The Kitchen Sink
An occasional piece of paper
January 25, 2009
Vol. 12 no. 04

Everything But...
           In the Sunday School area of a former congregation there was a simple, but attractive mobile hanging from the ceiling. It was a wood figure of a whale with a little bit of a smile on its face. Everyone knew it was symbolic of Jonah, even the young children, perhaps our favourite Biblical hero.
          The last few years I have spent a lot of time with Jonah. Jonah has been one of the most popular of Biblical books throughout the centuries and lots of people have written about him and his on again, off again mission. I have presented three papers recently on the long poems and commentaries on the Book of Jonah by Syriac Biblical poets. Jonah is always portrayed as a type of Christ, a sort of sneak preview of what Jesus would be doing. The peak experience is naturally his three days in the belly of the great fish, where he should be dead, but wasn’t really. Then spit out by the fish onto dry land, Jonah comes back to life, resurrected, just like Christ on Easter. These poets can go on for pages about this.
          Nevertheless, Jonah is never a hero. He does what he has to do, go back to the wicked city of Nineveh (present-day Mosul, Iraq) and preach fire and brimstone to the citizens. Most of the poets portray Jonah gleefully uttering the worst of threats to the population, looking forward to their annihilation. But Jonah’s worst thought came true: the Ninevites did listen and repented their way of life and God actually forgave them. Jonah was bitter and outraged that God could be so gracious - no way for a proper god to act at all!
          Here is a prophet who doesn’t act like a prophet for a god who doesn’t act like a god. The book of Jonah tells us that this is the norm.