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The Joke Was On Me: The Prophet as Funny

The famous Sarcophagus of Jonah (ca. 300 A.D.)
Vatican Museum

The Generation Sign

"This generation asks for a sign" (Today's Gospel, Luke 11:29-32 - 10/12/2020).

What Jesus said about his generation can also be said of our age, be it the Generation X, the Generation Y or millennials, or merely the older generation called senior citizens. If in the past (until now)  we looked for our luck through zodiac signs, our age today speculates for signs: in the stock market, investments, business deals, signs for the end of the Pandemic, and the like. 

Like the generation of Jesus, we are a generation of signs as well. We need signs to survive and to entertain us.

The Sign of Jonah

Jesus displays a sense of humor and wit, he replies, "but no sign is to be given it except the sign of Jonah" (Luke 11:29). 

To those familiar with the story of Jonah, Jesus could have spoken tongue-on-cheek.

Comedy in Prophecy

Jonah's humorous life story begins with his name YONAH (in Hebrew), meaning "dove," a bird associated with stupidity (cf. Hos 7:11). All around him are "great" [GADOL in Hebrew]: 
  • great city of Nineveh, 
  • great wind, great storm, 
  • great fear of the Lord, 
  • great fish. 

However, he chooses a life that is not great at all. It is one of  "going down" [YARAD in Hebrew}]:
  • goes down to Joppa,
  • down to the ship,
  • down to the hold of the ship,
  • down to a "deep sleep," [TARDEMA in Hebrew], 
  • down to the sea
  • down into the belly of the great fish [ISH GADO
He plays a joke on God. The joke was on him in the end.

God sends a great fish to swallow Jonah.

The taste of Jonah must have been awful, the joke the Rabbis, that it vomited him afterward.

If the Ninevites will do a TESHUVA (repentance), that would be the greatest joke on his life.  Jonah, being a prophet, knows that would never happen. Nineveh is Nineveh (cf. the Book of Nahum, its long oracle against Nineveh).

What can a small-time prophet do for a "great city" like Nineveh?

And yes, God is God—"of heaven who made the sea and the dry land" (Jon 1:9), thus unchangeable. 

But the Ninevites repent, and God changes his mind.

So, Jonah wants to die (4:3), out of shame and makes another death-wish over a withered cucumber plant (4:8).

He forgets that he should not take life seriously, for God is full of surprises.

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Fr. Randy is the current Parish Priest and Rector of the Sacred Heart Parish Shrine in Quezon City, Philippines. He is also the Director of the Biblical Apostolate of the Diocese of Cubao and the coordinator for the Biblical Apostolate of the SVD Philippine Central Province. He teaches Biblical courses at the Divine Word Seminary, Tagaytay City. He holds a doctorate from the Ateneo de Manila University (PhD, 2015) and from the Loyola School of Theology (STD, 2014); Licentiate in Sacred Scripture (SSL, 1999) from the Pontifical Biblical Institute in Rome); an M.A. in Pastoral Ministry from the Divine Word Seminary  (1995). He served as president of the Catholic Biblical Association of the Philippines (CBAP), chairperson of the Tagaytay Religious Association (TRA), Dean of Studies (Divine Word Seminary), and editor of the academic journal  Diwa: Studies in Philosophy and Theology. He founded the Certificate in Theological Studies (CTS) at the Divine Word Seminary and the SVD Tagaytay Alternative Learning System (SVD-ALS), an educational program for the out-of-school youth. Visit also his YouTube channel https://www.youtube.com/c/biblicalapostolateph

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