The Costly Call of Jonah

he strenuous warfare in Jonah’s call that is so compelling. I view it as a metaphysical struggle between accepting what you are called to do and the pain invested in that calling (Rom. 7:21-25), the pain of renouncing so much for the good of others. Sometimes that renouncing involves a good thing, like Jonah’s own flock, and at times it is more conspicuously wrong.

Still, the call (Jonah 1:1) is daunting. It is a call to forsake all things near and familiar and go into a far country in a reversed prodigalness bringing some out of their filth into loveliness.

But Jonah’s call is also of political discomfort–to leave the politics of ease into the complexity of a politics of chaos– to delve deeply into strange waters and share in death itself. No one willingly delves into chaos; no one wants to take scattered puzzle pieces called people and put them back together. No one, naturally, wishes to give pieces of their lives to put other human pieces together.

Jonah wars with himself to assume a place of honor among martyrs. Martyrdom is eschatological. Her rewards are in the age to come. Perhaps Jonah’s war with his call was based on the eschatological uncertainties of this life and the certainties of the one to come–to see that blessing come to those who wait to taste and see that the Lord is good. The call is good but costly.

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