From the very beginning, the story of Jonah can only be a legend, a fairy tale.
One day, if the word of God came to you, do you think you can say NO to God? Like Moses, life would not be easy and could even become hazardous if God had chosen you to carry out His will. Poor Jonah, he was a reluctant prophet.
For a Jew, it was beyond his imagination that God would want to spare a city of sinners. The story of Sodom and Gormorrah makes it clear that God did not spare wicked people. (Genesis 19) During the time of King Saul, they were supposed to annihilate the whole tribe of Amalek because they opposed the Israelites when they came out of Egypt. (1 Samuel 15) God was demanding Jonah to do something which he was not psychologically ready to do --- to warn the Gentiles to repent so that they might escape from God's wrath. Jonah was a reluctant prophet with guts. He dared to challenge God's compassion for the Gentiles and refused to comply. That gave the story teller a good opportunity to tell an exciting and fascinating story.
Jonah tried to run away from God, though he knew very well that his chances of success were slim. As expected, God chased after him, brewed up a storm to cut short his life as a fugitive and sent a whale-like submarine to keep him a captive for three days and nights. In the end, the whale spit him on the shore of Nineveh. All these legendary details are attractive. They serve only one purpose --- God is in full control of everything. Whether you like it or not, you would still be doing the will of God. Of course, here is a question of autonomy. We always believe that God respects our freedom. But the story of Jonah seems to tell us that our freedom is only an illusion. This is a deep philosophical question and I can only deal with it very briefly for the moment.
Human freedom is not absolute. For example, we cannot exercise our freedom to bring harm to the others. Even God's freedom is restricted by his respect for our freedom. In conclusion, our freedom cannot exceed certain limits. Therefore, when it came to a certain point, God had to intervene in order to bring salvation to the people of Nineveh.
The city of Nineveh was a great city, 3 days' journey in breadth (Jonah 3:3). Suppose a man is able to walk 20 miles a day. Nineveh would measure 60 miles x 60 miles, if it was a square. However, from what we read, we can sense that Jonah would not be committed and dedicated in the mission God assigned him. He stopped when he came one third into the city, not yet the centre of the city. Then he spoke aloud very briefly, "Yet forty days, and Nineveh shall be overthrown." (Jonah 3:4) There was no elaboration or no persuasive presentation etc. However, all the people believed God and did penance! How incredible! How we wish our evangelization programmes would be as successful! When we think deeper, we have to put on our humility to admit that even faith is a gift from God. It is an illusion that we believe in God. It is I that choose to believe in God and not other deities. No. let me repeat. It is an illusion that we take the initiative to believe in God. Rather, it is God who arranges so many occasions, things and people so that we may be able to believe in Him. In short, faith is a gift, a supernatural gift given us by God. Jonah's evangelization was not persuasive. Rather, it was God who had compassion on mankind, both the Jews and the Gentiles, so that we may believe in Him. Jonah, Peter, Andrew, James and John were fishers of men. They were God's instruments to bring salvation to the people they met. We do our parts. God does the rest.
Dear Lord, let not our arrogance blind our sight of your compassion. I surrender my freedom Lord. May you make good use of me to help build the Kingdom of Heaven. Amen.
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