly, are you willing to have your love be as big as God’s love? Is your circle as big as God’s circle? Or are you drawing lines that you’ll love just some — these folks, but not those folks? If so, be careful. When Jonah did that he found God to be a Disturber. He found God determined to stretch him.

Prayer

Gracious God, your love is so big, and your grace is so amazing. As we anticipate celebrating the birth of your Son to be our Savior, help us to grasp more than ever how deep your grace and love toward us is.

Lord, may those of us who have resisted you, open our hearts by your Spirit’s power in this season that we may welcome him as our Savior.

And may those of us who have wanted to restrict your love and grace to only certain others, find our hearts becoming as wide and as welcoming as yours. And if you need to stretch us to accomplish that, make us willing to accept your stretching.

All for the sake of Jesus Christ, your Son our Savior. Amen.

About the Author

Howard Vanderwell

Howard Vanderwell was ordained in the Christian Reformed Church in 1962. He received his M.Div. and Th.M. degree from Calvin Theological Seminary and his D.Min. at Westminster Theological Seminary in California. He has served as pastor to four congregations over 40 years in Iowa, Illinois and Michigan. After leaving the pastorate in 2002 he began a new ministry at Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary. He is currently a staff member at the Calvin Institute of Christian Worship at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, MI and Adjunct Professor of Worship at Calvin Theological Seminary. He consults with local congregations, provides worship materials, leads conferences and workshops, and teaches courses on worship at Calvin Seminary. Howard’‘s interests include planning, leading and evaluating worship, preaching, and worship renewal throughout the evangelical church. “My life-long prayer, from my days as a child, was that I might be honored to serve as a Christian Reformed pastor preaching the Word of God to encourage and challenge his people. I consider the forty years of my pastoral ministry to have been the most valuable way in which I could have invested those years! When I consult with pastors, teach and mentor students, hold conferences for worship leaders, or write worship planning materials, my aim is to equip and inspire others to serve their Lord and Savior by making a whole-hearted investment in his church and his people. Such ministry is certainly not without its stresses and discouragements, and those of us who have found such joy in a life-time of ministry are uniquely fitted to encourage others.” Howard lives in Hudsonville, MI with his wife Eleanor. They have three married sons and ten grandchildren ages 5 through 19. His hobbies are yard-gardening, walking, photography and model railroading.

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