SUNDAY READING

Taranaki Daily News, 17 June 1933, Page 14 (Supplement)

SUNDAY READING

Qy the late REV.

A. H. COLLINS

THE BOOK OF JONAH. “Now the Word of the Lord came unto Jonah, the son of Amittai.” —Jonah I. i. It is a thousand pities that the book of Jonah has been so shockingly mishandled. To the man in the street the book is an enigma, to the scoffer it is the butt of shallow wit, to the bigot it is the test of orthodoxy, and to multitudes of sincere Christians it is “a stone of stumbling and a rock of offence.” Augustine found pagans laughing over it, and to-day the “Philistines” are doing the same. This is no credit to the ordinary reader and to the teachers of the Church. In both cases it points to a serious misconception. The whole value of the book has been judged, by a part, and that part the least important. To estimate’the worth of. the book by. the story of the great fish is as though Cromwell’s character should be determined by the wart on his face. Hunting for a miracle, we have missed the message of Jonah. Using the critical microscope, we have neglected the telescope. Poring over a single tassel of the prophet’s robe, we have failed to see the face of the prophet’s Master. And yet, judged from the literary standpoint alone, the book of Jonah is one of the Bible gems; and judged by its evangelical message, it may be said to be “John three and sixteen” of the Old Testament. It is a marvel of condensation. The whole book consists of only forty-eight verses, and as Charles Reade says, how far would that carry you in “Middlemarch” or “Ivanhoe,” or even in “Robinson Crusoe?” Here is a plot whose development might easily run into volumes, and yet without haste or crudity, it is worked out in 1328 English words! If from the literary form you turn to discover the moral purpose .of the book, you find that this much- derided book is charged with truths which are being eagerly discussed to-day; for it is the story of the larger hope, the freer faith, and the sweeter charity of the Gospel. Its place among the minor prophet gives hint of its true character. It is not to be- read as history or prophecy. It is a tale with a moral. A story often carries further than a sermon; a parable is like a fisherman’s float which keeps the hook from being lost, or lilce the feathers on an arrow, which guide the shaft to its goal. The book of Jonah is cast in the form of a narrative; just as the story of the prodigal son is; but in both cases the drapery is not the important matter. One might suppose, from the way some people speak, that the book of Jonah has always been accepted as history, and that to read it as allegory is a modem freakThe exact contrary is the fact. From the times before Christ the meaning has been in' dispute. Josephus called it a story. There is no proof that the Jews of Christ’s day regarded it as history; neither does the use our Lord made of it imply that he regarded it as historic fact. It is a work of religious fiction like all the Old and New Testament parables. It is a novel with a moral end, a series of dramatic situations which point their own lesson. It is not the book of Jonah in the sense that he wrote it, but in the sense that he is the subject of it; and the book was probably written-long after Jonah’s day. Have you noticed that this is one of the books of the Old Testament that is concerned with foreign nations? It is a missionary story. Here for the first time there is a distinct recognition that heathen people have a claim on the justice and mercy of God. Here for the first time we get a glimpse of Jehovah, not as a local and tribal deity, but as universal, and universally just and merciful. This was a distinct advance of thought, and it was one of the fruits of captivity. Up to this the Jew had been narrow and insular. I His exceptional privilege had resulted ■ in pride and exclusiveness and contact with foreign nations served to confirm him in tips vice. The sense of human brotherhood had not visited and expands l ed his heart. His religion was hidebound. But contact with other nations 1 helped to broaden his sympathies, emancipate his creed, and humanise his religion. He came out of Babylon, for the first time, rid of polytheism and devoted to pure monotheism. Instead of gods many, and lords many, he saw Ope God, who is the loving and pitying Father of all mankind. Instead of judgement and dooms for every nation save : Israel, he learned that the same moral l law rules all nations, ■ and the same divine mercy meet all who turn from their wickedness. God was merciful to Jew and Gentile alike if they turned from the evil they had done. But this larger gospel was not learned all at once. Even in Christ’s dby, and long after, the exclusive spirit survived- “The Jews had no dealings with the Samaritans” The admission of the Gentile converts into the early church raised, a controversy which threatened to split the church from top to bottom- Jonah, though a prophet, resented. such liberalism, and learned his lesson in a hard school, as this dramatic story is intended to show, In no other book of the Old Testament is the thought of God’s allcaring, never wearying, all inclusive mercy so clearly shown. In no other book is there so near an -approach to the teaching of Jesus Christ Himself. Isolated passages may be found in other books, but here the whole book is devot--1 ed to the expression of this in striking i dramatic form. The stray notes of other writers are here worked up into rounded sympathy, God is great, God is just, God is merciful, God is- the universal Father—that is the missionary message of this book, and to fix on the fish story and discuss that is to misread the whole purpose. ' i ' And now, with this as the clue, let us review the story. Jonah, of whom we know nothing, save that he was the son of Amittai, and a prophet of the northern kingdom, in the days of Jeroboam, far back in the 9th. century B.C-, is commanded to go to Nineveh and prophesy against it. The very name of Nineveh was a terror to the Jew. He held the Ninevites in abhorrence like the Romans held Carthage, and the Germans held France under Napoleon- Yet Jonah is bidden to go to this city and speak plain words of doom. It is easy to gird at wickedness from a safe distance, but it is not so easy to say the same story standing face to face with the offender. That Jonah failed is not wonderful but the reason given is not to his credit. He fears that God’s mercy will triumph over wrath; Nineveh will repent and Jonahs credit will suffer! He will not go to Nineveh- He will fly to Joppa, Israel’s one poor part, and take ship to : farshish. Swift Nemesis dogs his heels, j A storm sweeps down upon the fugitive. Seamanship was a primitive craft in those days, and the best of vessels hugged the coast. In their panic the sailors called on their gods, and jettisoned the cargo, and this done, the ■ stranger on board is called to help. Though he is only a land-lubber he can pray. Lots are cast, and the lot falls on Jonah. To his credit he does not i quibble. He “owns up” and is preI pared to suffer. Finally the prophet is dropped over the side of the ship, and the storm ceases. But Jonah is not lost. A sea monster swallows him up, and after three days the runaway is cast •forth, unhurt, and the command is re-

, peated. “Arise and go to Nineveh.” I Now Nineveh was a vast city, _ sixty miles in circumference and with a million inhabitants. It had parks and gardens, fields and orchards. From Street to streets he journeyed, and proclaimed his message with such impressions that the people repented, and the sentence of doom was revoked. It is just here that Jonah' appears in such an pdious light. ■ What he predicted had happened. He had done his duty, and had been made to look like a fool. He had said Nineveh would perish, but Nineveh was spared! In a petulant and sulky mood he made his way to the gate of the city and sat down, fuming in angry pride. It is a miserable spectacle! It is a spirit more like that of Nero than of Christ. The final scene represents God coming to this miserable man in solemn remonstrance, and the drama ends abruptly. The curtain falls on a striking tableau. Nothing is said of the after years of Jonah. The name of the king is not mentioned. The author is not writing a history; he is pointing a moral. What is the moral ? Indirectly it points the serious truth that duty cannot be evaded with impunity. All this man’s sorrow on the sea was due to his attempt to dodge his plain duty. But sooner or later God’s work has to be done, and we must do our share , of it, or suffer the consequences, just because we are living in a world where law reigns and not caprice. But the chief message of the book is the wideness of God’s mercy. The prophet sitting in petulant anger, hoping for the worst and fearing the best for a millionpeopled city, is a sinister figure, but it has its modern examples. Jewish bigotry and exclusiveness which preferred the extinction of the Gentiles rather than their salvation is a form of prejudice that dies hard. Our contempt for the coloured races is bad politics and worse religion. It is the -unconscious echo of the old-time cry, “The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, are we. Jonah could not brook the thought of being made to appear fallible, and he would rather see a . whole city wiped out than that Gentiles be included in God’s mercy, and he felt so as part of his patriotism and religionBut is there a mope wretched spectacle inside the Bible or out of it than this man, with anger in his black heart, asking the question, “Are there few that be saved,” and trying to answer in the affirmative. But the same spirit lurks behind the paltry question, whether unbaptised babies can be saved, or can unorthodox people enter the kingdom of God. Aye! and we may discuss the future destiny of the wicked in the same unlovely temper. The scoffer who holds up the book of Jonah to ribald jest, and the literalist who reads it as history and makes it a test of orthodxy, have both missed their, way and missed the tone message. It is a concise, vivid, beautiful, parabalic story, to illustrate and enforce the universality, the inflexibility, and the endlessness of God’s mercy and its central message is that which Jesus taught, and I hope we all believe, that God is our Father and Redeemer, and not ours alone, but the Father and Redeemer of the whole wide world. “For the love of God is broader Than the measure of man’s mind, And the heart of the eternal Is most wonderfully kind.”