by Father Robert M. Powers

The Book of Jonah is unique and fascinating. A short narrative that is only three pages long, Jonah is a rich theological text, dense with meaning.

Unlike the other books of the prophets which primarily are collections of oracles, in the Book of Jonah we hear only a sentence of Jonah’s doomsday prophecy to the Ninevites (“Forty days more and Ninevah shall be destroyed.”) Jonah is primarily a biography of the reluctant prophet – and inspires reflection on the power of the Word of God and on the foibles and frailties of the human creatures who are called to proclaim that Word.

Biblical scholars say that Jonah likely was written in the period after the return of the Jewish people from the Babylonian exile. Some say the book implies discontent in that Jewish community with postexilic Judaism as too focused on the relationship of the chosen people with God to the exclusion of His love of the gentiles. Unlike the other prophets, Jonah’s calling is not
to prophesy to Israelites who went astray, but to the Ninevites, who God reminds Jonah at the end of the book “do not know their right hand from their left.” The calling of Jonah to prophesy to the Ninevites seems to encourage a missionary dimension in Judaism.

Unique Relationship

As we know, Judaism did not develop into a missionary religion, and the covenant at the heart of the Jewish faith is God’s unique relationship with the children of Israel. However, no matter how the issues raised by this tiny prophetic book are regarded within contemporary Judaism, our focus is on Jonah’s meaning for us as followers of Jesus Christ who are called to be apostolic, fishers of men and women who must bring the Gospel message to the ends of the earth.

Jonah initially refuses to obey God’s calling to preach to the Ninevites because of his strong cultural antipathy to this pagan people that is revealed at the end of the book, but probably also because the mission struck him as both futile and dangerous.

When he finally preaches to the Ninevites, a people unfamiliar with the Ten Commandments, his message inspires widespread remorse from the king down to the lowliest of subjects for their prior lives of debauchery. Who would think that such a perverse and disordered people would repent? Like the story of the conversion of the Magi that we heard on the Epiphany two weeks ago, the repentance of the Ninevites tells us of God’s desire to bring all people to salvation.

In the history of the Church, conversion happened in many places only after the blood of martyrs had been spilled. But other peoples have converted to Christianity with little or no resistance to the Gospel. When St. Patrick arrived in Ireland, pagan Druidism was the religion of the land. The people in Ireland abandoned paganism almost entirely within a generation; there is no record of a single martyrdom.

This month, Filipinos in our diocese celebrated El Santo Nino de Cebu, a devotion to the Holy Child Jesus that began with the conversion of the Filipinos to Catholicism at the arrival of Ferdinand Magellan and the Spaniards in 1521. Immediately the people gave up pagan animism and embraced the Christian faith. With the Holy Spirit, any- thing is possible.

Miraculous conversion occurs not only on a grand scale, but in the daily interactions of faithful people with others around them. In our relationships, we can be timid about proclaiming the Gospel, and justify our reticence with the excuse that the person would never accept the message. The repentance of the Ninevites challenges us to believe in the power of the proclamation of the Word. Proclamation does not always guarantee immediate and total acceptance, but we ought to believe that the Word of God can bring about instantaneous as well as long-term conversion.

Cannot “Opt Out”

The Book of Jonah also reminds us we cannot opt out of a prophetic calling simply because we have imperfections. Jonah rebelled against God, making peace with Him only in his incarceration in the fish’s belly. There was no compassion or pity in him as he pro- claimed the message of God’s immanent punishment of the sins of Ninevah. He did not rejoice in the mercy of God who accepted the contrition of 120,000 Ninevites and spared them from destruction. Instead, he sulked over his discomfort in the heat. Yet the Word of God flowed effectively from Jonah on that mission, despite his personal sinfulness.

And so we too, also on the road to deeper conversion, can effectively proclaim the Word. Prophets do not have to be perfect people. We just have to people of simple faith who believe that God can use us to speak His Word and become His miraculous fishers of men and women.