The backwards kingdom
Jonah ch 3; Mark 4: 26-34
There is a
Godly Play version of the story of Jonah. Its title is “Jonah – the backwards
prophet”.
Jonah seems
to manage to get things completely wrong .
First God
tells him to go to Nineveh – which is to the East of Joppa, near where Jonah
begins the story. Jonah immediately
seeks a boat going to Tarsish – we sets off West, into the Mediterranean, until
diverted by a storm and a large fish, who returns Jonah to dry land.
Then in
today’s chapter we’ve heard how God tells Jonah a second time to go to Nineveh.
This time at
least Jonah, the backward prophet, gets it right: he goes in the direction God
sends him.
He walks
deep into the great city and proclaims “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be
overthrown!”.
It’s hard to imagine his surprise when the
people of Nineveh, a people so wicked they have drawn themselves to the
attention of Almighty God, listen to him.
Even the king listens to Jonah’s message, sits
in ashes and orders the whole city – even the animals – to fast and to cover
themselves in sackcloth. The king declares “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.”
I wonder what Jonah thought. He has
suffered storm and near shipwreck and the inside of a great fish to come and
deliver this message of doom. But Jonah, the backward prophet, has been
listened to – an unusual experience for most prophets, you might think.
Jonah has turned around and gone to
Nineveh, and it is astonishing that the people of Nineveh have turned around,
too – turned from their wickedness, listened to Jonah, and turned to God in repentance.
But for the king to say ‘God may change his
mind?’ – really, what are they expecting?
I wonder who was most surprised, Jonah, the
King of Nineveh, or the cows covered in sackcloth at what happens next: “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.”
God changed his mind.
I don’t want to spoil the surprise of next
week’s chapter of Jonah – but let’s just say that Jonah is not best pleased. He
has (on the second attempt) done what God asked him to do – tell the people of
Nineveh that God is going to destroy them in 40 days. He sits, expecting a
ring-side seat, and…God changed his mind.
Jonah, the backward prophet, learns that
God’s mercy and love is greater even than his power and his justice.
He is meant to deliver God’s teaching to
the people, and he ends up receiving a huge lesson himself.
Because, as Jesus teaches, God’s kingdom is
like a mustard seed which grows into a large shrub, and the birds of the air
nest in its branches.
The seed Jesus is talking about is a tiny,
air-borne seed of a common weed in the Middle East. It grows wherever it can,
and as you have seen from the picture, it is a highly unimpressive scrubby kind
of bush. The nearest equivalent for us in Britain might be the bramble. It pops
up where you least want it in your garden, it scratches you when you try to
uproot it, and it forms a dense, unattractive thicket.
Yet the birds love it – it provides just
the sort of cover they love.
But if you are a farmer, the last thing you
want to do is provide a home for scavenging birds, who will lurk in those
bushes and fall on any seed that you try to sow in the future.
So Jesus’ parable tells the story of a seed
that grows into a weed and provides a home for pests.
This is the backward kingdom of God.
Sometimes when we’re reading our Bibles it
can be interesting to wonder who it is
in the story who is nearest to the kingdom of God.
In the story of the mustard seed it seems
to be those birds – they don’t question how the seed grows, they don’t look for
a harvest to reap and gather into barns – they just make the most of the
opportunity and build themselves a nest.
Maybe Jesus wants us to know that God’s
kingdom is like this – we don’t need to engage the intellect and work out how
it works; we don’t need to worry about the future; we don’t need strict rules
about who’s in and who’s out of God’s kingdom – we just have to know we are
welcome to make it our home. We just need faith, hope and love.
And what about in the story of Jonah – who
is nearest to God’s kingdom there?
Not Jonah – the backward prophet, who has
to be kidnapped by a fish to listen to God.
It seems to be the king of Nineveh. When
he’s threatened with terrible violence by God’s prophet, he orders his people
to repent and hopes that God might change his mind. And God does.
Recognising who is nearest to the kingdom
of God in our Bible readings might help us to identify those who are nearest
the kingdom of God in our times.
Perhaps the people we least expect – like
the king of Nineveh. There is no longer a king of Nineveh – but Nineveh exists
– it is a suburb of Mosul.
The Syrian Orthodox church recognise the 7th
century bishop Isaac of Nineveh as a saint.
Isaac of Nineveh was not far from the
kingdom. In one part of his work he writes:
“A handful of sand, thrown into the sea, is
what sinning is, when compared to God’s providence and mercy. Just like an
abundant source of water is not impeded by a handful of dust, so is the
Creator’s mercy not defeated by the sins of His creations.”
It surely would have surprised Jonah that
the sinful people of Nineveh had so much to teach us about the mercy of God.
Perhaps those nearest the kingdom are those we least expect.
Perhaps those closest to the kingdom of God
are the ones we are not sure we want to welcome – like the scavenging birds for
a farmer.
Perhaps we feel we ourselves are far from God’s kingdom because of our lack
of knowledge, or our past, or our failure to adhere to rules?
Consider the birds of the air – and the
grace and mercy of God who gives a welcome to all who seek to grow in faith
hope and love.
Listen to the Word of God – you are not far
from the kingdom of God.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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