Abide: Jonah and Micah

One of my favorite sermons in the history of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is a sermon delivered by President Hugh B. Brown at BYU. It's entitled God is the Gardener. I'm confident that many of you have heard this before. But I love the part of the end where when dealing with a massive professional disappointment that Brother Brown says that he takes his fist and he shakes it at heaven, and says, “Why would you do this to me, God, I've done all that I know how to uphold the standards of the church, and yet you've cut me down.” He then remembers that he had said something very similar to a current bush. And he recognized the lesson that God would do as he saw fit for his best growth and then repeated part of the hymn: “It may not be on the mountain height or over the stormy sea. It may not be at the battle front my Lord will have a need for me. But if by a still small voice, he calls to paths that I do not know. I'll answer Dear lord with my hand and Thine, I'll go where you want me to go.” Now this may be funny him and a funny story to remember when we're going to be discussing Jonah, today perhaps the most famous character to shirk what the Lord asked him to do. But I was struck by it in thinking about the ways that I would like to think that I am like Elder Brown in this situation, but that often I actually end up acting like Jonah in this episode of Abide a Maxwell Institute podcast, we'll discuss what it means to answer the Lord's call, and also different ways of approaching scripture in our personal study. My name is Joseph Stuart and I am the Public Communication Specialist at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute for Religious Scholarship at Brigham Young University. Kristian Heal is a research fellow at the Neal A. Maxwell Institute. And each week we discussed the week's block of reading from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Come, Follow Me curriculum. We aren't here to present a lesson, but rather to speak on a few key themes from the scripture block so as to help fulfill the Maxwell Institute's mission to inspire and fortify Latter-day Saints in their testimonies of the restored gospel of Jesus Christ, and engage the world of religious ideas. Today, we are once again joined by Dori Cameron, one of our research assistants, a junior at BYU from Great Falls, Montana studying art and creative writing. She has a strong interest in literature, culture, media, and language. Welcome back Dori to the Maxwell Institute Podcast.

Dori: I'm here to answer one question and one question only. And that is, did the VeggieTales movie get it right?

Stuart: We look forward to finding out the answer with you. But before we get to that very important question, we're going to ask you a few other ones, like first what's going on in the book of Jonah? And what should we know before we begin studying it?

Dori: The book of Jonah is a very literary book. It doesn't fit with a lot of the other books in the Old Testament. Written from a third person perspective, we follow the character of Jonah, as he goes on this journey, both physically and spiritually. The book was likely written during the post-exile period, so we're likely to see influence from that experience of Jewish exile leaking throughout the book. As far as who wrote it, we are not sure. It might be the titular Jonah, what is almost certain is that whoever wrote it held some sort of authority with the Jewish community for it to have been so readily accepted into the canon.

Stuart: So knowing that background, who is Jonah?

Dori: We don't know. We do not know much about Jonah. We're not sure where he comes from. We're not sure where he's supposed to fall in the entire timeline of biblical history. It seems to be taking place before Elijah, after Elijah, during the time of exile before exile. The geography is all over the place. The Jonah in the book of Jonah may be the same prophet Jonah referred to in Second Kings, chapter 14. But there's so little written about that Jonah, we can't say that with any sort of certainty.

Stuart: So fascinating. So what framings can help us to better understand Jonah's story?

Dori: Right, now, just to be clear, I'm normally the kind of person who airs on this side of “why shouldn't I believe this written in the Bible absolutely happened?” Jonah's more difficult for me to do that with and it's not because of the whale thing. So the whale thing is pretty easy for me to handle, actually. I'm not I'm not bothered by that. I'm bothered by the character of Jonah, in general, he’s lousy Prophet. We think of him as a prophet. We gave him a verse in the follow the Prophet song, but he is not exactly a model prophet. So we might read it as a parody of the prophetic genre. That is satire helping us to better understand the role of the prophet and the character of God. So in the prophetic genre, which we've gotten thus far through the Come Follow Me curriculum, we've gone through the by I believe you've seen Isaiah, Jeremiah, we've seen Moses we've seen lots of prophets and they tend to follow a particular pattern. The humble man is called by God in some miraculous way to some mission: free my people, lead the army, etc, etc. The humble man usually does not feel worthy, but is sanctified or purified or strengthened by God and His angels. And this obedient Prophet trusts in God, goes and tells people to do what the Lord says, even though it's absolutely ridiculous. And sometimes the people repent, sometimes the people don't repent. But you know that this is the kind of pattern we have seen throughout the entire Bible. And we see it today even. I mean, I think President Thomas S. Monson is always on the Lord's errand, yeah. Whereas Samuel said “here am I”, and Isaiah said, "Here am I send me” when Jonah is called by God, he said, I'm not here. He's a parody of a prophet. Even by the end of his story, like a lot, a lot of versions of the Jonah story, we'll have Jonah finally understand what it is that God wants him to understand or have a change of heart. In the actual book of Jonah, we get no such thing. Jonah is the unrepentant one. Throughout his book, he chafes against the Lord's command, he is prideful, he does not want to grant mercy to the people God sends him to–kind of a lousy prophet.

Stuart: That's really a fascinating way of looking at it. And as you wrote in your notes, this may be a foil to the Christ figure to thinking about what a prophet is not. But I think that we can also look at the book of Jonah as an allegory. What did your research turn up with that?

Dori: So while, I don't necessarily think that the book of Jonah is necessarily historically true. I think it's included in the Bible because it absolutely teaches correct principles. Even in its contrast that we see sell those truth, if we were to read it as a parody by seeing the contrast, we understand, oh, the God who does wrathful things throughout the Bible, He is also merciful. The prophet who usually mediates in this case, condemns the people we should not condemn. If you read it in an allegorical perspective, then the characters and the places become symbolic. Perhaps we are Jonah, us individually. When God gives us a command, we might chafe against it, we might run away from it. What is our job? Where are we running to that might not be a physical land, it might be a career, or a different philosophy. When God places us in the whale, post-exiled Jews might likely read Jonah trapped in the whale in the belly of the whale for three days, as their own exile, they were kept in this place. Yeah, it stank and it wasn't comfortable, but the entire time God was carrying them, and God wants us to get back on track, we might have to hang out in a whale for a little bit. We wanted to go to Jaffa , but we ended up in this whale. It's not super comfortable. But we should know that God is the one carrying us. Through the story, we see very true principles about the nature of God. Throughout the Bible we've seen a lot of the wrathful Old Testament God, but I like the book of Jonah, because this one really teaches about God's mercy. We don't get to see a whole lot of instances of God not raining down destruction on the people. Unless the Prophet absolutely begs God, “no, give them another chance.” In the story of Jonah. God extends the hand of mercy. He shows how many chances he's willing to give. And when we do follow through, on our end, when we do keep God's commandments, God does bless us. God does show us that mercy. We also see God working through Jonah, even if it's not us, if he is supposed to be a lousy Prophet, God is still able to do some miraculous things through Jonah. Sure, Jonah obviously didn’t benefit from any of the experiences but God was able to bless the people of Nineveh through this imperfect instrument. God has only ever had one perfect instrument that's Christ. He has to deal with the rest of us on a regular basis. The story of Jonah gives me a bit of hope that even if I'm imperfect, even if I'm prideful, or I chafe against God's command, he can still use me to do some good things. The greatest indicators that this is meant to be allegorical is the ending. It's a very dramatic fairy tale-esque ending Jonah sitting under this board, plant and crying that is broken, and God chastises him like you're so concerned

read about this plant and you can extend mercy to the people of Nineveh. Again, a lot of people might have seen adaptations of the story and children's books. They might have seen Jonah realizing his lesson at the end of the story or even leaving out this gourd episode entirely. But in the Book of Jonah it’s left on an abrupt cliffhanger. This is the place where the audience is meant to discuss, “What would I do in Jonah's place?” “Am I like Jonah?” “Am I merciful, or do I care more about this gourd giving me shade than I do about the welfare of my fellow man?” It's meant to make us introspective.

Stuart: Yes, I think being able to use sacred imagination is something really productive and beautiful here. Some scholars have also argued that we can read the book of Jonah messianically, do you agree or disagree with that?

Dori: I 100% agree. And this is the final reason why I value the book of Jonah in the Bible, even if it's not necessarily historically true, because Jesus Christ Himself, referenced Jonah, while he was teaching, he told the people he was teaching that they would recognize him as the Messiah, by the sign of Jonah, and theologians have found a few different ways to interpret this line. The one I've heard most often is the three days in the whale symbolism as relating to Christ's crucifixion and resurrection. Jonah is tossed into the churning sea by the sailors he is with just as Christ is crucified by the Jews. Jonah spends three days in the darkness in the belly of the whale, just as Christ spent three days in the tomb. Jonah emerges from the whale hale and healthy and ready to go just as Jesus Christ emerged from the tomb. In Jewish tradition, Jonah is supposed to, in the end days fight the great Leviathan and this great turning of the tables, he defeats the sea creature. And I relate this a lot to how Christ entered into the spirit world and set free the captive souls. A third way that this that Jonah works as symbolism of the Messiah, and a way that I think most of his apostles at the time related Jonah to the Messiah is how Jonah entered into Nineveh and preached the gospel of repentance, and what else is mission of Christ but come on to us come to the people and bring us the good word and change our hearts. There are a couple other messianic symbols in here. Jonah falls asleep on the boat in the middle of a storm. Who else do we know that fell asleep on a ship in the middle of a storm? It even recycles the line “carest thou not that we perish?” Both Jonah and Jesus Christ experienced this episode, the gourd vine I think can also be a symbol of Christ, who calls himself the true vine and the story of Jonah the true vine rises up gives some shade, but collapses, just as Jesus Christ was crucified. Not 100% sure how all of those symbols work together, but very easy to see messianic connotations and honestly, all things testify of Christ. One final symbol that you might consider is Jonah’s name. I like to think that Jonah in the book of Jonah is meant to be more of a symbol of a prophet rather than an actual person. And I think his name in particular indicates that Jonah means dove. What is the dove? The dove is the symbol celestially ordained as the Holy Ghost. Jonah, the dove enters into Nineveh with the gospel repentance and changes hearts and that's a beautiful image.

Stuart: Certainly is. Kristian, we've just spoken about Jonah. Who was Micah and what's going on in the book named after him?

Heal: Micah is a contemporary of Isaiah and his prophetic ministry spans the reigns of kings Jofan, Ahaz and Hezekiah. According to the opening of the book, that is the latter half of the eighth in the opening of the seventh century BCE. During his ministry, Samaria fell to the Assyrians in 722 BCE, and the tribes of the northern kingdoms were scattered. And Judah was invaded by Senacherib in 71 BC, unlike Isaiah who was a resident of Jerusalem, Micah is from a small village called Mauritia. And this village is about 23 miles to the southeast of Jerusalem, near the Philistine city of Gath. And so as one scholar notes, Micah brings a real rural, agrarian perspective to his task and is not enamored of the high religious claims of Jerusalem. Just as important as this agrarian perspective, is Marvin Sweeney's observation that Micah was a war refugee who had to flee his home for Jerusalem as the Assyrians advanced. Such a portrayal informs his image of suffering on the part of the people and his anger at the monarchies of Israel and Judah for bringing such disaster on the heads of the Judean population.

Stuart: So what's Micah's overall message?

Heal: The book promises divine judgment upon Samaria and Jerusalem because of their idolatry, their rapacious business practices, the increase of wealth of the few at the expense of the many and their corrupt government leaders who failed the cause of justice for the sake of personal and political gain, and build Zion with crime and Jerusalem with iniquity, that’s Micah 3:10. The religious leaders are also complicit in this entire social collapse, because they preach what the people want to hear. They preach peace while Micah preaches repentance, and coming destruction. No wonder they tell him to stop preaching. Micah condemns these prophets who contend against him for preaching peace, just because they are receiving plenty of donations. For his part, he is filled with the strength of the Spirit of the Lord, and with judgment and courage to declare to Jacob his transgression, and to Israel, his sin. These themes continue in chapter six and in the opening of chapter seven.

Stuart: Micah doesn't really seem to like Jerusalem. Does it make a difference, at least in your eyes, that he's from a rural community rather than the urban center?

Heal: I think so. We can see the value of Micah's rural perspective in these chapters. He is not blinded by the pomp of the big city, and instead sees through it to the corruption of business and politics and religion that seems endemic in Jerusalem. Micah’s judgment against Jerusalem was later used to rescue Jeremiah from a death sentence for Jeremiah directing prophetic critique against Jerusalem. But Micah did not just offer critique, Micah also succinctly told Judah what the Lord required of them, which was to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly before your god. Don Goldingay offers a lovely explanation of this verse. He says, “The first word mishpat, justice, denotes the proper exercise of authority or power of leadership.” It's related to the word for judge in the book of Judges. The second word hasset, refers to an extraordinary commitment to people that you show, even when they have forfeited any right to it. And the third word, sanna, comes only once more in the Old Testament in Proverbs 11:2 but in later Hebrew, it suggests modesty or reserve and inclination to hold back. The Message translation is referring here to another translation of the Bible conveys the idea of this verse, and this is what the Message translation reads: do what is fair and just do your neighbor. Be compassionate and loyal and your love. And don't take yourself too seriously. Take God seriously.

Stuart: Seems like good advice for any age. Does Micah have any good news? Or is this largely Jeremiah lamenting what's going on?

Heal: So in the middle of the book, chapters four and five, we see Micah look beyond the current prices to a beautiful future when many nations will say, Come, let us go up to the mount of the Lord to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may instruct us in His ways, that we may walk in his paths. Why will they want to go up to the man to the Lord, because instruction comes both from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. In this beautiful vision with its parallel and Isaiah, The Lord reigns over them on Mount Zion now and forevermore. And after a war of retribution peace eventually replaces war. These chapters reflect as scholars note, a recurring prophetic conviction that the God who punishes is the God who will restore. Chapter five is the source of the prophecy that the Messiah would be born in Bethlehem, written in Matthew chapter two verse six, and the scholars note this oracle anticipates a rural Savior, who is not beholden to the urban establishment in Jerusalem, who will have the capacity to rescue Judah, and confound the great power of Assyria. The Bethlehem connection would seem to be a Davidic illusion, but nothing is made to that connection here. The church's reading of the text understands Jesus as the one anticipated from Bethlehem, that's from Walter Brueggemann and Tod Linafelt’s Introduction to the Old Testament. So Micah becomes a sort of foreshadow, a prefiguring of Jesus, this rural prophet who comes and speaks out against the power in Jerusalem.

Stuart: That's marvelous. So there's a lot of beautiful poetic language in Micah. Did any passage stick out to you in particular?

Heal: So I really love the beautiful hymn of praise to God with which the book ends. And it's called one of the most remarkable poetic prophetic characterizations of the God of the Bible that reads as follows. “Who is a God like you forgiving iniquity and permitting transgression? who has not maintained his wrath forever against the remnant of his own people because he loves graciousness? He will take us back in love. He will cover our iniquities. he will hurl all our sins into the depths of the sea. you will be faith with Jacob, loyalty to Abraham, as you promised on oath to our fathers, in days gone by." The opening lines of this poem, who was a God like you play on Micah’s name, which is a shortened form of Micaya meaning who is like the Lord, Yahweh, and Michael meaning who is like El or God. This question that comes at the end of the book may actually be the subject of the whole book. As Walter Brueggemann observes, “the book of Micah may be understood as a doxological meditation upon the character of the Lord, as understood and evidenced in a series of critical moments in the life of Israel.” These lines from similar personal reflection and praise, how do we respond to the question? Who is a God like you? How do I respond? Why is it that my heart is constantly drawn back to God? Why do I preserve hope in the face of despair or belief in the face of doubt, love in the face of anguish? The reason is, because of what I believe about God, when I imagined myself returning to the presence of the Lord or place myself in some gospel scene, in the presence of Jesus or in Zarahemla with the astonished masses of Nephites, who saw the risen Jesus descend from the sky, my inclination is to hide or to bury myself into the ground in shame. I feel ashamed of my transgressions, my sins, this kind of things that Micah refers to. Yet I cannot imagine that moment for long without thinking that the Lord would reach out to me, call me from the shadows or lift me up from the ground and embrace me, because more than I'm aware of my own weakness, I believe in the Lord's goodness and grace and mercy. His faithfulness and power to save. That is what my God is like,

Stuart: That’s the perfect place for us to end today. Have a blessed week.

Thank you for listening to Abide: a Maxwell Institute podcast. Could you please rate review and subscribe to the podcast wherever you're listening to this podcast? And follow us on social media @BYU Maxwell on YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and sign up for our newsletter at MI.byu/edu. Thank you and have a great week.