A Whale of Deliverance - The 3rd Sunday after Epiphany
Author: Pastor Scott Schul
January 21, 2024
Let’s play a little word game. I’m going to give you a phrase, and then you fill in the blank. “Jonah and the…” Whale, right? Of course. We all associate Jonah with that part of the story where he gets swallowed up by a whale. Interestingly enough, the word “whale” never appears in the whole book. The Hebrew text speaks only of a “large fish,” which people over the centuries have interpreted as a whale.
The idea of someone getting swallowed by a whale and then getting spit out on dry land is beyond imagination, so let me say at the outset that the scholarly consensus has long been that Jonah’s story was never intended to be read literally, like a textbook or news report. Instead, it was written about 500 years before the birth of Jesus as a fictional story, sort of like a fable or a fairy tale designed to teach a larger truth about God’s ways and God’s character. We Christians are very familiar with that technique; it’s the same thing Jesus did when he taught us about God and the Kingdom of Heaven through the use of parables.
So let’s spend a little time with Jonah’s whale and unpack what it tells us about God. Our Old Testament lesson today picks up the story after the whale has already made his exit, so we need to recap the story to put things in context. As Jonah’s whale of a tale opens, he had just received a calling from God to go to Nineveh, which represented the evilest place and people Jonah could ever imagine. Jonah’s task was to deliver a message from God to Nineveh: repent or be destroyed. Jonah had no interest in this task and so he did what many of us do when God requests a particularly hard thing: he decided to run away.
Jonah caught a boat travelling in the opposite direction, which seemed like a good plan until he remembered that you can’t in fact ever escape from God. Storms arose. The ship was in peril of sinking. The sailors sensed that someone on board must’ve incurred God’s anger. Eventually, Jonah admitted that he was the culprit. He urged the sailors to throw him overboard so the seas would calm and they would be safe, but the sailors decided to continue struggling to save the ship. Finally, however, the sailors realized that the fight was futile, and so they threw Jonah overboard and then prayed for God’s forgiveness.
This is where the whale takes center stage. It snapped Jonah up and held him for three days and three nights. It’s tempting to view the whale as part of God’s reprimand of Jonah. But God didn’t send the whale to punish Jonah. We know that because of the opening verse of today’s first lesson: “The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time…” You see, without the whale, Jonah dies. Instead, the whale gave Jonah a second chance. The whale symbolizes God’s inexhaustible mercy to us when we are stubborn, God’s limitless love for us when we are unlovable, and God’s unending patience in sticking with us even when we cannot or will not see the bigger picture of grace that makes up God’s Kingdom.
What are the whales in your life? What are the things or incidents or even people in your life who might at first glance seem like an obstacle, a burden, or an instrument of God’s displeasure, but that are in fact blessings from God that are giving us a second, third, or maybe even a fourth chance at life and love in God’s Kingdom? When we misidentify those whales, it can cause a lot of needless pain for us.
For example, let’s consider another famous whale, Moby Dick, from Herman Melville’s book of the same name. Moby Dick is one of those books everyone says you should read but which few people really do. But for my money, it’s a fascinating book, rich with theological themes and overtones. For starters, it’s well known that for Melville, Moby Dick – the white whale – represented God and how unknowable and elusive God felt to Melville. He spent his life trying to get closer to God and to figure God out. Melville’s lifelong pursuit of God was mirrored by Captain Ahab’s obsessive pursuit of the white whale in the novel.
Melville wrote the book in his home in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in the heart of the Berkshires. I’ve been there several times and visited the upstairs room where Melville would sit and brood and write in isolation for hours and hours, day after day. His writing desk looks out a window where, in the distance, you can see Mount Greylock, which resembles a massive humpback whale. The undercurrent of the entire book is Melville trying to make sense of Christians, Christianity, and, ultimately, God.
Melville spent his whole life engaged in a wrestling match with God. His personal Bible contained scores and scores of handwritten notes, questions, and even doubts about what he was reading. After his death, his widow tried, with only partial success, to erase those marks and erase any notion that Melville viewed God as an adversary to be hunted and controlled rather than a force of love and mercy.
Surely each of us has experienced times when God seemed like an adversary, as someone who set impossible obstacles between us and our dreams, or who allowed us to endure experiences that seemed absurdly unfair and even painful. I’m not here to try to minimize or deny your suffering. There are things about God and our relationship with God that we simply will not be able to comprehend on this side of heaven.
But what I will say, without reservation or apology, is that when we’re able to see the full picture, as God does, we will see God not as a white whale who smashes ships and dreams, but as a rescuer who saves us from certain destruction and enables us to continue our journey of hope, transformation, and salvation no matter how many times we run away.
That’s exactly what Jonah’s whale made possible. Granted a second chance, Jonah – arguably the world’s worst and most reluctant missionary – managed, with God’s help, to bring the entire people of Nineveh to belief in God, repentance, and a new beginning. He was God’s unlikely instrument in bringing about the forgiveness, peace, and reconciliation that is the very essence of who God is. We see that most strikingly in Jesus himself who, like Jonah, would reemerge after three days and three nights in the belly of hell and bring about the salvation of all creation. Friends, that is the Good News we gather here each week to hear anew, to help us truly see and know God as a whale of deliverance, not destruction.
So what happened to Herman Melville? Well, although Moby Dick is considered a classic nowadays, it flopped badly when it was first published. Sales were so bad that Melville gave up writing stories and turned to poetry from that point on. The only non-poetry books of his that would be published after Moby Dick were the ones found stashed away around the house and put into print after his death. His personal pursuit of his own white whale – God – never fully resolved either. Melville was never able to fully and finally embrace faith or achieve peace. He spent his life tracking God and trying to snare God when, in reality, he was already in the belly of the divine whale, where God’s love and tender mercy abound.
Friends, that’s Jonah’s message for us. Don’t run from God. Embrace God. Surrender to God, even if God seems incomprehensible at times. God loves you and wants only the very best for you. And God will never give up on you no matter how many times you may give up on God. Whenever you see a whale, remember that beautiful truth. Amen.
Sermon Text: Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Copyright Rev. Scott E. Schul, 2024 All rights reserved. May not be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission.
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