More Jonah Greatness

In the last post I expressed how Jonah (whose name means "dove") was rejected as a sacrifice because God sent the fish to save and protect Jonah. The interpretive jump then was to the speculation that in the story of Jonah, God is rejecting the need for sacrifice all together. An idea that I am sure has been fleshed out elsewhere, but this post I want to share just another bit of Jonah greatness.

On the boat, it is clear that the sailors are looking for the cause of the violent seas. However all their searching to find the person responsible was just that - looking for someone else other. Not one sailor verbalized they may be part of the problem. All their finger pointing was to finding someone else to blame. Surely they are not part of the problem, right?

We do this. When there are "sea" of life becomes violent and out of control, we tend to be like the sailors and think that someone else must be to blame for the problems and difficult situations we find ourselves in. We tend to think that our contribution to a difficult situation is mild at best and if it were not for "the other person" life would not be so messy. 

Sailors look to scapegoat others for the problems.

Which is why the actions of the king of Nineveh is so remarkable. He, and by extension the entire city, do not know why there is a pending calamity coming to their city but they all take a share of the blame. From Jonah 3:6-10

"When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes.Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’ When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it."

The Ninevites do not look to blame others. They do not sacrifice a dove (like the sailors did at Jonah's direction). They did not look to find an alternate scapegoat. They covered themselves in ashes and sackcloth. 

Nineveh looks inward and humbly accepts they might have been part of the problem. 

It is my prayer that we all might be less like a sailor and more like a Ninevite.

God rejects sacrifice

Jonah is one of my favorite books of the Bible. I am proud of my religious tradition that in it's infancy it was the story of Jonah that the early Church elevated as a formative story. Not Moses. Not Isaiah. Not even the great Amos or David. It is the story of Jonah that we find carved in sarcophagus and on the walls of the early church meeting places.

Recently I re-read Jonah and lead a quick study on the book. There are many things that are worth elevating, and perhaps those will make an appearance on this site. But I want to share one insight that did not even dawn upon me until it just came out of my mouth the other night. I am sure that others smarter than me already knew this, but this insight is new to me. 

Jonah's name means "dove". Which is not that interesting on the surface, but when coupled with the idea that one of the most common animals sacrificed in the temple to "appease the gods" were doves, then we have something interesting. 

When the "dove" is thrown overboard and sacrificed to calm the storm, it is God who saves the "dove" from death by sending the great whale (big fish). Could it be that God is attempting to overthrow the sacrificial system? 

As the story moves along, the people of Nineveh are called to repent. We might expect the people of Nineveh to sacrifice animals to avoid the pending doom. But they don't. In fact all they do is put on sackcloth and cover themselves in ashes. They don't sacrifice a dove like the sailors did.

And then, the pending doom was not to be. The great city is not destroyed. 

Jonah is angry that this has happened. How could it be that God would forgive this city if they did not kill anything? How could God possibly forgive such sinners without the sacrifice of an animal (or for those who think Jesus was their sacrifice, remember Jesus was not around yet)?

The entire theological understanding of God that Jonah has is overturned. (Which may be what Jesus is trying to say when he overturns the tables that were in the temple selling sacrifices?)

“For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt-offerings.”

— Hosea 6:6

Moving from cosmetic to fundamental change in the laity

Each year I attend conferences and read books about the future of the church. I hear about how the future of the church will be smaller and more missional. The church will need to shift from making congregation members to Disciples of Jesus. The church will be more lay driven and rely upon bi-vocational ministers. I hear about the house-church movement, the Emergent movement, the Mega-church movement, the Neo-Monastic movement, and even those hinting at a “bowel movement” to flush out their disliked theology/philosophy/generation/leaders.

In all this conversation about all the different movements that the church is experiencing or needing, there is a bit of doctrine that clergy publically affirm but privately call into question. The past few years more and more clergy are beginning to speak out against this false teaching but it still is defended by many.

What is this doctrine? It comes in many variations but the gist is this:

The clergy are just not beginning to see what the laity have known and have desired for a long time – we need to change the way we are the Church.

Of course the Church of the future will be different than the Church of the past or present. No one knows what the Church will look like, although that does not keep many of us from speculating. The idea of a changing Church is not really up for debate any more.

What is up for debate is the first part of this doctrine – the laity know and desire a change in the way we do Church.

The Diffusion of Innovation Curve. How do we get over the tipping point with our laity to have an early majority of lay members embrace fundamental change?

Lay members of the church are not dumb they know that change is needed. However, the number of laity who understand what type of change is required is much less than what is needed to create a change that we all agree needs to happen. The laity that I have encountered, even those who acknowledge change is needed, express only cosmetic change.

When we talk about a fundamental change to the way we do Church we are talking about willing to close our beloved Church in order to birth new communities. We are talking about willing to personally engage in a lifestyle change to integrate the spiritual practices/disciplines. We are talking about willing to set the spiritual formation of our children at the same priority level of the educational formation of our children.* We are talking about willing to disentangle the American Dream and God’s Dream, Capitalism and the Beloved Community, patriotism and support of “the troops” from one another. We are talking about willing to see the Creeds not as litmus tests for “orthodoxy” but as poems penned to describe the indescribable. We are talking about addressing the social issues of human sexuality and identity, war, and income inequality. We are talking about addressing the theological issues of the atonement, theodicy, and the authority of the Bible.

These are some of the questions of fundamental change that we need to address.

And these are not the questions that I hear laity asking. Questions of fundamental change are not questions that keep laity up at night. But I can tell you, they haunt this clergy person every day.

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*Why there is a culturally acceptable parenting approach to let our children choose if they are going to attend a faith community but do not let them choose to attend school is beyond my understanding.