That’s a common response but there’s more to Jonah than that big whale. In fact, the whale isn’t a major part of what we’re going to learn about leadership.
A little review:
Jonah was an ancient prophet of Israel. Israel in those days was located similarly to where it is today. It’s important to realize that Israel was called the chosen people of God in ancient times.
You can find the entire story of Jonah in the Bible. It’s only four chapters long, a quick read.
Jonah was a successful prophet who advised the king and that’s a big deal. He gave a prediction to the king and it happened just like he said. In those days, prophets were expected to speak God’s message.
That’s a pretty amazing occupation and Jonah did it well. He connected the king of Israel with the message from God. He was a huge success.
This happened before the story in the book. In the book of Jonah, another message came to Jonah from God. This one was as clear as the message that gave Jonah his fame.
This time, Jonah was told to go to a city and announce a warning. That doesn’t sound so bad until we get to the details.
This city was Nineveh, the capital of the nation of Assyria. Assyria was known for its incredible cruelty to people it conquered. Think of ISIS in its prime. Ugly stuff.
Jonah had some attitude about this new assignment. Why warn people unless you were giving them a chance to change their ways? God was giving these people a chance.
And these people were not only hated barbarians, but they were also hated enemies of Israel.
Jonah said no. He hired a boat going in the other direction ran away from God. Or at least he assumed he did.
Jonah thought God couldn’t follow him to the far end of the Mediterranean Sea. But God wasn’t limited to a geographic area (why would he have cared about Nineveh if that was true?). Instead, God sent a storm to get Jonah’s attention.
Jonah finally begged the sailors of the ship to throw him overboard, to appease the storm. That’s when he ended up inside a big fish. He spent three days there with the opportunity to contemplate what he’d done.
Contrary to common belief, he didn’t repent. He just agreed to go.
Jonah gave God’s message to the people of Nineveh and then did something that really showed what he was about. He climbed a hill outside of town, put up a little shelter, and waited for the fireworks.
He expected God to send fire from heaven, an amazing light show that he could enjoy. You wonder if he popped popcorn.
But the unexpected happened. The people in Nineveh listened and changed their ways. They begged God to relent. And he did.
Here’s the kicker: Jonah was furious. And then his pleasant shelter withered away and he was more furious. In the end, God challenged him.
Jonah cared more about his own point of view than he cared about an entire city. The story ends without resolution. Did Jonah learn compassion? Did he change his point of view?
Those make great discussion points, especially in a leadership context.
So here’s the summary of the story of Jonah. Here are some of the posts examining leadership lessons:
Biblical stories use many strategies to convey a message, including ridicule. We’ve looked at humor before but let’s examine a few points of sharp humor in the book of Esther.
Early in the story, we meet Haman, a cocky official of the king. He expected everyone but the royal family (we assume) to bow down and pay homage to him. Even the royal staff had to do so – and this happened “because the king had commanded this to be done for him.”
When Mordecai, Esther’s guardian, refused to bow to him, Haman was filled with such rage that he plotted to destroy all of Mordecai’s people – the Jews. This was a great example of hyperbole. Why not give Mordecai some public service tasks or maybe even put him in the stocks for a day or two?
The drama increases with this proclamation but there is more humor coming. One night, the king asked Haman what should be done for a man who had pleased the king.
This question was a springboard to the huge misunderstanding. Haman assumed this man was him and so he crafted an elaborate parade to honor himself.
But the reversal came soon, when Haman learned that his moral enemy, Mordecai, was the man to be honored. And he endured further insult when the king instructed that Haman lead this parade honoring Mordecai.
The story continues and we find Haman at a dinner with Queen Esther and the king, a dinner he assumed honored him. Instead, his plot is unveiled and, in a desperate effort to plead with Esther, he is found in a compromising position by the king. Another reversal for proud Haman.
The gallows that Haman had built to hang Mordecai turned out to be the very gallows where Haman met his own demise.
These reversals propel the story to its triumphant conclusion, where the Jews were not destroyed but instead rose victorious.
Haman was the perfect foil – a proud, boastful man who tried to use his lofty position to destroy God’s people. Instead, he suffered humiliating reversals because of his own proud position.
He got his come-uppance and I can hear the early listeners whistling and jeering at just the right times as his story unfolded.
They got the humor of the story – and the meaning deepens as we get it, too.
Biblical authors sometimes use connections between the Old Testament and New Testament to help pry open deeper meaning than at first reading.
An example is found at the end of John 1 where Jesus talked to some new disciples. They were impressed because he told one of them when he was sitting under a fig tree, before he came to to Jesus.
Jesus almost pooh-poohed their awe and said, “ “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”
He was referring to Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28. Jacob, over 2000 years earlier, was on the run from his angry brother when he had a dream that a ladder extended to earth from heaven. Angels were going up and down the ladder.
God spoke to Jacob in the dream, making several promises to him including the pledge to stay with him.
Jacob awoke and set up a stone as a symbol of God’s presence, naming the place Bethel. Bethel means house of God.
Jacob’s Bethel was the place where heaven and earth met.
Jesus chose that event to declare that heaven and earth again met. This time, the presence of God wasn’t limited to a stone pillar. This time, Jesus was preparing his disciples for this connection of heaven and earth – which would be seen in him. Jesus was the new Bethel, the new Temple.
By connecting to an ancient story, John the author provided a deeper meaning.
Vivid imagery able to carry several layers of meaning allows a writer to add depth to their work. The Bible illustrates that principle well.
For example, water is a powerful term in the Bible both literally and figuratively. Biblical stories were set in the Middle East, where water was scarce and drought often threatened life. Water, whether from rain or wells or springs, was vital.
Including water in a narrative added a life-giving element. In Genesis 2, four rivers ran through the Garden of Eden, producing a lush garden of trees and life-sustaining plants which revealed God’s abundance.
Water was also used as a cleansing agent. Israelites were taught to do ceremonial cleanings of themselves and various elements of worship to present themselves clean before God. The idea of such cleansing is carried forward in Christian baptism. Baptism also carries the idea of death and re-birth, as explained by Peter in his first letter. Water showed God’s righteousness and how we fall short.
In Genesis 1:2, the Spirit of God hovered over the water and it was clear that God was not birthed from the water, as some ancient myths stated, but that he created and controlled it.
When the Israelites left Egypt, they miraculously crossed the Red Sea to escape the approaching Egyptian army. When they entered the land, the waters of the Jordan River were also held back so they could cross. In both cases, the water revealed that, if God could hold back rivers and seas, he could keep his promises.
In the time of Kings, when both the king and the people had abandoned God, God asked the prophet Elijah to pray for a drought. Three years later, God brought water from a fist-sized cloud. Water imagery carried the message of God’s power and also his ability to capture the attention of his people.
Jesus walked on water and turned water into wine. He was the Creator commanding creation. The use of water illustrated his lordship over creation.
The ancient Israelites depended on springs or wells to provide much of their water. They welcomed rain and saw both the water from wells and the water from the skies as showing God’s provision to them. That imagery appeared in Jesus’ meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well. He offered her living water there, a powerful image of eternal life and the provisions of God.
For many ancients in the MIddle East, water represented chaos, sea monsters, and forces opposed to God. Psalm 74:13-14 recounts a story about God defeating the monsters of the water, demonstrating his power.
Imagine the story of Jonah from this perspective. Jonah was thrown into the sea to appease God’s wrath and experienced a type of death before God saved him. The water imagery provides a vivid image depicting such themes as retribution and redemption.
One image – water – carried powerful meaning for the original reader and for us as well. Narratives that include water reveal the nature of God. He is the Provider, the Creator, the Protector, the Conqueror – seen through the use of water imagery.
That’s a lot to get from one image but rich imagery makes writing deeper and more powerful.
Today we’ll look at a bigger motif that affected not only imagery in the Old Testament but in the New Testament as well. And this motif is commonly used in Christian terminology today.
The exodus of the people of Israel, as described in the book of Exodus through Deuteronomy, involved a people in slavery to the Egyptian empire. God sent Moses to rescue the people and, after a series of miracles, the Egyptian pharaoh allowed the Israelites to go free.
Included in the story was the passover, the final event that finally secured the people’s freedom. In that story, God sent the angel of death to kill the first-born of each household. However, the Israelites were instructed to select a lamb and sacrifice it, painting the doorposts with the lamb’s blood so that the angel of death would pass over those houses.
That Exodus motif affected many Old Testament narratives, including the Exile when the Israelites were taken from their land to another empire and placed in bondage there. Would those people in exile – in bondage – experience another rescue to be brought out of slavery and back to their promised land?
The gospel narratives of Jesus’ life also reference the Exodus motif. For example, Jesus died at the time the lamb was slain in the Passover observation. Passover, of course, reminded the people of the original passover during the Exodus from Egypt.
In Jesus’ day, the empire was Rome and the people were in bondage again. The same questions as came during Exodus and Exile times would have been asked: would God send someone to rescue them from bondage and restore them to their promised land?
The Exodus motif features people in bondage to a great empire who are then rescued and restored to what God had planned for them. It’s a motif referred to many times throughout the Bible, a powerful overarching theme that offers hope to those in bondage.
A few years ago, I was involved in a nonprofit fundraising event. In previous years, the director had presented the budget, the needs and the annual giving – the facts.
But this time, we convinced her to contract a short video which captured a slice of the non-profit’s work. Tears flowed and contributions were nearly double over the year before.
Emotion is the way to connect with people.
Jesus, the master storyteller, used stories – parables – connect his meaning with his listeners. Many of his parables have forged their way into popular culture.
Many are familiar with the Prodigal Son, the Good Samaritan, the Lost Lamb. All parables.
What did Jesus use in his parables that worked so well and have made his stories timeless?
He zeroed in on metaphors. His meaning came through the story itself like meaning comes through a painting or beautiful music.
The old adage that a picture is worth a thousand words plays into our understanding.
Jesus’ parables were extended metaphors. They didn’t illustrate an idea; they created a reality.
In our culture today, we use metaphors which might be mysterious to another time and culture. For example, I had a high-speed internet sort of day, with information and contacts zooming by me.
What would that have meant to my 1890 immigrant grandfather? Or to Plato or Socrates?
Another intriguing comparison would be a visual metaphor which our modern technology allows us to use. A familiar example could be an advertisement which juxtapositions a photo of a sports car with that of a panther. We compare qualities such as speed and power.
My point is that metaphors often play within history. To understand Jesus’ parables – his metaphors – we need to study his historical context.
In the Prodigal Son parable, for example, the story gains a new depth of meaning when we understand more of the historical context. In the Middle East, a young man asking for his inheritance while his father was still alive, was really saying, “Dad, why don’t you drop dead?” The father would be expected to get angry, slap his son, and drive the young man from his presence.
None of those things happened in the parable.
Jesus’ listeners would have been intrigued by the alternate tale. We can understand the son’s decision to go home and work as a servant in that context. But why didn’t the father react as expected? He allowed the son to leave and he celebrated the son’s return. Jesus’ meaning included restoration rather than revenge, welcome rather than division.
By use of a story, Jesus presented an alternative to driving away a prodigal. In this parable, the father instead celebrated the return of a beloved son. “We had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” (Luke 15:31-21 NIV)
The emotions generated in this parable, through storytelling and metaphor, created a connection to Jesus’ audience and emphasized his meaning.
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