Monday, October 5, 2015

Runaway Prophet

Monday of Week 27 in Ordinary Time
Canticle Jonah 2:3,4,5,8
Luke 10:25-37

The gospel is the Good Samaritan story.  Jesus answers a question with a question.  Once again, the scholar, trying to test Jesus is going to get way more than he bargained for.  But I hear Jonah (or God through Jonah) calling my name today.  The lectionary gives us all of Jonah over the next three days…three days, how appropriate.

This story is considered satire.  Jonah is a caricature.  In the text today we meet Jonah, the Runaway Prophet.  God calls and he packs up and hitches a ride on a ship heading in the opposite direction!

I’m trying to act this out in my mind…it is funny.  I’m taking a siesta while all the other sailors are trying to save us.  They throw me overboard (but not until it becomes absolutely necessary).  And then I sing a psalm while being digested by a Big-Ass Fish.  Just in time, I get “spewed” out onto the beach!

The introduction to this book in my Bible juxtaposes Job, who with every ounce of his energy is trying to come to terms with his underserved suffering, with Jonah, who is benefitting from a great measure of undeserved forgiveness.

Maybe it’s not about deserving...

to be continued

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