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 7^th 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.