Jonah Flees God's Call
By Julie Gochenour

The story of Jonah is a parable for many of us, beginning with resistance ...and ending with a reminder that God’s story will prevail. Using the simple four-step process for relational Bible study, we invite you to enter the story with an open heart to hear whatever word God may have for you at this time in your life. If you are meeting in a small group, have someone TELL the whole story...or read it silently before you begin with the reflection questions.

1. Enter the story with all of your senses (Jonah 1:1-3)

Use your imagination to smell the water, the pitch used to seal the boats at the port of Joppa. Listen to the sounds of barrels being rolled across the deck, of men shouting instructions to one another as they’re loading cargo and supplies on the boats. Use the sounds to help visualize the activity on the dock where the ship for Tarshish is berthed. With your mind’s eye, notice one man, Jonah, son of Amittai, come down to the dock, find the captain and speak to him. Watch what Jonah does and how he acts as he climbs on board.

•How do Jonah’s actions suggest what he’s feeling?
•Why do you think Jonah is trying to escape God’s call?

2. Reflect on deeper themes (1:4-17)

Jonah is on his way to Tarshish—not to Ninevah where God wants him to go. As a prophet, Jonah had apparently responded to God’s call before, but for some reason, the call to go to Nineveh was different. This time Jonah deliberately turned his back on God and ran away.

According to the New English Bible, “the LORD let loose a hurricane.”

However, even before the storm hit, Jonah told the sailors he was fleeing God’s call. Some biblical commentaries suggest that telling the sailors that they must throw him overboard to save the ship is Jonah’s next attempt to avoid the call. If so, this strategy doesn’t work either. Instead of drowning, Jonah is swallowed by a fish.

• As metaphor, what does the storm and the fish suggest about God’s role?
• How do the sailors and Jonah each respond to the storm as it progresses? What might explain the differences in their responses?

3. Connect with your own life (chps 2 & 3)

Responding to God’s call is a lot easier when God’s agenda happens to match our own. Like it or not, there are times when God’s agenda is different from ours — and God refuses to take “no” for an answer. As we see in Jonah’s story, what happens next reveals a lot about God’s persistence ... and response to those who do change their ways.

•Have you ever tried to avoid a clear directive?
•Try to rewrite Jonah’s prayer in your own words. What would you say?

4. Direction (application) (chp 4)

The dialogue between Jonah and God in the final chapter reveals much about God and call. It’s NOT about our gifts, our preferences or even our beliefs! It IS about paying attention to God’s guidance. My neighbor Nancy is one of the busiest women I know, regularly traveling all over the world for her job as a consultant. Yet Nancy’s work didn’t stop God from asking her to take on primary responsibility for the music ministry of a nearby church. As impossible as doing more sounds, Nancy said yes because she recognized God’s call. She’s also sure that, when God asks, God will give her discernment about rearranging her priorities. My call these days is just the opposite but just as hard. Instead of asking more, God calls me to do less; to center down and pull in my schedule, to concentrate on my writing and studies. In both cases Jesus is already there, waiting for each of us just as he waited for Jonah in Nineveh — just as he calls and waits for you.

For Discussion:

1.Where do I find myself in this story? (As Jonah? One of the crew members? A Ninevite?)
2.How do I tend to resist God’s call?
3.What is the soulwork I am being asked to do at this stage in my life?

Suggested Readings:

• Bankson, Marjory. Call to the Soul (Augsburg, 1999).

• Schmidt, Frederick. What God Wants for Your Life (HarperSanFrancisco, 2005).

Julie Gochenour, contributing editor for F@W Magazine, is both an Episcopalian and a member of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers). Julie works for the Virginia Center for Health Outreach at James Madison University and she and her husband live on the family farm in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

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