Not just a fish story.

I didn't grow up in a Bible culture. We didn't go to church. We didn’t read the Book, but we had a couple of copies around. When I was a shallow, dumb kid, the Bible seemed to be an impossible combination of mysterious and boring. I've learned a lot since then.

I say that to explain, not excuse, the fact that my ignorance has remained so strong for so long. 

When I was a kid, all I knew about Jonah was that he was an Old Testament guy who got swallowed by a whale, then got out. Like that was the whole story. I had no idea or interest in what put the prophet in this sorrowful condition. Later I found out that it was because God wanted him to get the residents of Nineveh to repent, and Jonah refused to do it. He tried to escape God every way he could, even by ship. When God sent a storm to wreck the ship, Jonah manned up. He told the sailors that they should throw him overboard before God destroyed them (they had cast lots anyway and all signs pointed to him). So throw him overboard they did.

gulp!

The book of Jonah is only four chapters long, one of the shortest in the Bible, and is exceptionally concise. Jonah's in the fish's belly by chapter 2, verse 1.

Finally, Jonah agrees to do God's will even though he hates the people of Nineveh (key fact!), and is released from the giant fish (not a whale). I didn't know that Nineveh was the biggest city in the world at one point, but the Bible says it took three days just to walk through it. For comparison: If you're in okay condition you can walk the length of Manhattan in one day and still stop for lunch. Nineveh is also an enemy of Israel, so Jonah really doesn't want the Lord to spare his wrath. And yet he agrees to go talk to the city of jerks and get them to repent. And they do.

But I didn't know about the end of the story -- chapter 4 never came up at Mass. (As Kathleen Madigan says, "Protestants read the Bible, Catholics read the bulletin. Who died and what's for lunch?" Well, not really, but there's truth to it.) And when I read chapter 4, Jonah became my new favorite Old Testament prophet.

Jonah sits on a hill to watch God destroy Nineveh, and nothing happens. God forgave them and will not destroy them. Jonah is SO MAD that the Ninevehens (Ninevians?) have repented and been spared that he wants to die. He just can't STAND it. He just sits there and seethes. God even asks him, "Are you right to be angry?" For which he has no answer. He doesn't care if he's right, I guess.

God grows a plant to shade Jonah where he sits seething. Jonah likes that. But then God destroys the plant, which makes Jonah mad again. Now God asks if he's right to be angry about the plant dying.

Jonah answered, “I have a right to be angry—angry enough to die.”

And God replies:

“You are concerned over the gourd plant which cost you no effort and which you did not grow; it came up in one night and in one night it perished. And should I not be concerned over the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot know their right hand from their left, not to mention all the animals?”

And... and that's it! That's the end of the book. As far as we know Jonah just continued to sit there, furious, wishing an earthquake would swallow Nineveh.

This is outstanding.

Now, my pastor would probably tell me that Jonah must have repented again, because how would we otherwise know the end of the story? He must have told someone. God explained that the people of Nineveh didn't even know right from wrong until Jonah told them, but He loved them anyway, and that's why he needed Jonah to help save them. And then Jonah probably told God he was sorry for his anger and then told his story to the Israelites and became one of the minor prophets.

But I find the ambiguity of the ending fascinating. I can't help but identify with Jonah, furious that this city of lowlifes has been saved after all they'd done to his people, so furious that he wanted to die because this is intolerable. And I can imagine God loving Jonah all the same.

I can't imagine being as brave as most of the other prophets. I can certainly imagine being as angry as Jonah. His God is the God of love and forgiveness, so he cannot take a hand against Nineveh himself. For some reason he is the only man of God whom the Ninevehans (? oh, whatever) will listen to, because God spares no effort to get Jonah to do his will. But it doesn't stop Jonah from being mad.

Maybe I'm nuts, but there's something in that image of Jonah watching Nineveh with fury in his heart I find appealing. It's sad, sure, but there's nobility in someone doing his duty when it's the last thing he wants to do. I hope he did find peace. My burdens are a lot lighter, but I'd like some peace myself.