SPEAKER_01: Let's pray this morning.
SPEAKER_01: God, we give you thanks this morning for this beautiful story, and we ask that you would help it to come alive to us.
SPEAKER_01: Pray, God, even for those of us in this room who've heard this story of Jonah many times.
SPEAKER_01: Would you help us to have new eyes, to see it in fresh ways?
SPEAKER_01: And I pray that you would help us to recognize our own selves in this story, in whatever way that means for us.
SPEAKER_01: And God, would you give us new life?
SPEAKER_01: Would you help us to be reborn in all the ways that we need it so badly this morning?
SPEAKER_01: Would you empower us by your spirit?
SPEAKER_01: God, give us a love for our neighbor, even the ones we don't like.
SPEAKER_01: Even our mortal enemies, would you give us a love and a passion for them?
SPEAKER_01: Help us to see the world the way that you see it, God.
SPEAKER_01: And we just ask God that you'd give us courage this morning to go into all the dark places of our lives we need to go into and find what you would have us to find.
SPEAKER_01: And would you bless us this morning in Jesus' name?
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: You can be seated.
SPEAKER_01: Now is a good time to silence your cell phones or other beeping noises or devices or whatever else you got going on.
SPEAKER_01: Well, good morning.
SPEAKER_01: My name is Ryan.
SPEAKER_01: I'm the pastor here, and it's a great privilege to be with you.
SPEAKER_01: This morning, my sermon is titled Thusly Rules for Life, Yoda, of course, and the belly of a great fish.
SPEAKER_01: Are you with me so far?
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: Well, a couple of years ago, a friend of mine and I, after reading a book uh called The Twelve Rules for Life, we wanted to make our own rules for life.
SPEAKER_01: And we wanted to do it so we could live a life of intentionality, of courage and strength and grace, and hopefully wisdom at some point, somehow.
SPEAKER_01: And so we began to make our own rules for life.
SPEAKER_01: These rules that would sort of govern how we want to live our life.
SPEAKER_01: Now we've been working on them, massaging them for about, I don't know, a couple of years now.
SPEAKER_01: And I've ended up, I've got 15 right now.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna share all of them with you, because they're my rules.
SPEAKER_01: You can make up your own.
SPEAKER_01: Uh but I wanted to share I don't have time either, but I wanted to share four of them with you.
SPEAKER_01: Would that be all right?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Uh by the way, I told Peter, I go, I gotta use the bathroom while the scripture was being read.
SPEAKER_01: I go, if I'm not back in time, jump up there and give a sermon on Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: He would have done fine too.
SPEAKER_01: So here's my number one rule.
SPEAKER_01: I'm gonna give you rule one, rule three, rule four, and then rule thirteen.
SPEAKER_01: So here's rule one.
SPEAKER_01: Drink water, lots of water.
SPEAKER_01: Are you not impressed?
SPEAKER_01: I hope you weren't expecting anything too philosophical this morning.
SPEAKER_01: Uh now, of course, I mean water.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the thing though.
SPEAKER_01: Uh, we're in our series called Story, Context, and Symbols.
SPEAKER_01: So maybe I mean literal water, maybe I mean symbolic water too, like living water.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, moving on.
SPEAKER_01: Number three, you're not that impressed.
SPEAKER_01: Number three is this if somebody asks you to dance, dance.
SPEAKER_01: Right?
SPEAKER_01: If you go to a party and you get asked to dance, the answer's always yes.
SPEAKER_01: No, I know, unless you're Justin Timberlake or Britney Spears, you can't dance.
SPEAKER_01: I get it.
SPEAKER_01: But nobody can dance.
SPEAKER_01: It doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_01: You show up and you dance anyway.
SPEAKER_01: Are you with me?
SPEAKER_01: All right, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: That's there, you go.
SPEAKER_01: Adopt that one.
SPEAKER_01: That's a good one.
SPEAKER_01: That'll make you have a more interesting life and more stories to tell.
SPEAKER_01: Number four, this one's my special favorite.
SPEAKER_01: Go out into the woods and howl at the moon.
SPEAKER_01: Stay wild.
SPEAKER_01: Live within the system, but don't forget the origins, the untamed nature of it all.
SPEAKER_01: Now you might drive by Casa Braille this summer at 4 a.m., and you might hear some howling back there.
SPEAKER_01: It could be a wolf or it could be your pastor.
SPEAKER_01: I don't know.
SPEAKER_01: You just have to you might not want to even venture in there and figure it out.
SPEAKER_01: Just let it be.
SPEAKER_01: I was in Israel and we were in the Jordan River, and I remember we were talking as a group, and we went to this, we went, we went to the part not where all the people are getting rebaptized, and they have these robes.
SPEAKER_01: You pay five bucks to get baptized.
SPEAKER_01: We didn't go to that place.
SPEAKER_01: Went to a more wild, untamed part of the Jordan.
SPEAKER_01: And we climbed into it, and we were told, hey, don't forget this.
SPEAKER_01: That John was a priest who leaves the temple.
SPEAKER_01: He leaves the whole system, goes out into the wilderness and starts dunking people underwater.
SPEAKER_01: And guess who shows up?
SPEAKER_01: Everybody.
SPEAKER_01: It's a wild story.
SPEAKER_01: I love it.
SPEAKER_01: So don't forget your origins.
SPEAKER_01: Alright, number 13, here we go.
SPEAKER_01: Rule 13.
SPEAKER_01: In the belly of the whale, cry out to God.
SPEAKER_01: Die and be reborn.
SPEAKER_01: Go into the darkness as far as you can go, and there you will find what you need and be resurrected.
SPEAKER_01: The story this morning of Jonah is a story of this: going into the darkness, finding what you need, and being resurrected.
SPEAKER_01: Just like Luke Skywalker.
SPEAKER_01: Now I know you remember the story, but just for clarifying sake, Luke winds up in this mysterious planet in episode four.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not a Star Wars fanatic, I'm a wannabe, so if I get it wrong, correct me later.
SPEAKER_01: Not now in front of all my friends, okay?
SPEAKER_01: Later, privately.
SPEAKER_01: And he winds up here at a place called Dagobah, under the master tutelage and the wise guidance of the master Jedi, Yoda.
SPEAKER_01: And he tells him, Well, hey, over here, there's this dark, mysterious cave.
SPEAKER_01: And he tells Luke this.
SPEAKER_01: Then you must go.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
SPEAKER_01: I was not expecting the applause.
SPEAKER_01: At the first gathering, they're just like, what are you?
SPEAKER_01: This guy's our pastor, how embarrassing.
SPEAKER_01: And then Luke responds, What's in there?
SPEAKER_01: Only what you take with you.
SPEAKER_01: I'll stop, I'll stop.
SPEAKER_01: And now, decades earlier, there's a guy called Galen Malik, if I've got this right.
SPEAKER_01: He's also a Jedi or a soon-to-be Jedi or something like this.
SPEAKER_01: And he finds himself out in front of the cave as well, same cave on Dagobah.
SPEAKER_01: And Yoda tells him this brought you here the galaxy has.
SPEAKER_01: Your path, clearly, this is.
SPEAKER_01: And then he says, You know what I'm looking for?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, something lost.
SPEAKER_01: A part of yourself, perhaps.
SPEAKER_01: That which you seek inside, you will find it.
SPEAKER_01: So, fast forward, Luke goes into the cave and he's told, Don't bring anything but yourself, but he brings something else.
SPEAKER_01: What does he bring?
SPEAKER_01: What's that?
unknown: Fear.
SPEAKER_01: Fear, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_01: His lightsaber, though, right?
SPEAKER_01: He goes in there, and who does he find in the cave?
SPEAKER_01: Oh, you guys gotta go back and watch Star Wars.
SPEAKER_01: What is the deal?
SPEAKER_01: Hang on, hang on.
SPEAKER_01: You're jumping ahead of me, Lynz.
SPEAKER_01: What does he find?
SPEAKER_01: What comes around the corner?
SPEAKER_01: Darth Vader, thank you.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Gavin.
SPEAKER_01: My own son has to answer the question for.
SPEAKER_01: Vader comes around the corner.
SPEAKER_01: And so he attacks Vader, cuts off his head, the head falls down, the mask falls off, and underneath the mask isn't Vader.
SPEAKER_01: Who is it?
SPEAKER_01: It's himself.
SPEAKER_01: This is wildly symbolic and like deeply profound, you guys.
SPEAKER_01: You should rewind this scene and watch it eight times.
SPEAKER_01: Because he goes in there, he has to confront that which he's most afraid of.
SPEAKER_01: And he's terrified of Vader.
SPEAKER_01: But Vader represents the dark side, and he's also afraid that he himself will be lured to the dark side.
SPEAKER_01: Also, also, also, he's afraid of himself.
SPEAKER_01: Why would he be afraid of himself?
SPEAKER_01: So he has to go in there and confront his own fears.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah does the same thing.
SPEAKER_01: I love the story of Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: It's one of my all-time favorites.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a great picture of it.
SPEAKER_01: You can't quite see it, but deep beneath there, it's like this shadow or silhouette of a giant fish.
SPEAKER_01: I love this image.
SPEAKER_01: And I love this, it's one of my all-time favorite Bible stories because it's deeply profound.
SPEAKER_01: And the meaning is not just Jonah disobeyed God and God punishes him by eating him with a fish.
SPEAKER_01: That's not a great interpretation.
SPEAKER_01: So we're going to dig a little bit deeper.
SPEAKER_01: But it's got tons of layers and nuances and symbols.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah goes into the darkness, into the cave, like Luke, confronts the darkness, the belly, and he's reborn.
SPEAKER_01: Now, we're in our series called Story, Context, and Symbol.
SPEAKER_01: And we're going to examine lots of different stories in the Bible using this framework, this lens, this interpretive, or a$5 word, a hermeneutical lens.
SPEAKER_01: And it's story, what's going on, where the character is, the context, where does it take place, what's happening, and then the symbol.
SPEAKER_01: But this story is so beautiful.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what we'll actually do.
SPEAKER_01: We're going to do story, context, symbol, context, symbol, story, symbol, story, symbol, story, symbol, Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: Because we're going to go in and out, back and forth, top to bottom in this beautiful story of Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, here's the story.
SPEAKER_01: Here's how it starts.
SPEAKER_01: You heard it read by Linda.
SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Linda.
SPEAKER_01: Good job.
SPEAKER_01: Now the word of the Lord comes to Jonah, the son of Amitai, and says, hey, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, because their wickedness has come up before me.
SPEAKER_01: God wants him to go and preach the word of repentance to Nineveh and get them to repent.
SPEAKER_01: But Jonah sets out to flee to Tarshish, away from the presence of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: So he goes down to Joppa, finds a ship, going to Tarshish, he boards it, pays his fare, goes on board, and with them he goes away from the presence of the Lord.
SPEAKER_01: Which raises the question then is there anywhere you can go that's away from the presence of the Lord?
SPEAKER_01: That's the good Christian answer.
SPEAKER_01: Good job.
SPEAKER_01: If so, where can you go where God doesn't already exist?
SPEAKER_01: So some context, Nineveh.
SPEAKER_01: Nineveh is a city in Assyria.
SPEAKER_01: There it is, right there.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Assyria, in case you forgot, is a violent, murderous, warmongering country or nation state that has a history of slaughtering people.
SPEAKER_01: They're bloodthirsty warriors.
SPEAKER_01: And they did lots of damage to Israel as a nation.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah is an Israelite, a Hebrew.
SPEAKER_01: He told you so in himself.
SPEAKER_01: Here's some examples throughout history.
SPEAKER_01: In 740, the king Tiglath Pelazar plunders the northern tribes of Israel, destroys cities, and murders lots of people.
SPEAKER_01: 740.
SPEAKER_01: How about this one?
SPEAKER_01: In 735, King Shalmanesar, I want to name my next dog Shalmanesar.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe not after this, though, but he's saying because he slaughters the inhabitants of Samaria because the king of Israel refuses to pay tribute to the king of Assyria, this megalomaniac.
SPEAKER_01: And he slaughters all the inhabitants of Samaria, this wonderful place.
SPEAKER_01: How about this one?
SPEAKER_01: In 720, you probably notice this when the northern tribes are decimated.
SPEAKER_01: All ten tribes in the northern part of Israel are destroyed and never to be heard from again.
SPEAKER_01: They're slaughtered, destroyed.
SPEAKER_01: It's ravaged the whole land.
SPEAKER_01: How about this one?
SPEAKER_01: 700, King Sennachareb destroys Judah.
SPEAKER_01: Lots of people lose their lives.
SPEAKER_01: Structures are destroyed and raised to the ground.
SPEAKER_01: And then this one from the prophet Nahum.
SPEAKER_01: So Nahum 3, Naum pronounces this: woe to the city of blood.
SPEAKER_01: He's talking to the Assyrians.
SPEAKER_01: Full of lies you are, full of plunder, never without victims, many casualties, piles of dead, bodies without number, people stumbling over the corpses.
SPEAKER_01: It's like a great horror movie or an episode of Game of Thrones, this Assyria.
SPEAKER_01: It's wild.
SPEAKER_01: Then one king, uh, go ahead for me, King Esarhadin, he says this.
SPEAKER_01: He braggadociously declares, Behind me, or excuse me, before me, cities.
SPEAKER_01: Behind me, ruins.
SPEAKER_01: This, of course, becomes his pickup line at the local bar.
SPEAKER_01: Hey girl, before me, cities, behind me, ruins.
SPEAKER_01: It worked like a charm for kids.
SPEAKER_01: This was Assyria.
SPEAKER_01: This is Nineveh.
SPEAKER_01: God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh and pronounce judgment over them.
SPEAKER_01: Nineveh! Assyria! Jonah doesn't want to go.
SPEAKER_01: Why would he?
SPEAKER_01: This is who he wants God to send him to preach.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna go preach a sermon to these people?
SPEAKER_01: Can you imagine if God called you to go preach a sermon of forgiveness to your enemies?
SPEAKER_01: Would you do it?
SPEAKER_01: Jonah doesn't want to go.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: Nineveh is a literal place, a real place, but it's also a symbol.
SPEAKER_01: It symbolizes this.
SPEAKER_01: God wants even the murderous people of Nineveh to repent from their wicked ways and come to righteousness.
SPEAKER_01: Even those people, the enemies of Israel, he wants them to repent.
SPEAKER_01: Why would God want that?
SPEAKER_01: Why would he want them to repent?
SPEAKER_01: In case you haven't been paying attention, it's because God loves them.
SPEAKER_01: Even them.
SPEAKER_01: God loves them.
SPEAKER_01: See, God doesn't just love you.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't just love your tribe or your village, your family, or your church.
SPEAKER_01: He loves the entire thing.
SPEAKER_01: For God so loved the world.
SPEAKER_01: And in the original language, it's the whole world, the entire world.
SPEAKER_01: God loves all of them and he wants them to repent.
SPEAKER_01: Now, Jonah is having it because he's not going to go to his enemies and preach the gospel to them.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't want to do it.
SPEAKER_01: He runs and goes to a place called Tarshish, which raises the question: where in the world is Tarshish?
SPEAKER_01: Well, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: No one really kind of knows.
SPEAKER_01: All we know is that it takes a long time to get there, and you have to go by boat.
SPEAKER_01: So it's across the sea.
SPEAKER_01: Here's a picture of what it might look like going to Tarshish.
SPEAKER_01: It's just out there somewhere.
SPEAKER_01: It's like the end of the known world.
SPEAKER_01: In the ancient world, it was hard to pinpoint on a map where exactly Tarshish was.
SPEAKER_01: But the idea is it's just far, far away by sea.
SPEAKER_01: And a place where the presence of the Lord apparently is not there.
SPEAKER_01: It's like an ancient world version of Las Vegas or something.
SPEAKER_01: Or like standing in line at the DMV.
SPEAKER_01: Some Godforsaken place, you know, like the middle seat on an airplane.
SPEAKER_01: Well, maybe if you're like me, it's just cramped in there.
SPEAKER_01: Those jokes work better this service, but not great, I'm gonna admit it.
SPEAKER_01: But he's going to someplace where God apparently is not.
SPEAKER_01: It's just beyond the known part of the world.
SPEAKER_01: And he's going as far away from God as possible.
SPEAKER_01: Tarshish is a symbol for out there, far away, the opposite direction where God had called him to go.
SPEAKER_01: In fact, Luther, when he translates it, he translates it as simply the sea in concert with other Jewish commentators.
SPEAKER_01: Because it doesn't matter where Tarshish really is, it doesn't matter at all.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah is running, running from his path, his calling from God, his vocation, and he's going to the end of the world to escape from God and the place he's supposed to go, his own path.
SPEAKER_01: Here's what one commentator says.
SPEAKER_01: Sheldon Blank says, What is Tarshish?
SPEAKER_01: Well, in the story, it's anywhere.
SPEAKER_01: Anywhere but the right place.
SPEAKER_01: It's the opposite direction, the direction a person takes when they turn their back on their own destiny or their call from God.
SPEAKER_01: But here's the deal: what I've learned, it's a saying in AA in other places.
SPEAKER_01: Wherever you go, there you are.
SPEAKER_01: And also, as a theologian, I might say, wherever you go, there God is.
SPEAKER_01: See, sometimes you might end up in wild places, a seemingly Godforsaken places, not because we're running to something, but because we're running from something.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah's not running too Tarsus as much as he's running away from God.
SPEAKER_01: Back to the story.
SPEAKER_01: So he goes down, finds a boat, pays a fee, his ferret, gets in this boat, the ship, and goes out to sea.
SPEAKER_01: And out there on the sea, a storm comes up.
SPEAKER_01: Now I need your help, because this is also, in case you hadn't figured it out yet, a symbol.
SPEAKER_01: What do storms symbolize?
SPEAKER_01: What does this storm symbolize?
SPEAKER_01: In the story?
SPEAKER_01: Maybe in the ancient world, or in your own life?
SPEAKER_01: I want to have you just shout out some answers.
SPEAKER_01: What might the storm symbolize?
SPEAKER_01: Tribulation, for sure.
SPEAKER_01: Struggle, difficulty.
SPEAKER_01: What else?
unknown: Pain.
SPEAKER_01: Pain?
SPEAKER_01: Who said that?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Pain, discomfort.
SPEAKER_01: Excellent.
SPEAKER_01: What else?
SPEAKER_01: You guys are doing great.
SPEAKER_01: This is wonderful.
SPEAKER_01: We've taught you some stuff.
unknown: Chaos.
SPEAKER_01: Chaos.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: Who said that?
SPEAKER_01: Good call.
SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
SPEAKER_01: Absolutely.
SPEAKER_01: It's the darkness.
SPEAKER_01: It's mystery.
SPEAKER_01: Also, it's just nature itself.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes, because of hubris, humans think we can kind of conquer all the places in the world.
SPEAKER_01: And then a tornado comes through.
SPEAKER_01: Nope.
SPEAKER_01: Or a hurricane.
SPEAKER_01: It's humility.
SPEAKER_01: It sort of represents this sort of, hey, the sort of the opposing of the hubris of the humans.
SPEAKER_01: So what does it mean then?
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes when you go the opposite direction of where you're supposed to go, when you go away from your call, your path, your vocation, when you don't follow that, and you go instead the other way, storms will come up on the sea.
SPEAKER_01: You might find yourself somewhere that God had never intended you to be, and you know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been somewhere and be like, what am I doing here?
SPEAKER_01: I'm not supposed to be here.
SPEAKER_01: I don't mean because of destiny.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, like, this is not a good place for you to be, and you know what I'm talking about.
SPEAKER_01: Don't be surprised if seas get stormy.
SPEAKER_01: And not because God's punishing you as though he had to.
SPEAKER_01: That's just the way that it works.
SPEAKER_01: When you go off the path, the seas get stormy.
SPEAKER_01: That's sort of how life is.
SPEAKER_01: So the story continues.
SPEAKER_01: The men start to panic on board the ship, and they sort of cry out to their gods.
SPEAKER_01: They all have different gods, they start crying out to their gods.
SPEAKER_01: And where's Jonah?
SPEAKER_01: He's asleep! Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01: Hey, look at me.
SPEAKER_01: Some of you in this room have fallen asleep.
SPEAKER_01: And it might take a storm in your life, or being swallowed by a fish, to wake you up.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, can you think of another story where a Hebrew man is on a boat at sea and there's storms and he's sleeping?
SPEAKER_01: They wake him up.
SPEAKER_01: Dude, what's going on?
SPEAKER_01: And they cast lots.
SPEAKER_01: They're kind of like, it's like divination.
SPEAKER_01: They roll the dice to figure out who's at fault.
SPEAKER_01: And the lots all fall to Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: The technical term here is busting.
SPEAKER_01: And Jonah's like, yo, yo, let's roll again, roll again, do it again.
SPEAKER_01: No, he's like, it's me.
SPEAKER_01: It's my bad.
SPEAKER_01: Throw me overboard.
SPEAKER_01: And they do.
SPEAKER_01: Now, I know not many of us in this room are marine biologists, but if you're out at sea and it's a storm raging, there's one boat, and that boat throws you overboard, what does that mean for you?
SPEAKER_01: You're gonna die.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah is certainly abandoning ship for all intents and purposes.
SPEAKER_01: He's going to die.
SPEAKER_01: You ever been there?
SPEAKER_01: By the way, the sea, I love this.
SPEAKER_01: This is actually context and symbol.
SPEAKER_01: In the ancient world context, the sea symbolizes chaos.
SPEAKER_01: Evil, the place where the evil lives and the unknown monsters of the world they live under the water because nobody knew what was under there.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah goes from the stable ground, safety, food, nourishment, into the water.
SPEAKER_01: Into the chaos, headfirst, probably, into the upside down, the darkness, the disorienting place, the place of the evil one, where there's beasts and wild.
SPEAKER_01: Instantly his life is upside down.
SPEAKER_01: Have you ever been there?
SPEAKER_01: And Jonah's swimming for his life.
SPEAKER_01: And here's what happens in verse 17, in an oh by the way moment, it says, Oh, but the Lord provides a large fish to swallow up Jonah, and Jonah's there for three days and three nights.
SPEAKER_01: Like, whoa, what?
SPEAKER_01: It's like, oh by the way, uh, fish comes, swallows him, and he's in there for three days or nights.
SPEAKER_01: It's almost a throwaway line.
SPEAKER_01: I mean, things take a dramatic turn in three verses.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah's going from, hey, I'm getting out of here, I'm running from God, I'm gonna be safe and Tarsous, no problem.
SPEAKER_01: Boom, in the water.
SPEAKER_01: You thought you had a bad week.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah's like, oh my gosh, he had three verses, and he's in the water, gonna die.
SPEAKER_01: Now, here's the deal.
SPEAKER_01: This is the most beautiful symbol of the whole story, if you ask me.
SPEAKER_01: The belly of the whale.
SPEAKER_01: Now, there's several things that this could symbolize.
SPEAKER_01: I want to give you, I think it's five of them.
SPEAKER_01: Is that okay?
SPEAKER_01: Number one, the belly of the whale symbol.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, bye, here's some here's some live pictures of Jonah and the belly.
SPEAKER_01: This guy's like, hey, let's make some, let's make some food.
SPEAKER_01: Get a fish, let's cook him up.
SPEAKER_01: He's got a chimney and everything.
SPEAKER_01: This is great.
SPEAKER_01: You know, how about this one?
SPEAKER_01: This is Rabbi Jonah.
SPEAKER_01: He's gonna study up on some Torah, you know, get his teachings in order before he gets.
SPEAKER_01: How about this one?
SPEAKER_01: Sheesh.
SPEAKER_01: This guy, look at him.
SPEAKER_01: How about this one?
SPEAKER_01: I love this one.
SPEAKER_01: Olivia, I found this one for me.
SPEAKER_01: It's great.
SPEAKER_01: If you can't see, it's a guy in a treadmill.
SPEAKER_01: Where's he running to?
SPEAKER_01: He's in a treadmill.
SPEAKER_01: Can't outrun the fish, man.
SPEAKER_01: How about this one?
SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's good.
SPEAKER_01: Notice the contrast of that one.
SPEAKER_01: How about this one?
SPEAKER_01: By the way, it never says whale, just it's a great fish.
SPEAKER_01: How about this one?
SPEAKER_01: What does that remind you of?
SPEAKER_01: Someone says what?
SPEAKER_01: Whoom.
SPEAKER_01: You ever see an ultrasound?
SPEAKER_01: Okay, hold that thought, we'll come back to it.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, what does this symbolize?
SPEAKER_01: Number one the grace of God.
SPEAKER_01: I just told you, actually, you told me, Jonah was going to die.
SPEAKER_01: The fish comes and saves his life.
SPEAKER_01: It keeps him from drowning.
SPEAKER_01: Otherwise, he's certainly dead.
SPEAKER_01: So maybe this isn't a story about the punishment of God, but God is saving Jonah, protecting him from his own self, and of course the sea.
SPEAKER_01: He keeps Jonah from dying.
SPEAKER_01: In this belly, Jonah finds salvation.
SPEAKER_01: How's that for a twist of stories?
SPEAKER_01: How about this one?
SPEAKER_01: It also symbolizes, I would say, the darkness, the pit, the depths, the grave, the tomb.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah's in this womb, this belly, and it's dark.
SPEAKER_01: He can't see anything.
SPEAKER_01: He's disoriented.
SPEAKER_01: He's confused.
SPEAKER_01: He's terrified.
SPEAKER_01: How could he not be?
SPEAKER_01: Imagine what that would be like, what it would smell like.
SPEAKER_01: What would you hear?
SPEAKER_01: But it's in the darkest part of this moment that he finds what he needs the most, which I'll get to in a minute.
SPEAKER_01: So Joseph Campbell, the great thinker, Joseph Campbell, who influenced the Star Wars movies and George Lucas, says this the cave you fear to enter holds the treasure you seek.
SPEAKER_01: What are you afraid of?
SPEAKER_01: You just might have to go in there a little bit further and find what you need the most.
SPEAKER_01: Confront the darkness, the depths.
SPEAKER_01: Stop hiding from it.
SPEAKER_01: Stop sort of sweeping under the rug.
SPEAKER_01: Go into it.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's your marriage and there's these things that no one talks about.
SPEAKER_01: Maybe it's your own fear of what will happen to your kids, or maybe it's your own fear of dying.
SPEAKER_01: Whatever it is, you've got to go into it.
SPEAKER_01: Because just inside there, you might find just what you need, like our good friend Luke Skywalker.
SPEAKER_01: It also symbolizes, I would say, the unconscious.
SPEAKER_01: So Carl Jung, another great thinker, said this.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, I don't agree with all of Carl Jung's thoughts on religion, but he's got some wonderful things to say about psychology.
SPEAKER_01: So he says, man's task is to become conscious of the contents that press upward from the unconscious.
SPEAKER_01: That deep beneath the surface of your being, there are all kinds of things that are happening in your body, your soul, your psyche, your wealth, whatever, that you're not aware of.
SPEAKER_01: Because how could you be?
SPEAKER_01: And they live down in here.
SPEAKER_01: And in the belly, Jonah confronts his own unconscious.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah hated the Assyrians.
SPEAKER_01: He hated them.
SPEAKER_01: God loved them and wanted to save them.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah has no idea that his will contradicts the will of God.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah's heart is different than God's heart.
SPEAKER_01: And Jonah doesn't know it because he's asleep.
SPEAKER_01: How could he know it?
SPEAKER_01: How do you know what you don't know?
SPEAKER_01: The only way for him to know is to become face to face and confront his own unconscious, to realize what a jerk he's being.
SPEAKER_01: Sometimes when you're a jerk, you don't know you're being a jerk until someone's like, hey, you're being a jerk.
SPEAKER_01: Then you become aware and conscious of your unconscious.
SPEAKER_01: Are you with me?
SPEAKER_01: Here in this belly, Jonah wakes up and he becomes aware of his own shadow side and what a jerk he's been.
SPEAKER_01: And it doesn't go away right away if you read the whole story, too.
SPEAKER_01: But true transformation, I would say this, takes place when you and I become aware of our unconscious and the things living and lurking just beneath the surface.
SPEAKER_01: This is why I love therapy.
SPEAKER_01: It really does help for most people.
SPEAKER_01: Because they take you into the darkness.
SPEAKER_01: A good therapist will take you right into there.
SPEAKER_01: And you'll see your own self in that cave.
SPEAKER_01: Or darkness or suffering, pain, discomfort.
SPEAKER_01: I don't wish them on anybody, but when you go into those things, if you're aware and do some reflecting and praying and talking with friends or a counselor, you can become aware of all kinds of things.
SPEAKER_01: Your shadow side, your fears, your anxieties, to become aware, or to become alive, and you can then deal with them and be transformed.
SPEAKER_01: They take us deeper.
SPEAKER_01: So if you want to change, if you want to be transformed, if you want to mature as a Christian, as a human being, go into the darkness.
SPEAKER_01: I'm not saying induce harm on yourself.
SPEAKER_01: I don't mean that.
SPEAKER_01: I mean when you encounter suffering, and you will, either you or someone close to you, either now or later, go into it.
SPEAKER_01: And don't try to escape it too fast.
SPEAKER_01: You circumvent your own growth.
SPEAKER_01: Because in that cave is just what you need.
SPEAKER_01: Also, the belly symbolizes death.
SPEAKER_01: Many scholars think that Jonah actually literally dies in the belly.
SPEAKER_01: And also he calls it the grave.
SPEAKER_01: He calls it for me, he calls it Sheol.
SPEAKER_01: Sheol is the place of the dead, or it might be translated as hell.
SPEAKER_01: And so many think he dies in the belly of the whale.
SPEAKER_01: Whether or not he does, it doesn't matter, because here's the thing whether he dies literally or metaphorically, he dies.
SPEAKER_01: And to get to resurrection, you have to go through death.
SPEAKER_01: The great Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, when Christ calls us, he calls us to come and die.
SPEAKER_01: Another great modern spiritual thinker says that all great spirituality is about letting go.
SPEAKER_01: And in the belly of the whale, you have to let go.
SPEAKER_01: There's no way to keep running.
SPEAKER_01: You're stuck in the belly.
SPEAKER_01: You have to let go.
SPEAKER_01: Lastly, as Kelsey pointed out, the Hebrew word for belly is also the same word for womb.
SPEAKER_01: How about that?
SPEAKER_01: Show me that picture again.
SPEAKER_01: I think it's yeah.
SPEAKER_01: He's in the womb.
SPEAKER_01: Anything about it.
SPEAKER_01: The gastric juices eat away all his clothes, his hair is gone when he comes back, and he's just like this.
SPEAKER_01: And then, of course, go ahead from me, Sarah.
SPEAKER_01: Oh, no, go to the next one.
SPEAKER_01: Go to the what's the verse?
SPEAKER_01: He's vomited up on the dry land.
SPEAKER_01: Think about this.
SPEAKER_01: He shows up now, and guess where he is, by the way?
SPEAKER_01: Nineveh.
SPEAKER_01: His clothes are gone, his hair's gone.
SPEAKER_01: He doesn't know the language.
SPEAKER_01: What is he?
SPEAKER_01: He's a baby.
SPEAKER_01: Okay, now go back to that Nixon quote.
SPEAKER_01: This is what uh I think it's Rosemary Nixon says Salvation is not in the first instance God taking you out of your mess.
SPEAKER_01: That's not how it works.
SPEAKER_01: Rather, it's God meeting us within it.
SPEAKER_01: Jonah will find salvation in this watery grave, for there, in the place which eloquently speaks of death, God will meet him.
SPEAKER_01: Because it's finally here that Jonah stops running.
SPEAKER_01: He can't run.
SPEAKER_01: And he cries out to God, and God in the scripture and the story of Israel is the God who hears the cries of the oppressed.
SPEAKER_01: And God hears him.
SPEAKER_01: Fathoms below the surface of the water where there's no sunlight.
SPEAKER_01: He's in the belly of a fish.
SPEAKER_01: Even there, God can hear him.
SPEAKER_01: And Jonah finally relents and cries out.
SPEAKER_01: This past fall, my son went through something at his first year in college that was a belly of the whale experience.
SPEAKER_01: And he called me and talked to me about it with his mom.
SPEAKER_01: And sometimes up here I can talk about like theology and theories, and you're like, yeah, this is true.
SPEAKER_01: But then when it's real life, you're like, I think this is true.
SPEAKER_01: And I told him, You've got to go through this.
SPEAKER_01: You have to go into the darkness.
SPEAKER_01: But I was much less sure then than I am now, because it's like it's my own son.
SPEAKER_01: I want to just fix it for him.
SPEAKER_01: But I wanted to tell the story.
SPEAKER_01: So I would love to invite Logan up.
SPEAKER_01: Would you give Logan some love as he shares his story?
unknown: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Good morning.
SPEAKER_00: This past fall, I started my freshman year at Gustavus Adolphus College in St.
SPEAKER_00: Peter.
SPEAKER_00: And the first few months were not exactly as I'd expected them to be.
SPEAKER_00: All of the sport programs at Gustavus compete at the D3 level, and I was lucky enough to continue my swimming career at Gustavus.
SPEAKER_00: And I thought I had it all figured out.
SPEAKER_00: I was going to be a student athlete, I was going to meet all these great people, and I was going to have the time of my life immediately.
SPEAKER_00: That was my impression.
SPEAKER_00: Now the first practice wasn't for a month, so I had some time to adjust to the whole college thing.
SPEAKER_00: To my dismay, things started off really slow.
SPEAKER_00: I hadn't met a lot of people, and I spent most of my nights alone in my dorm.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get off to the start that I had hoped to.
SPEAKER_00: Then the first week of practice rolled around, and having been discouraged from the first month, I was nervous about joining the team of 90 swimmers.
SPEAKER_00: Leading up to that week of practice, I was running a slight fever, but I overplayed it and used it as an excuse to skip practice because I was afraid.
SPEAKER_00: I ended up jumping into practice the following week, and it was terrible.
SPEAKER_00: I was a week behind everyone, I was out of shape, I didn't know anybody, and a lot of doubt crept in.
SPEAKER_00: I felt lost.
SPEAKER_00: After my third day of practice, I emailed my coach to tell him I didn't know if I wanted to swim anymore.
SPEAKER_00: I felt like quitting.
SPEAKER_00: I said, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
SPEAKER_00: My coach John emailed me back and he said, Logan, I think you're looking for reasons not to swim instead of looking for reasons to swim, which was exactly what I was doing.
SPEAKER_00: He told me to reflect and think over the next few days about my decision.
SPEAKER_00: I told him I would, just to be nice because I was probably gonna quit either way.
SPEAKER_00: But I have since learned that God is with me every step of the way, even in the darkest moments, and God had different plans for me.
SPEAKER_00: The first day after emailing him, I was feeling pretty good.
SPEAKER_00: I went to class, did some homework, and relaxed.
SPEAKER_00: Mind you, this was the first day since I was little where I didn't have to look forward to a sporting season.
SPEAKER_00: The second day was still good, but all I really did was go to class, eat, and scroll on my phone.
SPEAKER_00: Day three rolled around, and I was so bored and so tired of having done nothing active for those three days, because being an athlete was a big part of my identity, and it started to feel like a part of me was dying.
SPEAKER_00: I believe God can speak to us in many different ways, through scripture, a friend, a sermon, or in just everyday things.
SPEAKER_00: Like for me that day, it was a clip from the Rocky movie.
SPEAKER_00: It was a scene from the first movie where Rocky was fighting the heavyweight champ Apollo Creed.
SPEAKER_00: It was the final fight, final round of the fight, and the going the distance song was playing.
SPEAKER_00: It sparked something in me, so I got up and walked to the pool.
SPEAKER_00: When I got there, I just looked at it.
SPEAKER_00: I knew at that moment the decision I made would alter my direction in life.
SPEAKER_00: I had two choices.
SPEAKER_00: One, be done with my swimming career forever, or two, face my fear and rejoin the team.
SPEAKER_00: I felt deeply in that moment that I wanted to give swimming one more try.
SPEAKER_00: When I tell you it was the best decision I have ever made, it really was.
SPEAKER_00: They became my second family, I fell back in love with the sport of swimming, and I was able to travel to a few places outside of Minnesota and compete against several great swimmers.
SPEAKER_00: This past year I learned something important about life.
SPEAKER_00: It is okay to be lost.
SPEAKER_00: You're not always supposed to have life figured out.
SPEAKER_00: But you'll be just fine.
SPEAKER_00: God will be there every step of the way, even in the darkest darkness, when you think you're alone, when you're at your weakest, when you don't know the next step, God does.
SPEAKER_00: Put your faith and trust in Him, and you'll be just fine.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: By the way, did you notice how many days he took to reflect?
SPEAKER_01: Three.
SPEAKER_01: There you go.
SPEAKER_01: Talk about a symbol.
SPEAKER_01: Oh my gosh.
SPEAKER_01: Three days in the belly of the whale, Jonah was, and three days in the belly of the tomb, Jesus was.
SPEAKER_01: Paul writes about this and includes you, and here's what Paul writes, and then we'll end with this.
SPEAKER_01: Don't you know that all who were baptized, including young Jameson over here, into Christ Jesus, were baptized into his death.
SPEAKER_01: You share in the death of Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: That's what baptism is.
SPEAKER_01: We were therefore then buried with him through baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
SPEAKER_01: You can have a new life.
SPEAKER_01: For if we've been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.
SPEAKER_01: Central, may you know there is nowhere you can go that God is not there.
SPEAKER_01: You can run, but wherever you go, there you are, and there's God.
SPEAKER_01: So you might as well confront the darkness, go into the depths, confront death itself, and die.
SPEAKER_01: Let go of all the things that are burdening you that you grab instead of God.
SPEAKER_01: Let them go and stop running in order to find life.
SPEAKER_01: Amen.