Narrative Lectionary Program Year – “Jonah”
Jonah 1:1-17; 3:1-10 [4:1-11]
Free Additional Resources for Study & Sermon Preparation
Furthering the Power of God’s Story – Narrative Lectionary Commentary
by Rev. Dr. Clint Schnekloth
Let’s acknowledge straightaway that Jonah is not one of the minor prophets. It’s definitely not authored by an actual prophet. It’s fiction: satire, allegory, or as Robert Alter calls it, '“ad hoc innovative narrative.” It’s like a short story that transfers traditional Israelite conceptions of prophecy into a wider universal framework.
Most readers notice that it flips all the traditional moments of prophecy on their head. Jonah as a prophet, instead of going unheeded, is heard immediately. A whole city repents at just a simple word from the ‘prophet.’ And it’s not the people who are hardhearted, but the prophet himself.
But also of tremendous importance, the Ninevites are not Israelites. They are not Judah or Israel in exile. They are a foreign people, and God cares for and prophecies to those outside of Israel. Jonah’s only other interlocutors are polytheistic sailors.
In a way, the prophecy of Jonah is also related not just to foreigners but also to creation itself. A big fish, and a plant. And his call to repentance is heeded even by the animals of Nineveh.
It is worth noting that it takes an alternative literary form to offer an alternative theological reframing of traditional nationalist notions of God’s relationship to other nations and creation itself. Jonah is beloved for many reasons, and told in the popular imagination repeatedly: preachers can make use of its popularity to expand radically overly constricted notions of God’s mercy.
Scripture Reference Links
Menu
Sitewide Search for Topics & Readings
We Have Worship Resources For You
Clergy Stuff NL
Clergy Stuff RCL
Clergy Stuff Plays, Dramas, Lenten Series
Clergy Stuff Sermon Series
Menu
The following links and resources are not produced or maintained by Clergy Stuff. However, at the time of this posting, the links were active and considered to be good source material for proclamation for the text for this week. Please scroll down or click on the quick jump menu you find below. For more free worship resources & planning materials, please visit our links for RCL Worship Resources.
Historical Exegetical Resources
An Exhortation to Repentance, Clement
The Book of Jonah: A Social Justice Commentary, Shmuly Yanklowitz
Contemporary Resources
Exegetical Links
A Literary-exegetical and social-scientific analysis of the book of Jonah: an exposition of its ancient social values, Jo-Marí Schäder
Nineveh, that ***hole Place, Melissa Bane Sevier
Great Quotes
“The God with whom he has such difficulties because of his Israelite nationalist mind-set is not chiefly the God of Israel but the God of the whole world, of all creatures large and small. -Robert Alter”
Video Resources
Daily Devotional Feed
Free Dramatic Reading For This Text (NRSV)
Readers: Narrator, Lord, Captain, Sailors, Jonah, King
Narrator: Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai, saying,
Lord: Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.
Narrator: But Jonah set out to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. He went down to Joppa and found a ship going to Tarshish; so he paid his fare and went on board, to go with them to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord. But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, and such a mighty storm came upon the sea that the ship threatened to break up. Then the mariners were afraid, and each cried to his god. They threw the cargo that was in the ship into the sea, to lighten it for them. Jonah, meanwhile, had gone down into the hold of the ship and had lain down, and was fast asleep. The captain came and said to him,
Captain: What are you doing sound asleep? Get up; call on your god! Perhaps the god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish.
Narrator: The sailors said to one another,
Sailors: Come, let us cast lots, so that we may know on whose account this calamity has come upon us.
Narrator: So they cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. Then they said to him,
Sailors: Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?
Jonah: I am a Hebrew,
Narrator: he replied.
Jonah: I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.
Narrator: Then the men were even more afraid, and said to him,
Sailors: What is this that you have done!
Narrator: For the men knew that he was fleeing from the presence of the Lord, because he had told them so.
Then they said to him,
Sailors: What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?
Narrator: For the sea was growing more and more tempestuous. He said to them,
Jonah: Pick me up and throw me into the sea; then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.
Narrator: Nevertheless the men rowed hard to bring the ship back to land, but they could not, for the sea grew more and more stormy against them. Then they cried out to the Lord,
Sailors: Please, O Lord, we pray, do not let us perish on account of this man’s life. Do not make us guilty of innocent blood; for you, O Lord, have done as it pleased you.
Narrator: So they picked Jonah up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from its raging. Then the men feared the Lord even more, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows. But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying,
Lord: Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.
Narrator: So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out,
Jonah: Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!
Narrator: And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth. When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh:
King: By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water.
[Narrator: But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said,
Jonah: O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.
Narrator: And the Lord said,
Lord: Is it right for you to be angry?
Narrator: Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said,
Jonah: It is better for me to die than to live.
Narrator: But God said to Jonah,
Lord: Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?
Narrator: And he said,
Jonah: Yes, angry enough to die.
Narrator: Then the Lord said,
Lord: You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?]