Once again, the disciples are scared and angry. It’s hard to blame them though. Jesus wanted a little alone time, so he sent them off across the lake in their little boat while he wandered off to pray. But Jesus is supposed to be the Son of God right? He’s supposed to be this great teacher and miracle worker so its no wonder the disciples are a little miffed when it turns out that he sent them headfirst into windstorm. Surely a little weather prediction is not too much to ask of a rabbi who can turn water into wine at a wedding reception just for the sake of a good party. It’s the middle of the night, the waves are swamping their boat, and the disciples are wet, angry, and probably no little anxious. Small wonder that when Jesus saunters up, walking on the very waves that are doing what they can to drown the disciples, they are a bit put out.

At least they didn’t get swallowed whole by a giant fish though, eh? Poor Jonah, hero of the bible’s only situation comedy. In the first reading Jonah is trying valiantly to placate God by praying from within the fish’s belly. We all know that it can be difficult to maintain the kind of regular prayer life we’d like to have, but imagine how much more difficult it must be from inside a fish. Every time you opened your mouth to say something to God, some bit of partly digested fish food would get in there and choke you. Thankfully there’s probably not a lot of light inside a fish so you wouldn’t have to look at what you were gagging on. Before you go jumping to conclusions about the sadness of Jonah’s current situation and God’s petty vengeance which placed him there, let me recap for you the story of Jonah and the Whale.

When the story begins, Jonah is minding his own business. Come to think of it, that’s what most prophets are doing when God shows up: minding their own business. But show up God does, and tells Jonah about these horrible people who live in Nineveh, and how they are doing the most horrible things and offending against God in the most horrible of ways. All Jonah needs to do, says God, is hoof it out to Nineveh and tell the horrible Ninevites to cut it out. God will handle the divine retribution part if they refuse. Jonah holds up the tradition of the prophetic profession by telling God to find someone else to bear his bad news. Also true to form, God insists.

This is where the story starts to get interesting. God is always telling prophets to go tell someone something, and the someone to be told is never likely to enjoy the something that is to be told them. Prophets are always hesitant, and God always insists. Jonah, however, improves on the story by accepting Gods insistence, walking down to the docks, and hopping on the first boat headed in the opposite direction of Nineveh.

There are echoes of the Gospel passage here, because as soon as the boat gets inconveniently far from shore, a big wind storm arrives and starts to give the sailors fits. Unfortunately for the sailors, Jesus isn’t scheduled to be born for several centuries, so there’s no chance of him walking up to the boat and fixing things. The sailors try everything they can think of to placate the storm and save their ship (not to mention their skins). Eventually they figure Jonah must have something to do with it so they drag him up on deck for a few questions. Under duress, Jonah admits that he worships the LORD GOD of the Israelites, and that he is currently AWAL from a prophetic mission. The sailors promptly toss him overboard and the storm clears right up.
It turns out that Jonah isn’t much of a swimmer though, so he sinks pretty much straight to the bottom where he begins to think that sneaking out on the LORD might not have been such a good idea after all. God takes this as the beginnings of repentance and in divine mercy sends rescue. Divine mercy is not to be doen without divine comedy however, and the rescue comes in the form of a giant fish which swallows Jonah whole, and now we are back where we started in today’s lesson.

Jonah realizes that while hanging out in the belly of the whale is better than drowning, getting out of the belly of the whale and onto dry land would be even better. He prays, God hears, and Jonah is delivered up onto the beach looking like a wet cat and covered with fish slime. And most likely feeling like that cat would have felt had it gone looking to eat a fish and been eaten instead itself. Eaten, then spit back up. The bible can be so gross.

Anyways, the rest of the story goes like this: Jonah heads for Nineveh and delivers the message God asked him to. The Ninevites do the completely unexpected and actually listen to the prophet, and repent. They really get into it too, not only the men repent, but the women and children too, putting on sackcloth and rolling in ashes to show just how sorry they are. But wait, that’s not all. The Ninevites’ animals repent too, although I have no idea how they got pigs to wear sackcloth or the cows to roll in ashes.

So, problem solved, story has a happy ending, right? Sorry. Jonah isn’t happy. On the road to Nineveh, Jonah had convinced himself that if he had to travel all this way and risk getting stoned for his trouble, at least he would have the satisfaction of seeing the Ninevites smitten mightily from on high. No such luck. To everyone’s surprise, the Ninevites repent and God forgives them, and there will be no show for Jonah. So Jonah sits down on the barren hill outside Nineveh that he selected to watch the fireworks from and refuses to eat or drink while waiting for the sun to bake him to death.

This next part is a bit strange, but for the sake of thoroughness I’ll tell you about it. Overnight, God makes a tree grow up from the barren hill. The tree shades Jonah, and Jonah decides life isn’t so bad after all. The next night, God sends a worm who eats the entire tree. Jonah wakes up in the blazing sun, and is depressed again. That’s it. That’s the whole story of Jonah and the Whale.

And the whole point of that long and torturous sidebar was that while the disciples are in some trouble, at least they aren’t as bad off a Jonah. It’s a similar situation really. The disciples are in a boat, Jonah is in a boat, and all of them are in some trouble. The wind is blowing, and somebody is going to get tossed overboard. The difference is that the disciples are sailing toward God, and Jonah is sailing away. Peter even manages to get out of the boat and walk toward God for a few steps. Jonah just gets the old heave ho.

You might point out, of course, that Peter got dunked too. I can’t argue with that. Even when you are walking right at God there’s a pretty good chance that you’ll get wet. Only take your eyes off for a moment and you can fall. Jesus manages to catch Peter though, and we can assume that they all get in the boat, head for shore, have a nice breakfast of grilled fish, and laugh over Peter’s failed attempt at water walking. I wonder if Jonah learned his lesson as well.

And what about us then? If we are going to make sense of these metaphors then we have to imagine that we too are all in boats, sailing for rough weather. Which way do you sail? Is it towards God, or away? Will you require rescue from the murky deeps, or will you be the one who risks much by stepping out of the boat? We all must pick a boat, and we’ll all end up in a storm sooner or later. Which boat will it be? And which way will you sail?