Jonah and the Whale: Lessons from a Reluctant Prophet
Jonah and the Whale: Lessons from a Reluctant Prophet
Jonah 1:1-17; 3:1-10
July 26, 2026 Retold: Children’s Bible Stories You Thought You Knew
Rev. Cynthia Cochran-Carney, First Presbyterian Church, San Rafael, CA
PDF OF SERMON LINKED BELOW
Chapter 1 One day long ago, God's Word came to Jonah, Amittai's son: 2 "Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and full of wickedness and I can't ignore it any longer." 3 But Jonah got up and went the other direction to Tarshish, running away from God. He went down to the port of Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish. He paid the fare and went on board, joining those going to Tarshish - as far away from God as he could get.
4 But God sent a huge storm at sea, the waves towering. 5 The sailors were terrified. They called out in desperation to their gods. They threw everything they were carrying overboard to lighten the ship. Meanwhile, Jonah had gone down into the hold of the ship to take a nap. He was sound asleep.
6 The captain came to him and said, "What's this? Sleeping! Get up! Pray to your god! Maybe your god will see we're in trouble and rescue us." …
They grilled Jonah with questions. He told them he was running away from God. The storm was out of control and the sailors begged for the storm to stop.
12 Jonah said, "Throw me overboard, into the sea. Then the storm will stop. It's all my fault. I'm the cause of the storm. Get rid of me and you'll get rid of the storm."… 15 Finally They took Jonah and threw him overboard. Immediately the sea was quieted down. ….17 Then God provided a huge fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was in the fish's belly three days and nights.
Finally the big fish spit him out.
Chapter 3 Next, God spoke to Jonah a second time: 2 "Up on your feet and on your way to the big city of Nineveh! Preach to them. They're in a bad way and I can't ignore it any longer."
3 This time Jonah started off straight for Nineveh, obeying God's orders to the letter.
4 Jonah entered the city, went one day's walk and preached, "In forty days Nineveh will be smashed."
5 The people of Nineveh listened, and trusted God. They proclaimed a citywide fast and dressed in burlap to show their repentance. Everyone did it - rich and poor, famous and obscure, leaders and followers. 6 When the message reached the king of Nineveh, he got up off his throne, threw down his royal robes, dressed in burlap and sackcloth and sat down in the dirt. 7 Then he issued a public proclamation throughout Nineveh, …8 Dress all, people and animals, in burlap, and send up a cry for help to God. Everyone must turn around, turn back from an evil life and the violent ways. 9 Who knows? Maybe God will turn around and change his mind about us, quit being angry with us and let us live!"
10 God saw what they had done, that they had turned away from their evil lives. He did change his mind about them. What he said he would do to them he didn't do. The Message
You may have learned the story of Jonah in Sunday School. Children’s curriculum - The story of Jonah in the whale (or big fish) is a story of obedience. Part of obedience is trusting God's plan more than our own. That God has a plan for our lives and cannot ignore it. God is powerful – can even cause a big fish to swallow a person.
It is children’s story on one level. And yet it has gravitas across traditions. Similar stories of a hero swallowed by a giant fish or sea monster appear in Islam, ancient mythologies, and folklore traditions around the world.
If you’ve never read the book of Jonah, I invite you to do so. It’s only four chapters. It’s found in the prophets section of the Bible, because Jonah was a prophet sent to the people of Ninevah by God to preach God’s word to the people – Repent from your evil ways!
However, Jonah is sent to a people, not his own Hebrew people, but to people he really, really dislikes, all the way over in Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian empire. Jonah dislikes the Ninevites so much, that rather than doing what God says, he runs away from God.
Jonah was absolutely not going to THOSE people.
We humans often have a bad habit of “othering” people. We look at someone’s life that seems very different than our own, and we place them in some category
Sometimes we “other” people with observation. Sometimes with judgement. Listen to the difference:
They are different. Or They are weird.
They eat food that is new to me. Or They eat food that is awful and way too spicy.
They speak a second language. I can’t imagine how hard it would be to have to get by in a place where I didn’t know the language. or I can’t understand them. Why don’t they speak English?
They’re from Mississippi. Or They’re from a place that is racist and bigoted.
They approach politics from a different perspective than I do. or They are voting for that person? Are they insane?
It is appropriate to notice difference, to embrace it, even. We aren’t called to pretend everyone needs to be the same and to quickly judge or assume or give into stereotypes.
Sameness is the darkside of “othering”. Because often when we notice the things that divide, we tend to notice it with a judgment. Prefer it if the other person were more like us.
I’ve shared this quote from Anne Lamott before, but it bears repeating:
“You can safely assume you’ve created God in your own image when it turns out that God hates all the same people you do.”
The story of Jonah is all about this. God sends Jonah to call Ninevah to repent so they can avoid judgment. And Jonah won’t do it.
In Barbara Brown Taylor’s sermon on Jonah, she offers some vivid descriptions
Jonah is a hard guy to defend. Called by God to prophesy to Ninevah, he got on the next boat headed in the opposite direction and nearly got everyone on board killed before God sent a taxi in the form of a whale to turn Jonah around and spit him in the right direction. It was not just that Jonah was afraid to be a prophet. He might have said okay if God had sent him someplace nearby like Jericho or Shechem, but Ninevah was simply out of the question. It was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, who hostile toward Israel.
Jonah did not want any part of it: a) because he knew what usually happens to God’s messengers and b) because he had no desire to participate in Ninevah’s salvation. If the city was going to hell, let it. He was not going to intervene. But God had a different idea, which Jonah finally realized he was going to be part of whether he liked it or not. So the second time God sent him to Ninevah he went, not because he had a change of heart but because he knew he had no choice. His only consolation was thinking how delicious it was going to be, pronouncing judgment on all those Ninevites.
I have an image of him rolling into town for a big preaching revival. He puts up his big tent, sprinkles sawdust on the ground, arranges the wooden benches. He spreads the word that there is a revival tonight, and as the time draws near he puts his big black Bible on the pulpit, tests the sound system, and waits for the crowds to arrive.
And they do—thousands of them, with their children and servants and livestock. Even the king is there, right there on the front row in his purple robes. Jonah knows how evil they all are, how richly they deserve God’s judgment, and he cannot wait to get started. He pulls out his white handkerchief and clears his throat. “Yet forty days, and Ninevah shall be overthrown!” he shouts into the microphone, shaking his finger in the air.
That is it, the sum total of Jonah’s prophecy in the Bible: an eight-word sermon. He might have been warming up to something considerably longer than that, but no one will ever know, because no sooner does he get that sentence out of his mouth than the whole city repents on the spot. “Yes!” they shout. “We believe!” The king orders a fast and leads them all out to change into sackcloth and ashes, and there stands Jonah all alone in his tent before he has even broken a sweat.
Meanwhile, the Ninevites cry mightily to God, God decides to spare them after all, and the revival is proclaimed a howling success. He has converted the biggest city in the enemy empire. He should be happy, right? But is he happy? No. He is so angry he could die. The last thing in the world Jonah wants is for the Ninevites to be spared. He wants them all to go up in smoke and, more important than that, he wants to be right.
Everyone in this story repents except Jonah. The Ninevites repent, God repents, even the cows and the goats repent, but Jonah does not repent. He slinks off to the outskirts of the city and hopes God will decide to destroy it after all, because he cannot accept the possibility that God’s idea of justice might not coincide with his own.
Chapter 4 describes Jonah sulking, complaining. He wants God to play by human rules. Keep score. Eye for an eye. Always destroy those deemed to be the enemy, even when there is repentance and transformation.
We are such bookkeepers and scorekeepers! And God is not! When the Ninevites repent, the people we judge most harshly receive the mercy of God, then it becomes painfully clear that there is something inherently unfair in the notion of grace. God does not keep track of things the way we do.
“That’s not fair!” No, it is not fair. It is grace. God’s grace is abundant & beyond a balance sheet.
So let’s reframe the story of Jonah.
A story of “othering” taken to the extreme and being unwilling to pause, rethink, reconsider our assumptions and stereotypes. A story that invites to imagine all people are beloved. No one, no country, no tribe, no clan is categorically outside of God’s Beloved Community.
How might we be invited to make a bigger table, a wider circle, a deeper conversation?
It’s a story about a God who will not let us go and from whose spirit we cannot escape.
A story of times we may feel like we are stuck. Sometimes we feel like the storms of life have overwhelmed us. We have been thrown overboard and we are sitting in the darkness of a whale’s belly, angry, sad, heartbroken, and a little lost. God who will not let us go, even when we're on the run. God’s grace abounds to all people and to us. Let’s remind each other to accept this gift and go with each other to unexpected places as we follow the ways of Jesus.
Resources
Barbara Brown Taylor, Gospel Medicine (Cambridge, MA: Cowley Publications, 1995). Pp. 99-104
Marci Glass, “Ninevite Lives Matter,” 11.6.16 https://marciglass.com/2016/11/06/ninevite-lives-matter/