Jonah; revisited

Remember a while back, I was wondering what direction to take in life, and I referred to Jonah? Today Jonah was revisited, but from a whole different perspective! Yes, the story of Jonah is about obedience,  but it is about so much more...

Jonah is a lesson in misunderstood theology (Chris Pacholczak). Jonah got mad at God for being gracious and compassionate to the Assyrians, for relenting from sending calamity on them (Jonah 4:2). Here God is setting up something beautiful, layered with meaning, about who He is and how He operates.

Lately I've been learning about dramatic change; that it doesn't just happen all at once. That this faith journey that I'm on requires continuous openness to God's leading.

This morning we contemplated a vision that Peter had one hungry midday in Acts 10:9-16. God's chosen people knew and abided by laws that distinguished between clean and unclean, and here Peter is given a word about that very subject. God says "Do not call anything impure that God has made clean." Then some Gentile men, "unclean" by the standards of Jewish law, come to him.

We know from previous verses that these men have been sent by Cornelius, a Roman centurion, a Gentile, a powerful man who has a reputation of faith, following his own vision from God. Cornelius' faith makes him heard by God and leads him to send for Peter. Peters' faith requires obedience in setting aside previous laws and rules about what makes a person acceptable before God, according to the new covenant. Prompted by God, Peter invites these Gentiles in to eat with him. (Perhaps he remembers a lesson from Matthew 15:8-9, 17-20).

That is a dramatic change. A Jew eating with a Gentile; recognizing that he is not to call impure what God has made clean.

The question was asked of us this morning: Do your prejudices keep you from praying for certain people? Is there a person or a collection of people that you believe are unworthy of God's saving? Have you written anyone off because of your own ideas of God's requirements? Will you be like Jonah angry at God for His compassion and mercy?

What does it take to be saved?

The sign of the prophet Jonah in Matthew 12:38-41 is layered with meaning. This is not just that Christ died and rose again on the third day. Verse 41 says that "The men of Nineveh (not Israel) will stand up at the judgment with this generation (Israelites) and condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonah, and now one greater than Jonah is here." This means that unclean Gentiles who had repented; who had believed the message that disaster was coming upon them - because of how they were living and who they were worshipping- and turned away from those things to worship the one true God instead, were redeemed and made clean. That it is a heart matter as to whether or not you will be saved, not a matter of following rules, or having been born to a certain people group.

Some of the people of Israel - the high priests, the Pharisees and Sadducees, like Jonah, were angry about the message that not all Israel would be saved, and that some Gentiles would be.

Are we going to be like Jonah, angry at who gets salvation, who gets to be rescued from the exile that started at the garden of Eden?

Are we going to withhold the opportunity for redemption from those we believe to be unclean?

Do I need to be making any dramatic changes in the way that I pray for people? Or in the way that I associate and interact with people? Do I need to reconsider who it is that I believe that God is able to redeem and make clean?