The words we read in Scripture today are the reflections of a desperate man – Jonah – who had, perhaps, reached the lowest point in his life. In a nutshell, Jonah was a well-regarded prophet in the nation of Israel when God asked him to go to a city called Ninevah and tell the people to either change their ways or be destroyed. Jonah didn’t want to go; not because he didn’t like God’s message, but because he thought the people of Ninevah were truly horrible human beings. And he was probably right – from a historical context, what we know of these people is that they were evil. These were people who tortured and killed innocent and vulnerable men, women and children. The type of people who took pleasure in hurting others for no particular reason.
So Jonah said “no,” I’m not going there. And he took off as far in the opposite direction as he could go in an effort to hide from God. But while he was on a boat, there was a huge storm. The others on the boat threw Jonah overboard because they thought the storm was his fault.
That’s where the whale comes in. Most of us who know the name of Jonah associate him with the whale. Decide for yourself whether you believe Jonah spent three days in the belly of a whale or whether that whale is an allegory for something that happened to Jonah that put him totally and completely and disgustingly at rock bottom for three days. After hitting rock bottom, instead of avoiding the evil people of Ninevah, Jonah decided it might be cool to give them God’s warning and watch them be destroyed.
So he waltzed into this city that had at least 120,000 people and started yelling – in 40 days, God’s going to destroy you unless you get your crap together and apologize. Then he walked up a little hill, sat down, and felt pretty smug about having a front row seat for these people’s destruction.
What happened next was a bit of a plot twist – because these horrible, no good, very bad people actually listened to Jonah and feared God. From the king to the lowliest servant, they begged for forgiveness – and Scripture says “God had compassion and did not destroy them.”
When this happened, the smug prophet became the pouting prophet. The self-righteous prophet became the angry prophet. He sat on his little hill and pouted. He didn’t want these people to live! He had suffered through his own rock bottom and he believed with all his heart that these evil people deserved to die a horrible death. God’s response – basically to call Jonah a hypocrite. Here’s a guy who believed he deserved a second chance but didn’t want the same standard for the people of Ninevah.
Because of Jonah, I was thinking this week about the ways we hide:
- Our fears
- Our hopes
- Our shame and embarrassment and failures
- Our dreams
- Our anger
- We hide them from each other
- We often hide them from ourselves, burying things deep inside
- We hide from God
When confronted with difficult circumstances, Jonah chose to hide; literally needing to hit rock bottom – and even then acting like a bit of a douche. When confronted with difficult circumstances, the evil people of Ninevah chose to humble themselves, drop to their knees, apologize, and vow to change. Neither was wrong. In both circumstances, God was compassionate; God was patient; God was waiting; God was THERE.
CS Lewis – I want to lay before God what is truly in me, not what I think should be in me.
Story about family who decided to be imperfect together: In this house there were seven – five family members, one housekeeper, and one large dog named Moose. They instituted a new system in the house where everyone is assigned a day. On that day, whatever may go wrong, the person who is assigned (and ONLY that person) is to blame for everything.
The housekeeper is to blame on Saturdays; they planned it that way because it’s her day off so she doesn’t have to hear the things for which she’s to blame.
Moose the dog started it . . . One morning when the dad was raging around the kitchen over who drank the last of the milk AGAIN and who didn’t go to the store for more AGAIN, his daughter walked in with the dog and said, “Moose did it; and he’s so very sorry.” Moose did look guilty – and the family laughed about it – and suddenly the milk crisis was forgotten.
For a while after that, Moose got blamed for everything, and seemed to accept his martyrdom with silent dignity. Then the daughter complained that Moose’s burden was becoming too heavy to bear. That’s when they all decided to share the blame.
In this family, when it’s your day, your job is to apologize and grovel a little while asking for forgiveness, which is easy when you and everyone else knows that you’re not really to blame for whatever happened. What started out as a joke became the new family way. They laugh and they lose track of guilt and blame and imperfections.
WARNING: There’s a small but powerful condition attached to all of this: when I live in imperfection, I need to know you are there for me (and I for you) to listen, encourage, hold accountable, love – this is the responsibility of the body of Christ. This is who we are.
HIDE AND SEEK (by Robert Fulghum):
In the early dry dark of an October’s Saturday evening, the neighborhood children are playing hide and seek. How long since I played? Thirty years; maybe more. I remember how. I could become part of the game in a moment, if invited. But adults don’t play hide and seek. Not for fun anyway. Too bad.
Did you ever have a kid in your neighborhood who always hid so well, nobody could find him? We did. After a while we would give up on him and go off, leaving him to rot wherever he was. Sooner or later he would show up, all mad because we didn’t keep looking for him. And we would get mad back because he wasn’t playing the game the way it was supposed to be played. There’s hiding and there’s finding, we’d say. And he’d say it was hide and seek, not hide and give UP, and we’d all yell about who made the rules and who cared about who, anyway, and how we wouldn’t play with him anymore if he didn’t get it straight and who needed him anyhow, and things like that. Hide and seek and yell. No matter what, though, the next time he would hide too well again. He’s probably still hidden somewhere, for all I know.
A man I knew found out last year he had terminal cancer. He was a doctor. And he knew about dying, and didn’t want to make his family and friends suffer through that with him. So he kept his secret. And died. Some people said how brave he was to bear his suffering in silence and not tell everybody. But privately, his family and friends said how angry they were that he didn’t need them, didn’t trust their strength. And it hurt that he didn’t say goodbye.
He hid too well. Getting found would have kept him in the game. Hide and seek, grown-up style. Wanting to hide. Needing to be sought. Confused about being found. We say things like, “I don’t want anyone to know” or “What will people think?” or “I don’t want to bother anyone” or “would they still like me if they knew?”
Better than hide and seek, I like the game called Sardines. In Sardines the person who is IT goes and hides, and everyone goes looking for him. When you find him, you hide alongside him. Pretty soon everybody is hiding together, all stacked in a small space like puppies in a pile. And pretty soon somebody giggles and somebody laughs and everyone gets found.
Medieval theologians described God in hide and seek terms, calling him Deus Absconditus. But me, I think God is a Sardine player. And will be found the same way everybody gets found in Sardines – by the sound of laughter of those heaped together at the end.
Olly olly oxen free! The kids in the street are hollering the cry that says, “Come on in, wherever you are. It’s a new game.” And so say I. To all of you who have hid too well. Get found. Olly olly oxen free!
May we be a people who want to be FOUND – by each other, and by God. May it be so – Amen.
Discussion Questions:
1. What does it look like when you hide? How does it feel?
2. From what are you most likely to hide? How does hiding impact your most important relationships?
3. Why is being found hard for adults? How can you help someone? How can you take steps to be more vulnerable with others?
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