Kaleidoscope’s hook is that the episodes can be watched in any order, which may sound like a gimmick; fortunately the show’s slick heist story stands on its own two feet. With the least amount of spoilers possible, the show tells the story of three main groups: the thieves, the victims, and the FBI squad investigating.
I don’t think it was a coincidence that as I watched the show I was simultaneously reading and teaching through the book of Jonah. Kaleidoscope’s ring leaders—Giancarlo Esposito for the thieves, Rufus Sewell for the victims, and Niousha Noor for the FBI—have major narcissistic tendencies. And yet, there are sailors among them. Let me explain.
The story of God’s most successful prophet being vomited onto a beach, preaching hellfire club membership to the Ninevites, then cursing out God over a worm is sure to stoke the imagination. Of course Jonah gets the spotlight, but over the years I’ve become intrigued by the scurvy dogs unwittingly involved in Jonah’s doomed escape plan.
Over the years I’ve become intrigued by the scurvy dogs unwittingly involved in Jonah’s doomed escape plan.
If Jonah truly knew the LORD (Yahweh) as he seems to, was the prophet really so self-absorbed and arrogant? And how could the pagan sailors who didn’t have a relationship with Yahweh be humbled and obedient? To answer these questions and see how the story applies to our own lives, we must first ask: is the story even real?
A Whale of a Tale
Recent scholarship has seen disagreement on whether the book of Jonah should be taken literally or figuratively. This matters for a proper understanding of the book, but it’s important for our application of this whole arrogance versus humility lesson too.
If Jesus didn’t literally mean that I should cut off my hand when it causes me to sin, then Jonah’s big fish could be an allegory or a parable, and maybe God doesn’t do miracles. And if that’s the case, then like Jonah, I can ignore my narcissism because God probably isn’t interested and doesn’t have the power to make me a humble individual who can help my community.
Clearly, I’ve already shown my cards (yes, they’re “Go Fish”)—I do believe everything in Jonah actually happened. The following isn’t an exhaustive proof, but we’ll briefly consider three things: Jesus’s words, His miracles, and the Enlightenment’s influence.
If Jonah didn’t literally spend three days in the fish then Jesus didn’t spend three days in the tomb (since Jesus used Jonah’s timeline as the measurement for His prophecy). This example serves as a testimony to the humble confidence of Jesus. After all, Saint Paul said, Jesus’s coming to earth, dying, and resurrecting constituted the supreme act of humility.
There are at least ten purported miracles in Jonah.1 It’s a slippery slope to pick and choose what qualifies. If Jesus’s resurrection prophecy counts, then does walking on water? And why does God seem so obsessed with water throughout the Bible? I think it’s because water is vital to life but difficult to control.
I think we can plumb the depths of those lessons while still believing the story of Jonah is literal.
When we concoct rational explanations, we miss the point. Rushing to an explanation like “wind setdown” as the primary mechanism for how the Red Sea parted, limits our idea of God. Maybe it’s not either/or. Holding secondary causality in tension with unexplainable statements (like the Israelites crossing on dry ground immediately followed by the Egyptians drowning in the same spot) gives us a healthy appreciation for the mysteries of God.
Lastly, we must consider that Judaism and Christianity considered Jonah to be factual for millennia. At the literal beginning of the twentieth century, commentators Kiel and Delitzsch explained the new parabolic theory: “This ridicule [that God lacks the power to keep someone in a giant fish for three days] first found admission into the Christian church, when the rise of deism, naturalism, and rationalism caused a denial of the miracles and inspiration of the Scriptures to be exalted into an axiom of free inquiry.”2 Therefore, in the millennia prior to the Enlightenment, theologians interpreted Jonah as literal and symbolic. (For why this historical tradition matters and so much more, see Professor Jay Sklar’s article here.)
Some of these well-meaning scholars believe Jonah is figurative in order to teach us lessons like God’s mercy, repentance, and the dangers of disobedience. But I think we can plumb the depths of those lessons while still believing the story of Jonah is literal.
Jonah’s Journey: A Short Disobedience in the Wrong Direction
In a second, we’ll look at the scallywags who learned those lessons of mercy, repentance, disobedience, and humility firsthand. But first we’ll briefly review the prophet who should have embodied this humility as a representative of Yahweh.
The book starts with God telling the prophet to preach against Nineveh, which Jonah promptly disobeys. He boards a ship and almost immediately tells the crew he is fleeing from God. Bit of an audacious over share, Jonah.
I believe Jesus calming the storm was designed to contrast Jonah’s similar predicament.
God brings a storm that gets so bad it drives seasoned (albeit superstitious) sailors to ask who on board is being punished. They employ the independent litmus test of casting lots and when God uses this method to single out Jonah, they ask for his resumé. As soon as he mentions that he “worships the LORD [Yahweh], the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land,” they become “terrified.” Why? I believe that although they worshiped other gods, they’d heard about Yahweh who created and controlled the sea.
And I love that these bilge rats were convinced by putting three separate things together: Jonah fled God before the storm, they performed the impartial litmus test of casting lots, and then they found out the storm was caused by the famous Yahweh! It’s no wonder they were terrified of an active God, despite Jonah’s arr-ogance (come on, pirate puns are always fun).
And speaking of an active God, I believe Jesus calming the storm was designed, on some level, to contrast Jonah’s similar predicament. As we know, Jonah slept peacefully in the midst of a storm, unencumbered by the fact that he was putting the sailors’ lives at risk.
Contrarily, Jesus, exhausted from serving others, slept peacefully on a ship in a storm as His disciples rightfully freaked out. Calming His panicked followers, Jesus commanded the storm to cease and it immediately obeyed Him. This gave the disciples a new reason to panic: “Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
Certainly Jesus was consciously fulfilling scriptures like Psalm 89:9 and 107:28-30, demonstrating that He is God, but He could have also been contrasting His loving, providential humility to Jonah’s unloving vanity. When we disobey God, we may be thrown overboard (only to ultimately obey Him), but when we trust our servant-Lord the storm is calmed and the community gets to stay safely in the boat.
The Sailors: Being a Vessel on a Vessel
But how does God use our humility for the betterment of ourselves as individuals and our communities? In his seminal tome Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem uses Jonah’s being thrown overboard to illustrate God’s providence. The author of Jonah says the sailors threw him in the sea but later Jonah claims God threw him in.3 Grudem explains, “What Scripture reveals to us, and what Jonah himself realized, was that God was bringing about his plan through the willing choices of real human beings who were morally accountable for their actions. In a way not understood by us and not revealed to us, God caused them to make a willing choice to do what they did.”
My mind boggles at the paradox. I believe the Bible teaches both election and free will, but as I’ve grown in my humility journey, I’ve learned to err on the side of God’s omniscience and omnipotence. We’re allowed to exercise the choice that these sailors did, at the behest of Yahweh. Personally, if survival means chucking a self-absorbed prophet, then Kurt Russell is going overboard. As Larry helpfully exclaimed in the VeggieTales adaptation, “We’ve got a plank! You can just walk off!”
Jonah’s lack of empathy, carelessness, self-reliance, and self-absorption are all traits of a narcissist.
Earlier I mentioned that each of Kaleidoscope’s narcissists had “sailors” alongside them. Much like Jonah’s sailors, these people aren’t perfect, but they make suggestions and choices to counterbalance their superior’s rash arrogance. The moral mariners in the book of Jonah can’t fathom murdering a man, so they double their efforts of returning to shore (caring more for Jonah than he did for them). As the storm’s fury increases, they are left with no option but to chuck Jonah overboard. They do, however, passionately plead with God. The sailors pray to Yahweh for salvation, mercy, not to be held liable for manslaughter, forgiveness, and praise Him for His power. There is no question of submission—they know exactly who they are praying to.
Are there times we feel hopeless, humbly begging God to forgive us for our seemingly immoral action? Is it possible that God somehow causes us to make this choice? What if sometimes we’re instruments for the arrogant to get a taste of comeuppance long before their final judgement? This isn’t an excuse to become vigilantes like the Watchmen (after all, who watches the Watchmen?), but it may give us hope that God knows our limits and uses everything for good to those who are called according to His purposes.
Jonah’s lack of empathy (sleeping peacefully while putting everyone’s life at risk), carelessness (he knows exactly how to save the sailors), self-reliance (he never prays), and self-absorption (pagans don’t deserve salvation) are all traits of a narcissist. There’s a joke that a narcissist asks God for a bike but doesn’t get it, so he steals one and then demands that God admire his initiative. Jonah steals the bike but doesn’t even bother talking to God.
For a book famously devoid of details, why do the sailors get so much stage time? Certainly contrasting the heathen sailors’ attitudes and actions with Jonah’s disobedience highlights the correct response to God. But I also believe their humility was meant as a lighthouse to share the transforming power of the Father of Lights.
As much as God values us as individuals, He also places great worth on community. If Rick Warren is right and “humility is not thinking less of yourself, but thinking of yourself less,” then what should we think about more? My vote is for Jesus’s two commands: loving God and loving others.
Nothing to Cease Here: Self-Absorbed Evangelism
Keeping the through-line of loving God and others is a fantastic filter as we briefly touch on Jonah chapters 2-4. In Jonah 2, we learn about the sleepover in a big fish. Jonah gives a nice prayer but is void of an actual apology; he doesn’t even acknowledge his wrongdoing, a key component in repentance.
Whether pastors or politicians, average Jo(nah)s or communities as a whole, we must move from being self-absorbed to being self-abnegating.
Once Free Willy pukes Jonah onto the sandy beaches of Nineveh, Jonah starts preaching. I picture him with fish stomach acid having bleached his skin and hair, stumbling down Main Street condemning people. Some have said chapter 3 shows that Jonah appears to have surrendered and vowed to do God’s will in Nineveh.
I’ll admit that Jonah recognizes the truth, but it is cheapened by his selfishness. He actively rebelled against announcing salvation to others but was very concerned inside the fish when it came to his salvation. Professor Sklar says: “[W]hen Jonah is only on day one of a city that takes three days to visit—the people are already turning to the Lord. Once more, the pagans are far more spiritually sensitive and humble than the Hebrew prophet.”
“Didn’t I say before I left home that you would do this, Lord? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people. Just kill me now, Lord! I’d rather be dead than alive if what I predicted will not happen.”
The Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry about this?” (Jonah 4:2-4)
Jonah is infuriated by his success which leads to contention over a plant and a worm (for how the worm is analogous to Christ, read this article). Losing the plant really sets Jonah off, in what I nominate as the Bible’s most dramatic performance (the award looks like an Oscar but with a big head). Dan B. Allender says this dialogue is “one of the most self-absorbed conversations in the Bible.”
This serves as a lesson on how ugly selfishness is when we’re being told to witness and worship. Because God loves people and doesn’t want anyone to go to hell, He asks for their repentance. This should not incite a sense of superiority or a performative religiosity as the Pharisees practiced (although I think Jonah would have gotten along just fine with them).
The story of Nineveh (modern Mosul, Iraq) is ultimately a sad one. They served Yahweh for over one hundred years but slipped back into polytheism primarily, as Greg Laurie notes, due to arrogance. (God lovingly sent Nahum, but they ignored him.) Whether egotistical as an individual or narcissistic as a nation, God will give His humbling correction. One instance of communal repentance and revival doesn’t make a Christian nation in perpetuity. Each generation must humble themselves by shirking the temptations of safety and power and comfort. The call to selfless obedience is continual.
Whether pastors or politicians, average Jo(nah)s or communities as a whole, we must move from being self-absorbed to being self-abnegating. To hoard power and live a performative religion is to misrepresent God and to ignore love, to disobey, and ultimately to be annihilated.
Have a Little Humility
But annihilation is avoidable. Fortunately, we have the book of Jonah where we can learn of God’s humble love poured onto salty sailors and nasty Ninevites alike. As we recognize our deplorable state, we too can learn the Lord’s humility. And in humility, we should recognize Jonah was used by God. Who knows, maybe he is guarding the pearly gates with Peter as grumpy old men (Walter Matthau and Jack Lemmon are assuredly inside). Much like Jonah, the leaders of Kaleidoscope don’t learn their lessons in humility, even while modeled by subordinates.
It is not a coincidence that Yahweh crushed Jonah’s racism and handpicked a group of adventure-seeking delinquents. Jesus also handpicked His adventure-seeking delinquents before crushing their racism. Much like the Pirates of the Caribbean, Jesus’s salvation was designed to reach world’s end. Our willingness to model the sailors’ humility will benefit us communally and individually, big-headed Oscar or not.
- Jonah 1:4, 1:7, 1:15, 1:17a, 1:17b, 2:10, 3:10, 4:6, 4:7, and 4:8. ↩︎
- C.F. Keil, D.D. and F. Delitzsch, D.D., Biblical Commentary on the Old Testament, 1900, Footnote, p. 383. ↩︎
- Jonah 1:15 and Jonah 2:3. ↩︎
