Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-october-25-2022
Luke 11:29-32
The Sign of Jonah
29 As the crowds increased, Jesus said, “This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah. 30 For as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation. 31 The Queen of the South will rise at the judgment with the people of this generation and condemn them, for she came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom; and now one greater than Solomon is here. 32 The men of Nineveh will stand up at the judgment with this generation and condemn it, for they repented at the preaching of Jonah; and now one greater than Jonah is here.
This is a passage that probably doesn’t get that much attention from most followers of Jesus, probably because it isn’t all that clear what it’s supposed to mean to us. But coming as it does at the same time as an Old Testament reading from the Book of Jonah – which was the subject of our Reflection for yesterday – this passage should probably get some overdue attention from us.
As you might remember, we said yesterday that the real theme of Jonah is God’s gracious forgiveness of those who confess and repent. And in this reading from Luke, Jesus mentions the story of Jonah and uses it to illustrate a point he wants to make.
We might scratch our heads at this passage, but when you stop and think about it, Jesus is making a point that’s pretty straightforward. And once you see what his point is, it presents a challenge to those of us who consider ourselves his followers.
Jesus starts out by saying, “This is a wicked generation.” Right off the bat, that requires a little clarification from the New Testament scholars, because Jesus is using the term “generation” here in a way that’s different from the way we usually use it. The scholars say that Jesus wasn’t talking about the specific people who were alive at the moment he was speaking. Instead, they say, he was using the term “generation” to designate people who lived between the establishment of the original covenant with Abraham and the moment when he came into the world to establish a new covenant with his followers. So the “generation” Jesus was talking about was one that lasted two thousand years or so.
He says that people from that generation wanted to see miraculous signs as evidence that he really was a prophet – a person acting with the power of God. We know from other places in the gospels that people would sometimes approach Jesus asking him to do miracles as evidence that he was sent by God.
That’s why Jesus refers to Jonah. He says that he’s not going to do signs and wonders to impress people, that those who were familiar with the scriptures already had “the sign of Jonah.” He says, “as Jonah was a sign to the Ninevites, so also will the Son of Man be to this generation.” And if you remember from our Reflection yesterday, the message of Jonah was a call to repent of their sins. And when they did repent, the Ninevites were forgiven and God “did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.”
So Jesus seems to be saying that Jonah was a kind of forerunner to his own role in salvation history. Like Jonah, Jesus was calling people to repent of their sins. But his call was for all people, not just the people of one city. And Jesus was also announcing God’s offer of forgiveness for those who respond to that call to confession and repentance.
Jesus also mentions another story from the Old Testament. He talks about “the Queen of the South,” who “came from the ends of the earth to listen to Solomon’s wisdom.” That Queen of the South seems to be a reference to the queen of Sheba, who came to visit Solomon in the tenth chapter of First Kings. During this state visit, this queen is said to have talked with Solomon about all sorts of things, and to have marveled at the great wisdom Solomon had. That wisdom led her to praise God.
The point Jesus seems to be making is that even gentiles, if they pay attention, can recognize true godly wisdom when they hear it. So the queen of Sheba’s willingness to hear and respond to godly wisdom is contrasted to the spiritual blindness of the majority of the Hebrew people. They have been given the chance to see and hear Jesus as he walks among them. But if they fail to recognize and act on his teaching, then the Queen of Sheba will effectively be a witness against them.
Then Jesus says that just as the Queen of Sheba will bear witness against the Hebrew people’s failure to recognize true wisdom, the people of Nineveh will bear witness against their failure to repent of their sins. The Ninevites repented of their sins after hearing the preaching of Jonah, but the Hebrew people were failing to repent of their sins upon hearing the preaching of Jesus himself.
Even though he was the fulfillment of “the Law and the Prophets” – of God’s relationship with the covenant people – even though his life was foretold by the prophesies about the Messiah to come, almost none of his own people recognized the significance of his life and ministry.
Within the lifetime of most of those who heard Jesus speak, the Jesus movement would explode into the world. But it would be mostly gentiles who would follow Jesus with hearts of true repentance, just as the people of Nineveh repented. It would be gentiles who would truly embrace the wisdom of Jesus’ teachings, just as the Queen of Sheba embraced the wisdom of Solomon.
As followers of Jesus, we might read this passage and just shake our heads at how foolish the covenant people were to miss the importance of what was happening in Jesus. But the same thing could happen to us. The mere fact that we call ourselves Christians doesn’t mean we will automatically see what the Holy Spirit is doing in our time. Like the Hebrew people, we can get so wrapped up in our own religious customs and practices that we fail to see and repent of our sins, while people outside the faith see theirs more clearly. The example and teachings of Jesus can become so familiar to us that we and fail to respond to the radical startling wisdom they contain.
This passage seems to challenge us to be on guard against thinking that we have Jesus and the things of the faith all figured out. It seems to challenge us to see and hear the message and ministry of Jesus with eyes and ears – and hearts – that are open to divine wisdom we might have missed all our lives.
Let’s pray. Lord, we pray that your Holy Spirit will constantly point out to us ways that we can be more faithful to Jesus, more aware of sins we need to lay down, and more alert to the wisdom that can found only in his teachings. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 12 and 146; Jonah 3 and 4; and Revelation 11:14-19. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.org, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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