One final note of grace, for there is a happy ending to this. The wonderful, gracious surprise here is that in both movements in Jonah's life, the disobedient and the obedient, God used him to save the people.
In Jonah's escapist disobedience the sailors in the ship prayed to the Lord and entered into a life of faith: "Then the men feared the Lord exceedingly, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows" (1:16).
In Jonah's angry obedience, the Ninevites were all saved: "When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil way, God repented of the evil which he had said he would do to them; and did not do it" (3:10).
We never do get a picture of the kind of pastor we want to be in this story, but only of the kind of pastor we in fact are. Putting the mirror up to us and showing us our double failure would be a severe and unbearable burden if it were not for this other dimension in the story - that God works his purposes through who we actually are, our rash disobedience and our heartless obedience, and generously uses our lives as he finds us to do his work.
He does it in such a way that it is almost impossible for us to take credit for any of it, but also in such a way that somewhere along the way we gasp in surprised pleasure at the victories he accomplishes, on the sea and in the city, in which we have our strange Jonah part.
I guess the part that struck me was about never getting a picture of the kind of pastor we want to be, just the one we are. Warts, shortcomings, failings, confusion, escapist disobedience and angry obedience and all. Why did God call Jonah? Why did He call me? Grace. What else could it be? And whatever He accomplishes through me is all by grace too. What a wonder.
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