The Puking Fish of God

Today's first reading is about Jonah and the large fish (not a whale) who swallows him, has him live in his belly for three days and nights only to puke him up on the shore in the end.

It's a story that we all know well and that many of us sophisticates doubt the veracity of. If you know anything about biology, you know that people generally do not survive attacks by large fish much less ones that can swallow one whole. Just turn to the Discovery Channel and you can see evidence of that.

But of course, biblical reading is not literal history but rather revelation: stories with a point to them.

What indeed might God be trying to tell us here?

The story in general is about our attempts to escape God and more importantly to escape what God has in store for us.

I know I often try to hide from God, like Adam did when he was naked and ashamed at what he had done. I try to hide when life gets too overwhelming and I know I'm really called to serve the needs of my family even when they get on my nerves or try my patience. I fear success at times knowing that God expects a lot of me and with every success comes new and different challenges and opportunities.

I often hide from God because I don't think God really wants me. That I am not good enough for God. That God couldn't possibly change lives with a person like me!

This is also Jonah's dilemma. God sends him to Nineveh to preach against the wickedness he sees there. Jonah either fearing the Ninevites, doubting his abilities or understanding his own unworthiness (or maybe all three) goes in the opposite direction from Ninevah to Tarshish--180 degrees away from where God is calling him.

But God won't have it. The sea is tossed and the crew finds out it's all because Jonah disobeyed God. So they throw him overboard at his own suggestion. Jonah's agreement to be thrown overboard shows how he really just doesn't think much of himself. "Oh, if these people would just be rid of me, their world would be a better place."

But God has much more in store for Jonah and for us. When our very lives appear to be over we often end up being puked up on new shores. We may be tired and beaten up and smelling like fish guts, but here we are. We are headed onto new adventures where God will continue to lead us. God has brought us through the storm and through the belly of the beast.

Moreover, if we read ahead, God spares Nineveh with Jonah's help--but there's an even greater lesson in Jonah's story. Jonah becomes indignant saying that he already knew that God was merciful and had been preaching that for years in his own land. God provides him comfort from the heat by giving him a large shady plant but then he kills the plant and this makes Jonah mad. God then tells him:

"You are concerned over the plant which cost you no labor and which you did not raise; it came up in one night and in one night it perished. And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot distinguish their right hand from their left, not to mention the many cattle?"

We all tend to take things for granted and we get angry at things we lose that we really didn't develop. We don't care for others. Jonah could care less about the Ninevites, caring more for the comfort of his own land and his own people and even for the accolades that he gets there.

But God calls us to places that we need to go to, so that we may bring God to others and that we might understand God's love which runs much deeper than those familiar boundaries. Try though we might, we always end up having to deal with the things that God wants us to deal with a anyway.

So today, let us ask ourselves where our Nineveh is. Where is God calling us to help people understand His love and forgiveness? Where do we need to go, accepting the difficult call from God?

For myself, I will soon move to Buffalo, an unfamiliar place with unfamiliar people. I will need to drive a car something I do not like doing but something that will enable me to serve others more frequently and easily. I did not expect to go to Buffalo but here I go anyway.

Today let us pray for confidence that whether Buffalo or Nineveh or wherever God calls us, we might have the confidence in ourselves and in God that great things can be accomplished. May we also know that God will always send us to people that he loves whether in prisons, on campuses, or to foreign lands. Our response is always to love and embrace God's call and God's people.

Pic; Courtesy of: Hennie Blaauw

King David on NBC

The NBC series Kings is simply brilliant and Busted Halo's Bill McGarvey sat down with the creator of the series Michael Green and discussed the show at length.

BH: The story of King David is an iconic Old Testament story — were you raised in a very religious household?

MG: Not very religious. I was educated in a Jewish parochial school system. Known as yeshiva, but called by us — we called it Jew School. It’s very similar to (Catholic school) — the same as a lot of people on your site might know — but rabbis instead of nuns. My mom is Israeli, so she wanted me and my sibling to be conversant in the religion and culture.

BH: How long have you wanted to do this story?

MG: It’s a story that I’ve been interested in for a long time. The decision to pursue it came about two and a half years ago. I’d always thought it was something I’d have to do much later in life, when HBO would be willing to let me make it. I originally imagined it as a period piece, but then I thought, “Why wait?” — the TV audiences have grown so sophisticated in the last few years that with all the fantastic shows being done by HBO, by Showtime — you know, Lost, Alias, Heroes — all these shows have really brought up the level and audiences have grown so accustomed to, or so willing to, or so eager to dive into a story and to pick at its nuance. People treat The Wire like a novel, and it’s written like a novel and it rewards that deep viewing. And because of the great work done by all those shows, I felt like it was a fair time to try to tell this sort of novelistic story.

BH: I felt a kinship on some level between your show and HBO’s Rome . You get to do a modern re-telling of the story of King David. What made you decide not to do it as a period piece?

MG: Mostly, cost. It’s cost-prohibitive. It’s nearly impossible to do something accurately in a period piece. The reason Rome didn’t continue was because — it was absolutely brilliant, I thought it was a wonderful show — it was so costly that it couldn’t sustain itself, as I understand it. I could be guessing, but that’s what I’ve been told, that it never was able to gain the ratings required to justify its cost. And in order to do period in a way that isn’t silly, in a way that is authentic, it’s just incredibly costly. And plus, doing it period would have made it a much more accurate telling, and I was interested in taking the story and going further with it. You know, there’s a lot to draw from in the original text but not enough to sustain a hundred episodes of dialogue, let’s say. So by creating a ‘remove,’ and setting it in modern times, or with a modern aesthetic, anyway, we were free to continue interpreting. It was convenient. And the other thing was to make it really relatable to a modern America.