Dissonance

I want to talk about Jonah for just a bit. Jonah was a prophet of God. We know very little about Jonah. He was a prophet of God during the reign of Jeroboam II (2 Kings 14:25). He also was called by God to go to the city of Ninevah and "cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before 'God' (Jonah 1). During this time, Ninevah was a "great city". It was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. God called Jonah to travel up to a pagan, Gentile, capital city and rebuke them and tell them to turn their lives around. And Jonah decides he does not want to do it, so he runs away from God. Here is the dissonance! Dissonance is anything that is in conflict. We often use this term with musical notes. Example, your band or choir teacher tells you to play or sing a C, but instead you play a C# (C sharp). There is dissonance and you can hear it! It sounds awful. The sound is not in harmony and you can tell.



At this point Jonah had a dissonant ministry. It was not in harmony with God's calling. Instead he decides to head for Tarshish. Some people believe that Tarshish is a far off location on the coast of Spain and some believe to be closer to Israel. But wherever it is, Jonah decides to flee "from the presence of the Lord".



Why did Jonah decide to do this? Did he really think that he could "flee" from God's presence? Was this just an act of pure rebellion? Was he afraid of the city of Ninevah? We learn later that he wanted God to judge the people of Ninevah for their wickedness. Jonah did not want God to forgive them. Wow!! I heard a speaker one time say that Jonah didn't want the people of Ninevah to repent because they were so wicked, he wanted them to be judged, kind of like a Jewish person living in New York City (during WWII era) gets a calling from God to go to Berlin and ask the German army to repent. But instead they flee to San Francisco because they want the Nazis to receive the consequences they deserve.



This is a huge calling for Jonah. Not only was Jonah called to travel to a foreign city, he was was asked to forgive the people of Ninevah himself. Sometimes we are negative towards Jonah and think 'why did he flee, why didn't he just trust and follow God?' It's easy for us to think this, because most of us have never been asked by God to go to Bagdhad or Kabul and tell the Iraqi/Afghan militants to turn towards God.



But how many times have we decided to rebel against God's calling? How many times have we decided not to give to a person holding a sign saying "I'm hungry God Bless". How many times have we decided not to talk to a particular friend about their inappropriate relations with their boy/girlfriend? How many times have we given in to gossip about someone? How many times have we decided not to go into a mission field because of discomfort? How many times have we decided to talk back to our parents because they made us mad 2 hours before? Whatever the case may be, it's dissonance. It is rebelling against God's calling. It is out of harmony with God. And whatever discomfort may come, remember God is the "God of all comfort" (2 Cor 1:3).



Jonah 4:9-11

Then God said to Jonah, "Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?" And he said, "I have good reason to be angry, even to death." Then the LORD said, "You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight. "Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between their right and left hand, as well as many animals?"