Jonah Chapter 2 - Prayer

“There’s nothing left to do but pray.”

I wonder how many times you’ve heard folk say those words.

When all hope seems gone, when all the practical options have been exhausted, then we turn to prayer. When we come to the end of ourselves, we realise that there’s nowhere left to go but God.

The passage we read together just now is introduced as the prayer that Jonah prayed while he was inside the belly of the fish, and without rehearsing the discussion we had a few weeks ago about whether this is history or myth, I want to make two brief observations about the nature of Jonah’s prayer.

The first thing I want you to notice is when he prays.

God speaks to him in Chapter 1 and tells him to go and preach against Nineveh. Does he pray then? No

He goes down to Joppa, boards a boat heading in the opposite direction and before long finds himself in the throes of a storm that threatens to sink them all. Does he pray then? No

The pagan sailors cry out to their gods in desperation and the captain marches downstairs to rouse Jonah from his sleep and get him to join in. Does he pray then? No.

Lots are cast to see who’s to blame for the storm, and it falls to Jonah. He admits that he’s been running away from God. Does he pray then? No.

Jonah tells them the only way they’re going to survive is if they throw him over the side. They try to row ashore, but the storm gets worse. There’s no escape unless they get rid of Jonah, so the sailors pray and ask God’s forgiveness for what they have to do . But does Jonah pray? No.

So they throw him in; and with his mouth clamped shut as much against God as the seawater, he’s pulled under, slipping down, down down into the dark, silent recesses of the deep, and the downward spiral that began in chapter 1 draws to a close.

Down to Joppa, down into the ship, down into deep sleep, down into the sea, and now down into the cold arms of death.

But something happens in those frigid waters that finally brings him to his senses.

And in his distress, he finally prays:

V2 - “In my distress, O Lord, I called to you and you answered me. From deep in the world of the dead I cried for help, and you heard me”.

V7 – “When I felt my life slipping away , then O Lord, I prayed to you”.

It’s only when Jonah gets to the end of himself that he’s finally willing to pray.

Why are we like that? Why do even those of us who profess faith find it so hard to pray?

The answer to that’s pretty simple, I think, and we find it way way back at the start of the story. Not Jonah’s story – the human story.

When the serpent tempts Eve to eat from the forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden, it says: “when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God”.

You will be like God. And since time immemorial, that’s exactly what we’ve all wanted. We all want to be god in our own lives, to stay in control, to make all the key choices. And we can get a long way in life thinking that way. But eventually, whether now or in the afterlife, there comes a time when we realise we are not god and we’re not in control.

And it’s in those times that prayer begins.

When we sit beside the incubator, looking at the wee scrap of life that’s been born three months early, and feel utterly powerless to help.

When we look at the X-rays, and see the shadow the doctor’s pointing out to us, and know fine well what it means, even though she hasn’t said the word yet.

When we peer out of the trench and wonder how much longer we can evade an enemy bullet.

When we look at that person, or those people we’d tried to guide, and find them doing the exact opposite of what we’d hoped.

When we look in the mirror and catch a glimpse of something that reminds us of our mortality; and reflect for a moment that none of us can add a moment to our lifespan by the exercise of our will.

It’s in those times that we realise just how illusory this notion of our being in control is.

Prayer begins when we come to the end of ourselves, and the sooner that happens the better. Because when we die to our pretence to be god, we can come alive to God.

That’s a big part of what it means to be a Christian. Coming to a point in your life when you stop trying to be God.

Where are you on that one this morning – are you still playing God to yourself, or have you seen that for the nonsense it really is?

So when does Jonah pray? When he comes to the end of himself. He could have saved himself a lot of hassle if he’d let it happen sooner.

But there’s a second question I want us to think about for a moment, this morning and it’s to do with how Jonah prays.

For hundreds of years, scholars have looked at Chapter 2 and scratched their heads.

“This doesn’t make sense” they say. Surely if Jonah managed to put some words together in the belly of the whale it would have been a lament or a plea to be rescued – not a Psalm of thankfulness.

And yet, that’s exactly what it is.

We don’t need to hold that these were the exact words he used at the time – it’s quite possible that he strung them together later as he was recalling the story, trying to express what was going on in his head.

But they’re definitely words of thankfulness. And that shouldn’t surprise us. If Jonah’s come to his senses and uttered a desperate prayer on his way down into the depths, then any deliverance – even deliverance into the warm reek of a whale’s stomach – is better than death.

“But what about the content of the prayer” say the scholars. “Sure it’s all lifted from the Psalms. It looks like someone’s just stitched it all together at home and put it on Jonah’s lips. He couldn’t possibly have been thinking that way if he were inside the whale”.

And in one sense they’re quite correct. Almost every line Jonah utters is lifted from a Psalm. But that doesn’t make it inauthentic. Quite the reverse, in fact.

Many of you will remember the story of Terry Waite, the Archbishop of Canterbury’s special envoy, who was taken prisoner by Islamic Extremists in 1987 and held in solitary confinement for 4 years before being released in 1991. A Jonah experience if ever there was one. And this is what he writes:

"As a boy in church, sitting in the choir - Sunday by Sunday - I thought often I was bored.”

"I didn't think I was learning anything but, years later in captivity, the language came back. I had no books, no prayer book, but I could remember the services of the church: they were there.

"I reverted to the prayers that I had learned through the prayer book, which were simple, straightforward and balanced and, in that way, I was able to find some inner peace amidst the conflict raging all around. That was a great and wonderful gift."

As Waite was steeped in the Anglican prayer book, so Jonah was steeped in the prayer book of his day – the book of the Psalms. And when the chips were down, and he had few words of his own to draw on, it was snatches of the Psalms that came to his mind.

In that sense at least, prayer is like physical training. Regular practice and exercise builds capacity that we can draw on when the going gets tough.

This is a face you might know (projected image of our friend Tracey Sahraie)

This is Tracey Sahraie whom some of you might know from Ythan Opticians. Up until about 5 years ago Tracey hadn’t done much training at all, but she set to it with a vengeance and she’s now representing Great Britain in the World Triathlon Championships in Edinburgh. Last year she completed an Iron Man competition in Switzerland, which is a 2.4mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and a 26.2 mile run one after the other. It’s the sustained training throughout the year that gives her the capacity to endure over those kinds of distances.

Training and practice, builds capacity. How could Terry Waite survive all those years in captivity, or Jonah his days in the whale? Because long before they were tested, they had trained in prayer. They had a bank of spiritual muscle memory to draw on that saw them through the most difficult of times.

Deep roots in prayer breed a deep confidence in the goodness of God, even when, for a time, the signs of that goodness seem to be few and far between.

Some words that have stayed with me for many years were found inscribed on a dormitory wall in Auschwitz by a Jewish captive.

I believe in the sun, even when I can’t see it shining.
I believe in love even when I can’t feel it.
I believe in God, even when he seems to be silent.

That’s the voice of someone who’s come to the end of themselves, but has deep enough roots in God to still believe. It’s the voice of someone who knows what it is to pray.

To this day, when Jewish folk celebrate Yom Kippur the Story of Jonah is always read, and the people, gathered in worship, respond in the liturgy with the words “we are Jonah”.

We are Jonah. Needing to pray, but reluctant to pray. Pursued by God, but doing our best to evade him much of the time.

And that will be our story ‘til we come to the end of ourselves, by choice or by circumstance. And at the end of our own wilfulness, prayer, and faith, will begin.