Mtr Beth Clarke

Friends in Christ, 

The story of Jonah is about more than just the fish. 

It’s a big piece of the story, of course. Jesus references it in Matthew as a prefigurement of his own death and resurrection. But the sign of Jonah appears in both Matthew and Luke, with one key distinction. In Matthew, the sign emphasizes Jonah emerging from the fish after three days. In Luke, however, Jonah himself is the sign. Reluctantly, he becomes a sign to the people of Nineveh. 

This has startling implications for how we think about signs. We often think of signs as extraordinary events, grand, external interventions by God, impossible to miss. But what if the Biblical text points us elsewhere? What if a sign could be a person’s life and witness? 

In our reading, God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh. He doesn’t go. Instead, he sails for Tarshish, and a storm catches the boat. The sailors draw lots to determine who brought this trouble upon them, and, of course, Jonah comes up with the short stick. 

Jonah tells them who he is and whom he worships, and they are eventually convinced to throw him overboard. Then the great fish swallows him. 

Remarkably, though, the sailors come to fear and worship the Lord, even as Jonah is doing everything he can to run from God. Jonah has already become a sign, whether he wants to or not. 

The fish isn’t the end of the story; it’s the midpoint. After the fish regurgitates Jonah, he journeys to Nineveh, where his proclamation leads the people to repent, and God spares the city. Jonah does not celebrate; he grumbles. He resents God’s mercy toward the Ninevites, even after God uses him to reveal that very mercy. 

Perhaps this is what makes Jonah such a remarkable sign. God works through him despite his reluctance and resentment. Jonah is effective despite being spectacularly unwilling. 

We look for signs of God’s presence in miracles and calamities, in things that defy explanation. But in Luke’s Gospel, Jesus directs our attention to a person, Jonah, who isn’t even particularly likable. 

Perhaps the greater miracle in Jonah’s story isn’t that he survives three days in the belly of a fish. Perhaps it’s that God works through Jonah at all, accomplishing through him the very mercy Jonah wishes God would withhold. 

And perhaps we, too, should be careful not to become so preoccupied with looking for extraordinary signs that we miss the ways God is already at work through us, the disobedient, imperfect people that we are. Maybe God is working through us too, even as we grumble.  

Yours in Christ,  

—Mtr Beth