Week Three

Heavy weather, complications and cliffhangers

Doubt, catastrophe, frustration, twists, turns, satire. A prophet who doesn’t want to prophesy, a big fish that gets awful indigestion, a strange plant and a cliffhanger ending. Jonah is a complex book about a complex character in a complex situation. What does his stormy story have to tell us about the complicated situations and challenges we face today as a result of environmental pressures on our climate?

Read Jonah 1: 1-3

How long do you think the gap was between verses 2 and 3? Was Jonah already pulling the suitcase out from under the bed before The Lord had finished speaking? Was there some soul searching?

What’s it like to be in that verse 2.5 place? Do we find ourselves in that 2.5 place when we think about the urgent climate change challenges we have to face, unsure where to turn or go next?

Read Jonah 2

Straight from the belly of the fish... Picture the scene, the sounds, the smell... Pretty... intense! As we think this week about the pressure climate change is putting on nature it could be fruitful to think about what it means to engage more of our senses in prayer, not simply sound/silence like we often do, but paying more attention to where we find ourselves. Fortunately, unlike poor Jonah, we’re not in the belly of a fish but we do find ourselves in a living, breathing complex world.

Does it make a difference where we pray to how we pray or what we pray about? Does tuning into the world around you change how you pray?

Read Jonah 3

How long to do you think the gap between verses 2 and 3 was this time? Imagine the fishy Jonah trekking to Nineveh. Would people have stopped and stared? Would they have commented on the reeking prophet?

He was an unexpected and reluctant messenger but was listened to attentively. Why?