Van-guard (văn’gärd), noun: “The foremost or leading position in a trend or movement.”

the journey forward... exploring the emerging church... navigating spiritual formation... seeking to transform the world... ...through Christ

The Story of Jonah for Grown-Ups, Part 2 
August 4, 2002

Prayer Must Be Authentic!
Jonah 1:17-2:10

Prayer is a big topic nowadays. Did you know that one of the best-selling books of the last couple of years is a book on prayer? Bruce Wilkinson’s The Prayer of Jabez has struck a chord in the general public. In this book, Wilkinson takes us step-by-step through an obscure prayer found in seldom-read section of the Old Testament—and instructs us to pray this prayer and God will do amazing things for us and through us.

We all want to know if there is some secret code, some dramatic way we can fashion our prayers so that we can get God to hear us and answer. We all have this inner-need to know that God hears us and wants to answer us. We all need to feel that God cares—and that we can count on him…especially in the hard times.

While there are some things to critique concerning Wilkinson’s book, what we see in it and by its sales is simply this: We want to know how to pray! We find prayer mysterious, scary, and enigmatic. We know we should pray, but we are dumbfounded: What kind of prayer does God answer?
But here is exactly where we get ourselves bogged down. When we see prayer as simply a method of manipulating God’s hand in order to get what we want, we are no longer praying in a way that pleases God. 

When my will to get from God outweighs my desire to know God and know his will in order to conform my life to it, I discover that I am not in need of a better method of prayer, I am in need of a better understanding of what prayer is all about!

This is the story of Jonah, part 2. The prayer that Jonah prays seems to be one of the most beautiful prayers in the entire Bible. Jonah says all the right words, quoting one scripture passage after another. Jonah’s words affirm who God is and how God loves. But, like a first-class schmoozer, Jonah’s formulaic prayer seeks to stroke God’s ego in order to get what Jonah wants. 

If you just look at the prayer as it is laid out in your Bible, you’ll notice that it is indented as poetry. And that is because this prayer is unlike all the other prayers in the book of Jonah. All the other prayers talk to God, this prayer talks about God. 

You see, in order for prayer to be authentic, it must be a personal interaction with God. I must speak my heart to God; I must seek to hear God’s heart for me. And missing in this prayer is anything that shows us that Jonah is repenting. And he has a lot to confess to God and ask forgiveness for.

Remember the story so far: Jonah was told by the LORD Yahweh to go to Nineveh and preach, but Jonah blatantly ran in the opposite direction to Tarshish. While on the ship headed for Tarshish, a terrible storm almost killed everyone on the ship, and while everybody was praying and trying to keep the ship from sinking, Jonah slept down below. Jonah knows that he is the cause of the terrible storm by his disobedience, but instead of praying, and instead of jumping overboard himself, he convinces the men on the ship to throw him over! And to top it all off, even though he is a prophet of God, called to preach God’s word to people, he never cares enough for these sailors to preach to them—they come to faith in spite of Jonah and his disobedience.

So they throw Jonah into the sea. The sea grows calm, and Jonah is sinking…left to die. That is where we are at—Jonah purposely dying rather than following God’s will.

Then something strange happens.

But the LORD provided a great fish to swallow Jonah, and Jonah was inside the fish three days and three nights. (Jonah 1:17)

God appointed that a great fish would swallow Jonah. As a kid, I used to love comic books, and one of the Super Heroes was Aquaman. He had the super-power of communicating telepathically to fish and commanding them what to do. So, on Super Friends, you’d see him think intently, and a bunch of whales would arrive and he would ride one of them to where he wanted to go. That is basically what God does here: The LORD does not “provide” a great fish, as much as he “appointed” the fish to do what he commands—“Fish, go and swallow Jonah!” And the fish did it.

Is this a good thing that Jonah is swallowed? Actually, no.

That word (swallowed) in the original Hebrew conveys the idea of grave danger if not impending annihilation—it is often translated “destroyed.” We’ve got to get beyond the preconceptions of this story that we have from our childhood Sunday School lessons and see it afresh for what it is actually saying. Jonah is swallowed by a great fish and he is inside this terrible fish for three days and three nights! How can anyone survive that? At this stage in the story, the ancient Hebrews would have been on the edge of their seats—survival is very unlikely! What’s going to happen next?

You see, God could have let Jonah have his way—a peaceful drowning at sea rather than obeying God’s will. But God is not done with Jonah. He is not going to let him off that easy. He has this terrible great fish swallow him. One bad thing happens to Jonah after another. God is still trying to get Jonah’s attention!

What will Jonah do? Will he die? Will he escape? Will he…pray? We turn to chapter 2 to find out.
From inside the fish Jonah prayed to the LORD his God. (Jonah 2:1)

Ahh! Finally! Jonah prays! It will be great, won’t it, to hear him confess his sin to God, ask for forgiveness, and repent of his disobedience! He’s going to say, “I was wrong to run from you and your will! My heart was hard toward those you love and want to bring into relationship with you! I should have gone to Nineveh and told them about you and your righteousness and their need to repent! OH LORD! PLEASE FORGIVE ME!”

We are going to see a model prayer of Jonah pouring out his heart to God, because he is at the end of his life—in the dank darkness somewhere in the cold Mediterranean Sea, slowly being digested by a huge fish, with no hope of survival.

Is that what we hear from Jonah?

2 He said:
“In my distress I called to the LORD,
and he answered me.
From the depths of the grave I called for help,
and you listened to my cry.
3 You hurled me into the deep,
into the very heart of the seas,
and the currents swirled about me;
all your waves and breakers
swept over me.
4 I said, ‘I have been banished
from your sight;
yet I will look again
toward your holy temple.’
5 The engulfing waters threatened me,
the deep surrounded me;
seaweed was wrapped around my head.
6 To the roots of the mountains I sank down;
the earth beneath barred me in forever.
But you brought my life up from the pit,
O LORD my God.
7 “When my life was ebbing away,
I remembered you, LORD,
and my prayer rose to you,
to your holy temple.
8 “Those who cling to worthless idols
forfeit the grace that could be theirs.
9 But I, with a song of thanksgiving,
will sacrifice to you.
What I have vowed I will make good.
Salvation comes from the LORD.”

Wow. What a beautiful prayer. We should write a book—The Prayer of Jonah. This prayer is eloquent, and it is packed with biblical allusions—we have 17 allusions to 12 different Psalms. 
But stop for a moment and look at this prayer in the context of the story of Jonah. 

Think about this: Where in this prayer does Jonah actually get personal with God? 

Instead of crying out to God from his heart, Jonah merely quotes a lot of Bible verses. Here is how I see this prayer of Jonah: Jonah is once again putting on airs that he is pious but his heart is still not matching his words! 

How can I say this? Well, the evidence is obscured slightly by the fact that we must read this in an English translation, and it’s not easy to compare the verses that Jonah apparently quotes with what is actually in the Bible. But I have done this, and the evidence is astounding.

For instance, in verse 2, Jonah literally says, 

“I called out of my distress to Yahweh, and he answered me.”

That is supposed to be Psalm 120, verse 1. But that Psalm actually says,

“To Yahweh, in my distress I have called, and he answered me.”

Do you see the difference? Who is first in Jonah’s prayer? Who is first in the Psalmist’s prayer? 

He continues by quoting Psalm 31:22. Jonah literally says, 

“I have cried out, you have heard my voice.”

Psalm 31:22 actually reads,

“You have heard the voice of my supplications, in my crying to you.”

Again, who is first in Jonah’s prayer? Who is first in the Psalmist’s prayer? 

I could bore you with the verse-by-verse analysis that I did years ago in my seminary class on Jonah. But the evidence shows that Jonah switches the word order in these Psalms. 

Why does he do that? 

Jonah’s prayer focuses on “I”, not on “the LORD.” 

He changes the word order to “put God in his place.” What Jonah does to these psalms is exactly what Jonah is doing in his life. Jonah is the center of his own life, and he wants God to bow to him, rather than the other way around. Jonah has his own agenda, and is not interested in changing it for God’s agenda.

But what should we expect from Jonah at this point of the story, after all he has gone through? I’d expect a heart-felt connection with God—“I have experienced your discipline—I should have gone to Nineveh!” 

But, what do we get from Jonah?

“I said, ‘I have been banished from your sight; yet I will look again toward your holy temple.’” (Jonah 2:4)

God wants Jonah to go to Nineveh, but Jonah says he will return to Jerusalem and look again at the temple! In a veiled way, with eloquent words, with what appears to be a noble prayer, Jonah continues imposing his will onto God’s agenda!

You see, in spite of what is quickly becoming popular practice, prayer is not finding a formula of words that you can use to manipulate God into doing your will. 

When we seek to pray in methods that we think will force God to do something our way, we have come to the point of treating God as if he is a “Genie in a Bottle,” and prayer as simply rubbing the bottle just the right way so that he will grant us our wishes.

But prayer is a conversation in which we seek to conform ourselves to his will.

God is not your Genie, but if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, God is your Father. And as his child, he grants you “favor” when you pray. Part of prayer is certainly asking God for something. Jesus taught us,

“You fathers—if your children ask for a fish, do you give them a snake instead? Or if they ask for an egg, do you give them a scorpion? Of course not! If you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.” (Luke 11:11-13)

Notice what Jesus is prompting us to pray for? Not a pay raise or a new car, unless you need it. He is telling us to pray for the Holy Spirit! The Holy Spirit is the ultimate gift given to us—he encourages us, he leads us, he gives us insight into our situations, he takes control of our life so that we can live in accordance to God’s will. 

And a huge part of God’s will for us as followers of Jesus Christ is what Jesus revealed to us in what is called “The Great Commission,” found in Matthew 28:19-20.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you.”

We cannot claim, as followers of Jesus Christ, to be in God’s will if we do not take seriously this mandate upon our lives. This is our purpose for existing as a church!

So, when we pray we should obviously feel free to come to God with all our requests—God is very interested in our heart-felt needs. But there is something very wrong with our prayers if all they are filled with is our personal supplications. As Christians, our hearts are to be filled with of compassion and love for those who do not yet know our loving God, and our prayers should reflect that. If all we feel is contempt for those we count as enemies to ourselves or to the Gospel, then we obviously will not be praying for them. But we need to remember Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:44.

“Truly, truly: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44)

So here we find Jonah—and we notice that, as a prophet of God who is called to preach to the people in Nineveh, as a person who is now experiencing the discipline of God for not obeying that call on his life—we find Jonah never uttering a word about that calling and that discipline and the love God has for those precious people. We never hear Jonah pray here in accordance with God’s will to love and pray for his enemies. Instead it is a prayer full of “me, me, me.” 

The battle of wills continues. Jonah remains unwilling to live in accordance to God’s will, now praying a high-sounding prayer in order to manipulate God into his will. 

What does God want from us? Pious prayers and pious acts of religiosity? Do we need to figure out what sacrifices to make, what things we need to do in order to rub God the right way in order for him to grant us our wishes?

Hardly. The Psalmist got it right about God—

16 You would not be pleased with sacrifices,
or I would bring them.
If I brought you a burnt offering,
you would not accept it.
17 The sacrifice you want is a broken spirit.
A broken and repentant heart, O God,
you will not despise. (Psalm 51:16-17)

This is something that Jonah has not learned. Jonah is not broken in spirit, he utters no words of a repentant heart. He comes close, but his words come way too short. They are simply Bible verses beautifully woven together, changed slightly here and there to make Jonah the center of attention. This is hardly a broken spirit, a repentant heart.

What does God feel about Jonah at this point?

VayaKEH! 

VOMIT!

“And the LORD commanded the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto dry land.” (Jonah 2:10)

The word there in the Hebrew is vayaKEH—it sounds as disgusting as it is. Vomit is disgusting. This word is used consistently in the Old Testament when God causes “the land to vomit out its inhabitants” when they are sinful (Lev. 18:25, 28; 20:22)—not a pretty picture. It is also used when people are gluttons and drunkards, eating and drinking too much, they “spew out,” or they or stagger around in their own vomit (Pov. 25:16; Isa. 19:14, 28:8; Jer. 48:26)—again, not a pretty picture!

VayaKEH!

It is not a pretty picture—Jonah getting vomited onto dry land. You’ve heard of projectile vomiting? There it is!

What is God saying here? Is he affirming our preconceptions of our children’s Sunday School image of Jonah and the whale—where the whale kindly opens his mouth and Jonah arrives unscathed on the beach?

I don’t think so. I think God is saying, “You disgust me, Jonah! You make me sick!”

Because where in any of Jonah’s words is there ANY INDICATION OF REPENTANCE? Where does he tell God that he was wrong and asks for mercy? Why does Jonah think he can manipulate God with high-sounding words?

God does not want a “canned prayer!” God does not want a “vow!”

What does God want? God wants JONAH!

So, here are the Key Lessons from Jonah chapter 2:

* Praying a beautiful prayer cannot manipulate God into doing my will.

* We all need to re-evaluate our prayer lives—how much of our prayers are merely trying to change God, and how much of our prayers are seeking to allow him to change us?

* Am I willing to follow God’s will in reaching those who are not yet connected with him in salvation through Jesus Christ, or do I have a disregard for them while covering it up with syrupy religiosity?

These are lessons that Jonah needed to learn, and they are lessons that evangelical Christians need to learn in the 21st Century if we are going to be effective in reaching a new generation of people with the incredible Good News of Jesus Christ!

Back to Jonah

Ministry Transformation- The Emerging Church  Personal Transformation- Spiritual Formation  World Transformation- Social Action

Interact with Bob Robinson about the emerging church, spiritual formation, or social action by e-mailing vanguard church with your comments.