I first remember learning the story of Jonah and the Whale in Sunday school. Jonah’s actions were taught as a lesson in why we ought to follow God’s command. Past that point, I put it out of my mind, until I recently discovered The Mountain Goats’s song “Mobile.” “Mobile” has generated, for me, a new way of reading the biblical text, especially in regard to grace. I do not pretend to deliver an authoritative analysis of the biblical text or song; I am only offering my interpretation.
My tradition taught me that grace is the undeserved forgiveness we receive from God. The whole “underserved” bit suggests pretty severe trespasses—I do not know if that is the most helpful way of thinking about our own mistakes, minor or major. I think the useful thing in thinking about grace is the patience and sincerity of God, which can inform the way we show grace to one another.
John Darnielle, The Mountain Goats’s frontman, often incorporates religious allusions into his songwriting. The first two stanzas of “Mobile” establish the biblical scene: Jonah, on a ship, fleeing God’s command, eventually to be cast into the water by his newfound companions. The narrator of the song, located in Mobile, Alabama, parallels his own experiences with Jonah, awaiting the wind to throw him off a balcony. Darnielle disrupts the biblical narrative; while the Book of Jonah relays, “the fish… spewed Jonah out upon the dry land,” Darnielle sings,
“Now the Lord told the great fish, be free of your burden / And Jonah emerged from his darkness like a dancer crashing through the curtain.”
Read in the context of the biblical passage, a dancer does not seem a fitting representation of Jonah. The fish hurls Jonah from its mouth, regurgitating him into an embarrassed position. Admittedly, this sudden emergence of Jonah in the song indicates a lack of coordination, but in depicting Jonah as a dancer, Darnielle suggests that he will eventually adopt a graceful position. Darnielle could have equally characterized Jonah as an actor—it would have conveyed a similar image of emerging from the darkness of a curtain, but a dancer implies grace. Of course, physical grace and spiritual grace are different things, yet, I believe Darnielle is intentional in this characterization. The physical grace of a dancer matches the spiritual grace of Jonah in name, but also in the delicate posturing and movement of forgiveness. Forgiveness—grace especially—requires lightness, serenity, and composure. However, this description does not redeem Jonah from his condition. His grace, as a dancer, remains performative.
Indeed, when reading the biblical text, the grace Jonah affords to Nineveh appears disingenuous. Jonah warns Nineveh of God’s wrath but grows upset when God forgives the Ninevites. Consequently, Jonah himself does not believe he should receive grace from God and asks, “please take my life from me.” Perhaps Jonah is projecting his self-conscious attitudes onto the people of Nineveh; unable to forgive himself, Jonah is unable to imagine the Ninevites as deserving of God’s grace. Returning to “Mobile,” Darnielle reveals that the balcony featured in the chorus of the song is not attached to the outside of a building but instead the inside of a courtroom. The narrator is unexposed to the wind he feels ought to punish him—the penalizing force is imagined. Without the wind, the narrator turns to the foreman of the jury, demanding to be prosecuted with the defendant(s). Like Jonah, the narrator allows no grace for himself or others. He invites punishment unto himself and the accused, pleading, “Don’t hold back your fury.”
Darnielle’s song led me to interpret the Book of Jonah in a way I had not found in Sunday school. The performative grace of Jonah and the narrator of “Mobile” prevents them from feeling that they deserve grace. Accordingly, the Book of Jonah could be interpreted, not
solely as a lesson about the grace of God, but a lesson about the ways in which we give grace to ourselves and others. In my view, the Book of Jonah teaches: do not be performative with your grace, afford it to yourself and others genuinely. By affording bona fide grace to ourselves, we may be better able to deliver it to one-another.