By Pastor Mike Pennell
Jonah is one of the most lovable characters in the bible, a children's classic with the whale that swallows him and saves him from drowning. But it is far more than a fish story. Jonah is a story about a reluctant prophet who doesn't want to do what God sends him to do, namely to warn the people of Nineveh that they will be destroyed if they don't repent.
Jonah doesn't want anything to do with Nineveh because she has oppressed Israel with much pain and suffering over the years. Nineveh is to Israel what Iran might be to Israel today. Or a white person is to a person of color. Jonah doesn't want to open the door even slightly that might lead God to forgive and bless an old enemy. Sometimes we don't want to open the door either.
Barry was a 17 year old high school student about 6 feet tall with strong muscular arms and legs. We first met at Meadow Ice Cream where I worked summers during college. We worked together in the hardening room where it was 20 degrees below zero. We loaded trucks with ice cream bound for places all over central Illinois. Some of you probably ate some the goodies we tossed around.
Since I had seniority, I grabbed the clipboard with the orders, and Barry followed inside the freezing room. I set the pace, grabbing boxes and tossing them to Barry to put on the conveyer track. We hadn't been in long before I noticed how slow he was moving. I would throw one box and wait a minute until he was ready for the next. I tried speeding up a little, but if he wasn't ready he just let the box fall on the floor.
"Don't push me," he said at one point. And a little later, he threw a box back at me and added, "I don't like to be pushed."
Finally I said: "I'm not trying to push you. But it is 20 below zero in here. The faster we get done, the sooner we can be back outside where it's warm."
Thinking on that experience now I was like Jonah. I didn't much care what Barry thought, or how he felt, or why. But when he shoved that box back in my face, I began to take notice. And the thought of those stocky arms coming at me also made me pause.
I was a white man with a clipboard. I was the boss, in other words, and this meant something far different to Barry than it did to me because he was black. I had never worked with a black person before. My sensitivity training had begun.
It strikes me that many are now going through a similar adjustment with a new President who is black. Many feel that they have lost their country. "I just want it back," they grieve out loud at rallies.
Others are now resorting to carrying guns wherever the President appears. Like Jonah they are stuck in the past. I fear that as a nation we still have not learned the lesson of Jonah.
How easy it is to let "stereotypes" of other people control our attitudes and behavior. 'They're lazy. They just want to live on welfare. They want to take away 'my' freedom.' Or, 'Whitey just wants to use us. He doesn't really care.' Fear is a powerful force that still blocks many from relating in healthful, constructive ways without regard to color of skin, religious labels, ethnic backgrounds, and political philosophies.
By the end of that summer Barry and I had become good friends. I learned he was deeply involved in the Baptist Church, that he sang in the choir and was a first team starter on his High basketball team that finished 3rd in the Class AA Illinois State his senior season. We both learned we had a lot in common once we got past skin color. After high school Barry went on to work for the mayor of a large city in Central Illinois directing youth programs. He became a great asset, not only in his church, but to the whole community.
Sometimes, like Jonah, we are reluctant to open the door to other people. It may not always work out, but when we do open that door and it works, everybody wins. And most of all, it puts a smile on the face of the one who said: "A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another." (John 13:34-35)