The Final Call

On his radio talk show, Candid Conversations, Connie Kendall welcomes John Avery Whittaker to help answer the question, "Who is my neighbor?" For weeks Whit has been teaching the kids of Odyssey about having a biblical worldview, and some of them have wondered what the point of it all is. Whit explains that knowing God's truth helps people spot lies, but something matters even more: God's truth reflects His very nature, and the clearest way God has expressed that nature is through compassion. Connie guesses he means the Good Samaritan, but Whit has a different story of compassion in mind - the story of Jonah, which Connie has always thought was about obedience.

The show then presents a radio-theater retelling of Jonah, with Whit narrating. God tells Jonah to go to the great city of Nineveh and warn its people that their wickedness is known to Him. Jonah objects - the Ninevites raid his people's villages; they are enemies - and instead he runs the opposite way, buying passage on a ship bound for Tarshish. But God sends a ferocious storm, and while the terrified sailors cry out to their gods and throw cargo overboard, Jonah sleeps in the hold. The captain wakes him and demands he pray too. When the crew draws lots to find who has angered the gods, the light-colored stone falls to Jonah, and he admits he is a Hebrew fleeing from the God who made the sea and the land. Jonah tells them the only way to calm the waters: "Throw me overboard." The sailors row desperately for shore instead, but the sea only grows rougher, so at last they beg God's forgiveness and cast Jonah into the waves. Instantly the sea grows calm, and the awed captain vows sacrifices to Jonah's God.

God has prepared a great fish to swallow Jonah, and for three days and three nights Jonah prays from its belly, remembering how God lifted his life from the depths and promising to serve Him, for salvation comes from God alone. The fish releases Jonah onto the shore, and when God speaks a second time, Jonah obeys. He walks into the middle of Nineveh and preaches that the city will be destroyed in forty days unless the people repent. The king himself trades his royal robes for sackcloth, sits in ashes, and orders the whole city - even the animals - to fast and cry out to God. When God sees their repentance, He has compassion and spares the city.

This makes Jonah furious. He tells God he knew this would happen all along - that God is tender, compassionate, and slow to anger - and that he would rather die than watch his enemies be forgiven. Sulking outside the city, Jonah is delighted when God grows a leafy vine to shade him, then miserable when God sends a worm to wither it and a scorching wind and blazing sun to beat down on him. When Jonah rages about the dead vine, God asks why he cares so much about a plant he never made or tended, yet feels nothing for a city full of people so lost "they cannot tell their right hand from their left."

Back in the studio, Whit points out that the story ends with that question, challenging Jonah - and everyone - to see even enemies through God's eyes. Jesus lived this way, Whit says, moved with pity for crowds who were like sheep without a shepherd, showing compassion to friends, strangers, and enemies alike. When Whit turns the question on Connie personally, she squirms, but he reminds her where her own worldview journey began: with Isaiah's vision of God on His throne, which Kids Radio once produced. In that scene, seraphs cry "Holy, holy, holy," a burning coal cleanses Isaiah's lips, and God asks who will go as His messenger.

Whit puts the same call to the young listeners: would they show God's love to their neighbors? The phone lines light up with kids' ideas - sitting with a lonely girl in the cafeteria, standing up for a bullied classmate, tutoring kids who struggle with math, befriending a boy whose parents just split up, and helping families too poor to pay their bills. Whit is thrilled: all the talk about worldview only matters if it makes a difference in the world, every minute of every day, with everyone we meet. The program closes with Jesus's own words about feeding the hungry and welcoming the stranger: "Insofar as you did this to one of the least of these... you did it to me."