The Sign of Jonah: The Belly of the Beast

A quick recap from last week (for those who were snowbound, sick, shoveling, or sleepy).

For a variety of reasons (only one of which is to save money on fuel oil over the winter) we are going to meet in the church basement for the first three months of 2010. I urge you to think of it as an extra-long Lenten season—our time of preparation for Easter. During Lent, we are encouraged to meditate on the suffering and death of Jesus on our behalf. If Jesus can be three days and nights in the tomb before being resurrected, then maybe it is okay to spend three months in the basement before returning upstairs for Easter Sunday on April 4th.


One of the patterns of how God works in the Bible—the pattern that we will be looking at for the next three months—appears in the myths of other religions and in classical literature and pop culture as well. It is the pattern, on one hand, of Jonah and the whale and Elijah at Mt. Horeb; on the other, it is the pattern of the Star Wars epics and The Lord of the Rings trilogy. It is the pattern, on one hand, of Moses at the Red Sea and Peter walking on water; one the other, it is the pattern of Orpheus descending to the underworld to save his wife. It is the pattern, on one hand, of Christian in Pilgrim’s Progress; on the other, it is the pattern of Bill and Ted’s Excellent Adventure. It is the pattern of the hero.


Mythologist Joseph Campbell articulated the pattern of the hero’s journey; in brief:


● the hero is living in the ordinary world,


● he receives a call to a different place,


● in his journey to that place, he encounters supernatural help,


● he reaches the gateway of this new place, a place that will transform him,


● he encounters increasingly difficult trials and temptations leading ultimately to an abyss (or place of death),


● either the hero does not die, or he dies and is resurrected,


● he begins his return to his former world; however,


● he has been transformed, even as he returns to his former world with a gift.


Read Jonah 1-3


You know the story: the hero receives a call, a summons to rescue people in need. At first the call seems screwy and implausible—simply wrong. But the hero begins his journey. He acquires unexpected traveling companions along the way. However, nothing goes exactly according to plan, and the hero ends up in the belly of the beast. The hero is delivered from death. Afterwards, nothing is quite the same for him, and he knows he must go to an evil place bearing a powerful package. Evil is vanquished, and the people in need rejoice.


I’m talking about the original Star Wars movie, of course. Luke Skywalker, receives a call for help from Princess Leia. At first the call seems far-fetched: the harvest must be brought in; there is machinery to be fixed; and, as his uncle knows, Luke is flirting with powers beyond his understanding. Likewise, Jonah goes in the opposite direction from Nineveh precisely because God is beyond his understanding. Sure, in chapter four Jonah says, “I fled to Tarshish because I knew you would do something compassionate for the people I hate, and I wanted nothing to do with it.” Our immature faith focuses on the immediate, the small picture, and the mundane, whether it is the machinery to be tended to, the grudges we nurse, or the fears that drive us.


But back to Star Wars ... Luke Skywalker begins his journey by picking up some unexpected friends: robots (droids as they are known in the Star Wars universe); a retired knight; a couple of mercenaries. They charge off without much of a plan, leaving chaos in their wake. They run across the Death Star—a monstrous ship so big at first they think it is a moon—and the Death Star draws them in against their will. The captain of the ship tries everything in his power to no avail. Their tiny ship is swallowed by the Death Star, and shortly thereafter, Luke finds himself waist deep in the Death Star’s trash compactor, which looks not unlike the belly of a great beast. Likewise, before Jonah finds himself in the belly of the whale, he hits the dock at Joppa. He hooks up with some mercenaries—sailors who are happy to set sail for Tarshish, sailors who don’t have a clue what they are sailing into. The storm hits, and the captain tries everything in his power to no avail. Jonah has no choice but to submit to the deadly power; he is thrown overboard. The whale appears—ancient legends about with stories of whales so big they were mistaken for islands, luring sailors towards them—and Jonah’s doom seems inevitable. Long before the end comes, we have the opportunity to contemplate our own mortality. Life rarely turns out the way we expected. We start out with high hopes, and if everything always worked out as we thought it would, we would probably never have to contemplate our demise before it hit us square between the eyes. We’d retire to Joppa, or find the princess and live happily ever after, or any of a number of things. But contemplate our doom? Not today, thanks. My calendar is full tomorrow, too. I’ll get back to you later.


C.S. Lewis said, “God whispers to us in our pleasures, speaks in our conscience, but shouts in our pains: it is his megaphone to rouse a deaf world.” The place where our self-centered life ends is the place where we are most certain to find a resurrection God. Luke listens to the Force—the mystical power of the retired Jedi knight traveling with Luke—and thereby escapes from the Death Star. Jonah prays in the belly of the whale (a prayer full of resurrection vocabulary: cries from the grave that are heard; another chance at sight; life brought up from the pit; grace; salvation) and thereby is released from the belly of the whale, safe on dry land. Where have you found yourself contemplating your own limitations, your own mortality? What has been—what is—the belly of the beast? What force sustained you and pulled you out: your own hard work, coincidence, or the resurrection God?


What right-thinking person, having escaped from the belly of the beast, willingly returns to a place of such evil and chaos? A hero does—perhaps that is exactly the trait that makes a hero a hero. We tend to think of heroes like Superman or Batman who charge into danger without regard to personal safety, but God’s model for us is something different. Jesus dies for us, yes, but nevertheless before his arrest, he says, “Abba, Father, everything is possible for you. Take this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will" (Mark 14:36). Jesus goes to the cross to destroy the hold of sin and death over us. Luke returns to the Death Star with a bomb to destroy it—the Death Star—utterly. Jonah now sets his face towards Nineveh, determined to preach, letting the powerful Spirit of God—a powerful package indeed—destroy the hold of the evil one over that great city. And what of you? You, if you have asked for God to save you, you have been pulled from the belly of the beast, but for what purpose? Paul says:


Therefore, brothers, we have an obligation—but it is not to the sinful nature, to live according to it. For if you live according to the sinful nature, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the misdeeds of the body, you will live, because those who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." (Romans 8:12-15)


Abba, Father, hear our prayer. We want our lives to have meaning, to not be squandered for no purpose.


Luke has to fly a maze to deliver the bomb; he has to evade evil forces along the way. Likewise, Jonah’s task seems too large for one man—archeologists say greater metropolitan Nineveh was about 20 miles wide and 60 miles in circumference, a hard-3-day trip. One must assume that Jonah stayed and preached for the entire 40 days of the warning period—a tall order for any prophet or preacher in a hostile city. The temptation for the hero is always to avoid the hard work, to let another take over, to coast to the finish line. However, the heroic epics found in both our culture and in the Bible say the path of the hero goes all the way to the belly of the beast, the shadow of death, and the brink of annihilation. However, at that point God intercedes, transforming us even as he saves us, so that by his grace we have the power to go the distance. It is what we do post-salvation, post-rescue from the beast, post-resurrection that gives meaning to our lives. Luke without returning to destroy the Death Star is just lucky to be alive for a little while longer. Jonah regurgitated on the beach without pressing on to Nineveh is just one more fishermen’s tall tale. Living our lives as Christians without engaging in the ongoing work of living in and transforming the community is just a minor footnote in the story of God’s grace.


Be the hero.


Benediction


I thank my God every time I remember you. In all my prayers for all of you, I always pray with joy because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now, being confident of this, that he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus. (Philippians 1:3-6)