The LORD God calls and Commissions the prophet to be the voice of God.
The Prophet despises the people to whom God sends him and, therefore, rejects call.
Prophet attempts to flee/hide from the presence of God.
God finds and chastises prophet by making life uncomfortable for the prophet and those who unknowingly participate in the prophet's flight.
Prophet brings peace to his co-conspirators by choosing to go out alone. He literally enters the abyss, (point of death), believing that he has achieved absence from God.
God rescues the prophet from the abyss.
Prophet spends 3 days in limbo. Solitude. Neither fully alive, nor dead.
Prophet prayerfully gives thanks to God for gift of salvation and promises to sacrificially "pay what he owes" in allegiance for the gift.
God releases prophet from limbo, restoring prophet to life.
God re-issues call and commission to prophet.
Prophet obeys call.
Prophet enters city and publicly announces God's Word; a word of judgment and potential condemnation/punishment against them. (The city is a 3-day journey for the prophet.)
Sinful people immediately and surprisingly accept God's judgment, repent, issue a kingdom-wide period of fasting, and faithfully wait for God to act.
God changes God's mind (repents) and does not punish the people.
Prophet becomes angry with God for sparing the people he despises, believing them worthy of divine judgment, anger, wrath, condemnation, and destruction.
Prophet begs God to end his life, so that he does not have to see the mercy and abundant love of God offered to an undeserving people.
God asks, "Is it right for you to be angry?"
Prophet sulks and waits for God to act.
God produces a bush to shade the prophet from the sun.
Prophet is pleased.
God sends a worm to kill the bush.
Prophet grows faint in the hot sun and begs to die.
God says, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"
The End.
The Lesson: Jews and, by adoption, Christians are called and commissioned by God to go to the people who do not know God; God's ways, God's laws, God's intentions.
We may not like them, agree with them, or trust them. We may despise them, fear them, or misunderstand them. We may be prejudiced against them. We may neglect or ignore them, create walls and borders between them and us.
We may resist, decline, or outright reject our calling and commission. We may hide in the boat (read church building and our friends). We may surround ourselves with people who don't rock the boat, who prefer maintenance of status quo.
We may think the city is a scary place that we dare not enter.
We may rather drown than speak in public.
We may feel justified in our disobedience, because we think we're right about them. And we have evidence to support that.
But, we have no right to be angry. Because we are no different from them. Our disobedience, our hiding, our prejudices, our reluctance means that we are just as broken as they are. Maybe more so. Because we know. We know God. We know what is right. We know better.
God, on the other hand, is committed to restorative justice---setting things right between God and us and them.
God is committed to a process of healing that requires something akin to death and resurrection. For all of us. The broken human condition affects all of us; Jews, Christians, Muslims, atheists...and everyone else.
We can't set it right. Not personally.Not systemically. Not globally.
But God can. God does. God will.
God has changed God's mind about you and me.
God chooses merciful restoration, not punishment.
God chooses reluctant, stubborn, disobedient people to do God's restoring work.
There is a pattern, a way, a transformation process.
The 3 days.
Day 1= death (end of former self, grief, loss);
Day 2= limbo. Start of healing process. Reconnection with God is established;
Day 3. A resurrection. A new way of life, a new pattern, a new relationship emerges.
This pattern is repeated in the story of Jesus, a prophet mighty in word and deed who declared forgiveness to all the people. (See the gospels)
Jesus announced and enacted the restorative, healing justice of God.
Jesus was crucified for it. He died and was buried.
On the 3rd day he was raised from the dead.
That we might also live a new life.
This is what God has done.
For you. For me. For them.
Even for the animals.
The end.
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