i-Llan: 10th November 2024 – Does God change his mind?

The story of Jonah begs the question, 'does God change his mind?'

The Sunday's readings which prompted the reflection were:
Jonah 3. 1-5, 10
Hebrews 9. 24-28
Mark 1. 14-20

and an extract from What a Shrink Thinks

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Transcript

Welcome to i-Llan, a podcast connecting faith, life and Scripture. This week's episode asks, Does God change his mind?'

The book of Jonah is a short story told with exaggerated verve and humour. God instructs the Hebrew prophet, Jonah, to go to the foreign city of Nineveh and tell the people: ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’. Jonah doesn’t like the job and tries to run away in the opposite direction. But he finishes up in the belly of a ‘great fish’ (popularly thought of as a whale) for three days and nights before being vomited onto dry land.

Grudgingly, he goes to Nineveh and preaches God’s doom. Immediately, the city repents and everyone, king, people and animals, don sack-cloth and proclaim a fast. Then God, the story goes, ‘changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it’. That’s the bit that is the first reading this Sunday.

Does Jonah pride himself on being an amazing preacher? No! He flies into a rage and sulks. If God was going to let Nineveh off the hook then why did Jonah have to go through all that? He complains, ‘I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.’ The story goes on to tell of God teaching Jonah a lesson about compassion.

So, does God sometimes change his mind? It’s the sort of question that theologians argue over in learned theses. Underlying it is the question, ‘does prayer have any effect?’. That’s a huge subject, but let me offer a few thoughts from my reading of Jonah.

First, ‘Does God change his mind?’ is a fruitless and rather impertinent question. It’s not for me to know the subtleties and nuances of God’s intentions. However, it occurs to me that if God had implacably intended to destroy Nineveh, why send Jonah to warn them? 

Second, God works in co-operation with humans. He needed Jonah to put in motion the process which prompted Nineveh to ‘turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands’, which, I think, was what God wanted all along.

Third, I believe prayer releases spiritual energy, whoever is praying. One of the features of Jonah’s story is that foreigners offer honest prayer to the gods they know of, and are heard by God. Last week’s readings were about the two great commandments: love God, love neighbour as you love yourself. I said that the second flows from the first, but many people will start with the second—compassion for their neighbour, whether local or global. Recently, I was struck by these words from Martha Crawford:

“I’m not even sure I believe in God or prayer, but I pray anyway. A nearly consistent prayer rolls through the back of my brain all day long, and all night in the semi-conscious moments between deep sleep. While I work, cook, run errands, write, study, walk, and pick up dog shit off the driveway I feel my heart crying out to whatever is larger than me, than all of us, asking for Something, or Nothing, or Everything to have mercy on me, and to have mercy on us all.

“Does it do anything out in the world for me or for others? I have no idea.

“I only know that it keeps my fearful, impermanent, mournful heart alive and able to keep loving this broken, terrifying world.” (extract from What a Shrink Thinks)

Believing prayer has power, I think it is imperative to keep praying for this ‘broken, terrifying world’ in whatever way we know. As a Christian, I pray to the Father, in the name of Christ, in the power and at the prompting of the Spirit, but I trust that God uses all prayers of compassion to combat the powers of darkness. However, as God chooses to work in co-operation with humans, God may call the pray-er to act as well as pray.

Thus it seems to me that a more important question than ‘Does God change his mind?’ is: ‘Will I allow God to change my mind to cooperate with his desires?’. 

The Greek for ‘change one’s mind’ is metanoia, which is often translated in English Bibles as ‘repent’. This week’s readings set the story of Jonah and Nineveh alongside the story of Jesus’s call to repent and follow him:
Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.’ (Mark 1. 14, 15) 

Then Jesus calls his first disciples to 'Follow me’. He makes the same call to you and me today. How do you respond?