What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?

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Jonah 1:1-16

The book of Jonah seems to be one of those controversial books because of its apparent historical inaccuracies and its logical impossibilities. The most noted one is the claim that a person can live three days inside a big fish.
Therefore, this book was probably not meant to be interpreted as book of history, nor a book of science. Then what is this about? It seems to be a parable about a preacher called Jonah that lived to see the post-traumatic effects of the torture and deportation of his nation under the hands of the Assyrians. And now God asks Jonah to go and preach to Nineveh, the last capital of Assyria.
If I were Jonah, I would want to avenge my people who were dismembered with no mercy. The last thing I would want is to help them out. And the command God gave Jonah was simple "Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me." But he knew that God would forgive them if they would repent. So he runs away in a boat heading to Spain.
On the way, God sends a mighty storm that leads to a prayer service for everyone in the ship, except Jonah: he is in stage 3 sleep.
Everybody is praying to their god and nothing works, logically the problem is with the missing guy. They bring Jonah up and they ask him to pray to his God but also they cast lots to know once and for all who is to blame for all this. Obviously, Jonah is the lucky one. They ask him a series of questions that resonate in my mind, they seem to come again and again, especially with what is happening in America at the moment. In the midst of trouble, they ask Jonah:

“Tell us why this calamity has come upon us. What is your occupation? Where do you come from? What is your country? And of what people are you?”

Except for the first question, the rest looks like the type of thing they ask immigrants -all the time-. So I am very familiar with those questions, and I know the answer to all. These questions can be summarized in two: "why us?" and "who are you?" Jonah replied "I am a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land."
He does not answer the "why", but he owns who he is and what he does. He's a Hebrew. He's a worshiper of God, who by the way made the raging sea. Note that this is the first time Jonah owns who he is. He had to face the reality of who he was then and there. It was not easy and it was not comfortable. It never is.
But what if I ask you? Why has all this trouble come upon us? Who are you, really? Has God commanded you to do something and instead you went in the opposite direction? Maybe this is the time for you to own who you are. Stop running away. This is the time to speak up and do something.
The story ends with a revival; all people in the ship worship God. Isn't that interesting? Even when you have done what God did not want you to do, God still did what he wanted to get done.
So, stop running and ask yourself: Why this calamity has come upon us. What is my occupation? Where do I come from? What is my country? And of what people am I? The answers will help you own who you are, right here, right now. Follow God's lead. Listen to God's voice. Do what he called you to do.

- PR