Bystander Apathy: Waking Up from Indifference

Bystander Apathy

A few years ago on a busy Naples street, eight mafia gangsters attempted to settle an account by opening fire, and an innocent bystander was caught in the crossfire. He staggered into a crowded metro station and collapsed. CCTV footage showed what happened next: within seconds the station was completely empty, and people had to step over this man in their rush to leave. Help only arrived about thirty minutes later, by which time it was too late.

Psychologists call that bystander apathy. The more people there are available to help, the less likely anyone actually will — we convince ourselves, not my problem. NMP.

This morning I want us to pray: Lord, will you wake us up from our apathy? Wherever it is, root it out.

Another word for apathy is indifference — not caring about things we really should care about. Everything becomes "meh." Sometimes that's fine — do you like my new jumper? Meh. Banana or chocolate milkshake? But sometimes we find ourselves saying "meh" to God.

Setting the Scene

God called Jonah to warn Nineveh that judgment was coming. God said, "Go." Jonah said no, and instead of waking up, he fled down to Joppa and went the other way — a one-way ticket to the end of the world, to a place called Tarshish. We join him on the boat heading there.

Jonah's indifference towards his shipmates actually reveals a kind of "meh" in his heart towards God. It's very easy for indifference to take root in our lives. I often walk past a man who sits outside our supermarket. Sometimes I stop and talk to him, sometimes I've bought him food — but if I'm honest, it's often awkward and inconvenient, and sometimes I just speed up rather than slow down.

It's a challenge for us as a church to think about our apathy toward the needs of the gospel in this city. It seems so big, so scary — but the answer is not NMP.

If you're not used to church, maybe you think Christians are smug and indifferent. You might be interested to hear how God challenges the church on exactly this. But beware — God might want to speak to you too.

1. God Calls Us to Wake Up (Through the Storm)

The Lord sent a great wind on the sea, and such a violent storm arose that the ship threatened to break up. (v.4)

Jonah flees God's presence, but God is ahead of him. He hurls a violent storm the boat can't handle. The storm has a purpose — God is calling Jonah through it.

Interestingly, the Hebrew word for "great" here is gadol. Jonah flees a great (gadol) city into a great (gadol) storm. The author is deliberately connecting the two: when we run from God, we run into his storm. When we disobey God, there is always a storm attached to it.

We need to be careful here — the Bible doesn't teach that every difficulty in life is because of specific sin. But it does teach that every sin will lead us into difficulty in some way, and God's purpose in that difficulty is to wake us up.

More than once I've sat with someone facing serious consequences of their own behaviour, and they say, "I don't need this stress in my life." But God says, "Actually, you do — I'm sending this to wake you up."

If you're going through hardship right now, you might wonder, "What have I done to deserve this?" The answer might genuinely be nothing specific. Think of life as a boat on the sea — don't we all face times when the ship of our lives feels like it's threatening to break up? We live permanently in the storm of a fallen, broken world and in fallen, broken bodies.　　

But here's the one thing we can always say: the storm is not a sign that God has lost control, let go, forgotten us, or stopped loving us. God stills the storm and he sends the storm — not out of spite, but because he is speaking through it, saying: Wake up to me. I'm here. I'm real. Turn to me. Trust me.

Look at the effect of the storm on the two groups aboard:

• The hard-hearted Jonah begins asleep and ends up lost at sea.
• The soft-hearted sailors begin terrified and end up worshipping God.

The question for us in the storm is: will we harden, or will we soften to God? Suffering will either break us, or break us open to God. Not every difficulty is a direct result of sin, but every difficulty can reduce the power of sin in our hearts — if we let it.

God Also Calls Jonah Through the Sailors

All the sailors were afraid and each cried out to his own god... But Jonah had gone below deck, where he lay down and fell into a deep sleep. (v.5)

The sailors are fearfully alert; Jonah, who claims to worship the Lord who made the sea, doesn't pray at all. He's likely gone below deck just to get away from these "unclean heathens" he's sharing a boat with.

When the captain says, "Stop sleeping, get up" (v.6), it's the very same Hebrew word God used when he first told Jonah, "Get up, go to Nineveh" (v.2). The pagan captain has become God's mouthpiece. Who's the real prophet here?

God sent Jonah to call the nations back to God. Now he's sending the nations to call Jonah back to God.

The sailors cast lots to find who is responsible, and the lot falls on Jonah (v.7). God remains in control — Jonah cannot hide. You can run from God, but there is no escape, either now or in eternity.

"Who can hide in secret places so that I cannot see them?" declares the Lord. "Do I not fill heaven and earth?"

See how foolish it is to try to run from the God who made you. Some of us may be running this morning. And there's a challenge for us as a church too: we are called to be God's prophetic voice to the world — are we hiding below deck? In this cultural moment, do we as the church need to wake up? The whole world is crying out for hope. Is the truth that they are more awake than we are?

2. Pride Makes Us Sleepy

"Tell us, who is responsible for making all this trouble for us?... What people are you?" He answered, "I am a Hebrew and I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land." (vv.8-9)

Sounds like a good Sunday school answer, doesn't it? Some would say this is Jonah waking up, owning his identity. But I'm not so sure — the order matters. Jonah confesses his nationality first, then his faith. What matters most to him is not the God he worships but his own ethnic identity and the pride he takes in it.

When his Hebrew identity and his relationship with God align, it's fine — he was a powerful prophet to his own people. But when they conflict, as with God's call to go to Nineveh, his enemies, his Hebrewness wins. His "worship" becomes running away.

"As fear of the Lord diminishes, complacency creeps into the human heart." — Rosemary Nixon

You can imagine Jonah thinking: I'm a Hebrew, one of the good guys. Me and God, we're fine. Maybe I'm running from him right now, but I'm his prophet — I'm special. I can do what I want.

Isn't that a warning to us all? What are you trusting in for your assurance, peace, happiness, security? That is when good things become god things in our lives.

The word for "calamity" (v.7) and "trouble" (v.8) is the same Hebrew word for evil used of Nineveh's wickedness in verse 2. Yes, Nineveh's evil came up before God — but Jonah is bringing evil into the boat too. He needs rescue just as much as Nineveh does. The scary thing is he can't see it.

Paul warns against putting confidence in the flesh — he even says, "I was a Hebrew of Hebrews," sounding just like Jonah. But then he adds:

"Whatever were gains for me, I now consider loss for the sake of Christ."

For God to win over Paul's Hebrewness, Jesus had to reorder his heart. It's a short step from believing you're different, to believing you're special, to believing others matter less than you do. When we point to anything in us as the thing that earns us brownie points with God, we begin to believe his grace is ours through our own merit — and that pride drugs us to the mission we're called to, which is always one beggar showing another beggar where to find bread.

A dear older friend from my previous church died last week — a beautiful man who became a Christian peeling potatoes in the back of a fish and chip shop. He was one of our greatest welcomers, calling everyone "bud" as they walked in, and one of our greatest evangelists. One day, at the end of a Bible study that had nothing to do with racism, he came to me with tears in his eyes and said, "John, I'm a racist. I hate it, but I am." We were able to talk and pray together through that confession and repentance. The deeper he understood God's grace to himself, the more awake he became to the inherent value and dignity of others, however different they seemed.

3. Only Jesus Can Wake Us Up

It's tempting to try to wake ourselves up — but that just turns overcoming apathy into another work, another badge to point to: look how awake I am compared to you. Jonah points us to a greater solution.

"Pick me up and throw me into the sea," he replied, "and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you." (v.12)

Sounds noble, even heroic — but stop and think. This is only the answer of a man unwilling to go to Nineveh; he would rather be thrown overboard than change course and tell his enemies about the Lord. He is essentially saying: I would rather die than die to myself.　

Jonah is stuck in his slumber. Maybe that's how we feel — stuck and helpless. But there are clues even here to the true cure for apathy. The sailors try to protect him, still showing him honour. But there's no other option; God has boxed everyone in, and they're left crying out to God for mercy.

"Please, Lord, do not let us die for taking this man's life. Do not hold us accountable for killing an innocent man, for you, Lord, have done as you pleased." (v.14)

Three times in that verse, the sailors use the personal covenant name of God, Yahweh — they are, in that moment, more "Hebrew" in their address to God than Jonah has been. They know God is holy and punishes sin, and that the storm is his right and his action — but they also believe they can appeal to his mercy.

They throw Jonah overboard and the sea grows calm (v.15). It looks like game over for Jonah — but this act will finally save him.

One Greater Than Jonah

As Jonah hits the sea, we're transported eight hundred years ahead to Jesus, another Galilean prophet who also falls asleep in a boat. Jesus said, "One greater than Jonah is here." But there is no apathy with Jesus.

In Jesus, the one who sends the storm is willingly cast into the storm to calm it.

He says, in effect, Let me bear the waves of wrath so that all who cry out for God's mercy can be saved. On the cross, Jesus is punished — not for his own disobedience like Jonah, but, as one greater than Jonah, for our disobedience.

There is no bystander apathy with God. He has run towards us in our greatest need and provided a complete and total rescue. We wake up from apathy by waking up to Jesus. The answer can't lie within us — like Jonah, we all bring evil into the boat. God punishes sin, and there's no escape from that — but God invites us to appeal to his mercy. As we wake up to Jesus, he changes us, turning us inside out — from being curved in on ourselves, asleep in the bottom of the boat, to being open to him and to other people too.

Far From Indifference

At this the men greatly feared the Lord, and they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows to him. (v.16)

It's a delicious irony: despite Jonah's best anti-missionary efforts, God saves a boatload of sailors Jonah wouldn't even talk to. The last we hear of them, they're a boat full of believers off on their first missionary adventure together.

No one is too far from God. His heart extends to the furthest corners of the world — even to our city. As we head towards a month of mission in March: who are you praying for? This week I heard the most beautiful story of someone whose family member came to faith after decades of prayer. I dare you — I double dare you — to write down the two most unlikely names you know and start praying for them.

I was so encouraged by our night of prayer last week — over a hundred of us gathered to pray for the city and the world. That is a church beginning to wake up, alert to God and his word.

Two Ways to Run From God

Jonah shows us there are two ways to run from God: open rebellion, like the sailors clutching their idols, and smug self-righteousness, like Jonah. Both are bad, but one is especially dangerous — and it's not the one you think. The sailors were desperate and totally open to rescue. Jonah, even now, is still in denial, still running (however you run in the sea).　

Jonah was Israel's national treasure, the prophet of 2 Kings who spoke of Israel's secured boundaries. If he were here today, he'd be an honoured church member, a leader, perhaps president of the Christian Union. He was happy to follow God when it suited his own agenda — but when it challenged his real god, he ran.

But God's grace won't let go. It tracks us down wherever we run. Jonah is in the grip of grace, and God's grace pulls us back to a place where he can truly be God of our lives again.

The Prayer for Today

Will we let God's grace grip our hearts again this morning?

John Newton, once a cruel slave trader and ship's captain, was miraculously saved. Towards the end of his life he said:

"If I ever reach heaven, I expect to find three wonders there: first, to meet some I thought would never be there; second, to miss some I thought would be there; and third, and the greatest wonder of all, to find myself there."

Father, open our hearts and break us open to you, however you see fit, that we might be awake to the grace there is in the Lord Jesus Christ. Have mercy on us. Grip us, we pray, and draw us back to you, whether we think we're too bad to deserve your mercy, or too good to need it. Though we are more wicked than we could imagine, we are more loved in Jesus than we could dare to dream. Thank you for Jesus. In his name we pray. Amen.