One thing that stands out about the Episcopal Church and a few other affiliations in Christianity is our rejection of biblical literalism and the book-worship that accompanies it. Literalizing leads to misunderstanding sacred writings, and keeps us with a superficial view that misses deeper truths.
Jonah, the subject of our Hebrew Bible reading today [3: 1-5, 10], is an excellent example. In the fundamentalist sect of my childhood, we were taught that this tale is an historical event: a huge fish swallows an obstreperous prophet and then spits him out in a location where YHVH wants him to exercise his prophetic ministry. The heart of the tale supposedly was to be found in the miracle of being swallowed by and surviving life inside a fish.
Now let's look at the real story. To understand it, we have to go back to the Babylonian Exile in 597 and in 586 BCE. Most of those who were abducted were from the southern kingdom of Judah and possessed skills desired by the abductors. Generally, the northern kingdom of Israel was untouched. Those exiles performed well in their new home, producing the biblical commentary known as the Babylonian Talmud, excelling in the professions and business, and generally being good denizens of what is modern-day Iraq. When exiles were allowed to return to the Holy Land, only about twenty percent came back.
After the return, a natural question that had to be addressed was why the God in covenant with the Jews had not protected them from captivity. The Southerners returning from exile concluded that YHVH had punished them for their sinfulness and had now forgiven them and restored them to the land. Northerners, on the other hand, said that they were obviously God's true people as God had spared them exile. Those who returned became very strict in adherence to the Law and to keeping ritual purity by staying away from non-Jews. Northerners continued to assimilate people who were ethnically diverse; and they also built their own Temple at Gerizim and refused to accept as holy scripture books added to the Torah by their religious competitor to the South.
Jonah's audience, like the character in this drama, want to avoid those who are different in order to please God. Jonah tells the shocking truth: God loves all nations. So God sends him to "Sin City," Nineveh, the Las Vegas of the first century, to bring them God's message. When Jonah does comply and the Ninevites convert, he is angry about it. God chastises him, "And should I not pity Nineveh, that great city in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who do not know right from wrong, and also many animals?" [4:11]
The tale of Jonah reminds us once again that God is no respecter of persons, loves all his children, calls everyone into sacred relationship. Let us ask whether we, as his faithful people, do enough to reach out to those who are truly different in our own time, inviting them to encounter Christ today.
No comments:
Post a Comment