Jonah 3:10-4:11 - "Those People"
/“Those People”
Jonah 3:10-4:11
When God saw what the Ninevites did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed God’s mind about the calamity that God had said they would bring upon them; and God did not do it.
But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the LORD and said, “O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the LORD said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.
The LORD God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” Then the LORD said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”
I had plans to stay in the Pauline epistles but today’s Old Testament reading reeled me in as it always does when it comes through the lectionary cycle because it is one of my favorite stories in the OId Testament. It’s about a whiny, uncooperative prophet with a dramatic flair named Jonah. If you’ve ever cracked open a children’s bible, you’ve seen a picture of Jonah in his most famous position—in the belly of the whale. But honestly, I find that the least interesting part of Jonah’s story. Our scripture passage for today comes at the end of the book, so I’d like to start with a recap of the book of Jonah before we read that passage. The book begins with the Biblical equivalent of, “Once upon a time…” It says, “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai.” God told him to preach a message of repentance to the great city Nineveh for their wickedness and without saying a word, Jonah immediately went… on a ship to the opposite end of the known world. Nineveh was to the East and so Jonah went West to Tarshish.
And why was Jonah so resistant to this call from God? Because Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire. The Assyrians were the ones who conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel in 922 BCE and deported its citizens and nearly succeeded in capturing Jerusalem a few years later. The Assyrians were the sworn enemies of the Israelites and Nineveh, with its reputation for violence and terrorism was a symbol of all that opposed the Lord and the Lord’s people. This was like God asking a Jew who had lost family in the Holocaust to undertake a mission to post-WWII Nazi Germany. God was asking Jonah to preach to his oppressors and Jonah wanted none of that.
But of course, Jonah doesn’t stand a chance against the will of God and so, when he found himself in the belly of the whale, he prayed his only redeeming prayer in the whole book, “I with the voice of thanksgiving will sacrifice to you; what I have vowed I will pay. Deliverance belongs to the LORD!” And so, the Lord spoke to the fish and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land.
Finally, Jonah goes and does the job of a prophet—he tells the people of Nineveh to repent of their evil ways. And in a nearly unprecedented response—they immediately do. These violent oppressors are the quickest ones in the Old Testament to respond to God’s call to repentance. Unlike the weeping prophet Jeremiah who spent his whole life trying to get the Israelites to repent, Jonah utters the shortest sermon in history, “40 days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” and the whole city repents. And that brings us right up to our scripture passage for today and in it, Jonah doesn’t quite respond as if he had just succeeded in the important task God had called him to. So hear now, Jonah 3:10-4:11
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed God’s mind about the calamity that God had said God would bring upon them; and God did not do it.
But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.
The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”
But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”
This is the Word of the Lord. Thanks be to God.
I told you Jonah had a dramatic flair. More than just dramatic, this prophet of God had a full-on meltdown over God’s forgiveness. I can practically imagine God looking at Jonah the way a parent looks at their sobbing toddler screaming because you handed them a cheese stick already opened and they wanted to open it themselves. ‘Is right for you to be angry about this?”
Have you ever had a meltdown like Jonah’s? I’m talking full-on, “the world is ending” nonsense. The kind that, in retrospect, are still too embarrassing to be funny? I cannot even count how many I had. I have, what one might call, “big feelings” and sometimes those feelings get a little too big and all notions of “rational thinking” go right out the window. Thankfully, I’m better now about reserving meltdowns for my car, or my home, but I’m not going to lie, there will always be a part of me that is relieved to know that God can work through people who don’t always have their act together.
Jonah’s meltdown begins because he is furious that his enemies will be spared God’s wrath. And Jonah particularly is furious with God because this is exactly what he knew would happen. This is why he wanted nothing to do with this job. Jonah was raised on the Psalms, like the one we read earlier today, so he knew and trusted in the character of God. He knew what would happen if the people of Nineveh repented—God would forgive them. He knew that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love. And the last people in the world that Jonah wanted to see receive God’s love are the Ninevites. So when God does forgive them, he has a full-on meltdown. Jonah is so mad he can’t even respond to God’s questions and storms out of the city in a huff. It just doesn’t feel fair.
But God isn’t really interested in what “feels” fair. It reminds me of the gospel reading for today– a parable from Matthew 20, in which Jesus tells of a landowner who hires workers early in the morning and promises them a day’s wages, which they all accept as fair pay. But then, the landowner went out again at noon and hired more workers for the same pay. And again, at three. And again, at five. So, when the day ended and all the workers went to receive their pay, the ones who worked the full day expected to be paid more, but instead the landowner paid them all the same wage, regardless of how long they worked. Of course, those who had worked all day complained at the unfairness of the situation, but the landowner said ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’
“Are you envious because I am generous?” How many of us, if asked that question, would guiltily admit, if only to ourselves, that yes, we are envious. We love to celebrate God’s generosity when it is directed our way, but when it’s directed toward those we despise it just feels wrong. God, you’re not supposed to be good to those people. We all have “those people.” Jonah knew that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and it makes his self-righteous blood boil. They don’t deserve Your mercy! Don’t you know what they did to my people? To YOUR people? Jonah is saying the quiet part out loud. He is furious that God would give the same lavish grace to his oppressors as God does to him. It’s easy to be grateful that God is slow to anger and ready to relent from punishing when it’s our sins on the line– but the sins inflicted upon us? Now that’s a different story, isn’t it?
So I ask you– who are your Ninevites? Who are the people in your life who you think least deserve grace? Maybe it is someone you know who hurt you directly. Maybe it’s a group of people, a kind of person who acts or votes or talks in a way that makes you so angry you can hardly stand it. Or maybe it’s a people group who hurt your ancestors and people who look like you. It’s easy to say we love that God is merciful towards us and the people we love. But we can’t have it both ways. We cannot celebrate God’s mercy toward us, which we so desperately need, and then be indignant that God would have the audacity to forgive those whose sins seem so much larger than ours.
This is Jonah’s dilemma and swallows him whole for the rest of the book. No pun intended! He might have gotten out of that fish, but he never gets outside his anger. In his righteous indignation, Jonah cannot allow himself to see the miracle that has just occurred. The violent oppressors who have been his country’s enemies for centuries have just repented and turned toward God. This is a good thing. It means the next generation of Israelites will not have an oppressive enemy. One of Martin Luther King Jr.'s guiding principles of nonviolent resistance is that “Nonviolence does not seek to defeat or humiliate the opponent, but to win their friendship and understanding.” Turning an enemy into a partner of peace is the goal!! Repentance doesn’t mean that the perpetrator’s actions don’t have consequences. True repentance means atoning for your sins—making it right with those you hurt. And so, in their repentance, the Ninevites have the potential to become partners in peace instead. The fact that God is slow to anger and ready to relent from punishing is not just good news for the Ninevites. This is good news for Jonah.
But Jonah is so stuck in his anger that he can’t see outside of his anger to actually celebrate the good that God is doing. His last line in scripture is, “Yes, angry enough to die.”
It reminds me of a comic strip I used to read in the newspaper growing up called “Rose is Rose.” When Rose would get angry, she would go into her “dungeon of resentment” where she would sit with a ball and chain on her leg at the bottom of a dark dungeon. She would sit there sulking and it was like she couldn’t get out until something finally broke through and freed her from the prison of her own making. I can relate to that. There are days when something makes me so angry and then I’m angry that I’m angry. And then I’m embarrassed that I’m angry and instead of making things easier on myself and everyone around me, I double down and find myself in the exact same place as Jonah, saying absurd things like, “yes, angry enough to DIE.”
Here’s the thing about Jonah—he does the job that God calls him to, but he misses out on the joy. He misses out on celebrating that God really is who scripture says that God is. God’s grace and mercy is so much more expansive than we could ever manage on our own and that is good news.
As Christians, the call to love our enemies is a difficult one. I won’t pretend like it’s not. I do not know your lives and your stories, but I know that throughout this room there are stories of hurt, violence, and betrayal. There are wounds that have not yet healed and perpetrators that have not been forgiven. I mean it when I say it takes a superhuman ability to forgive those who have hurt us. It is only by the power of the Holy Spirit within us that we can show grace and forgiveness to our enemies.
The psalmist declares who God is– gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, good to all, and with compassion over all that God has made. So my question for you is– do you believe it? Do you believe that God loves the person that hurt you? Do you believe that God is slow to anger and willing forgive those who have wronged you? Do you believe that God will be faithful to people that you believe do not deserve an ounce of God’s mercy?
If you believe it is true, I see two options. The first, is to be like Jonah and be sure of God’s grace but remain bitter at who it is for. You will know that there is nothing that you can do to be separated from our God whose faithfulness and graciousness will never fail you, but you will resent the fact that that same grace will be extended to your enemies. You will be like Jonah– swallowed by anger and unable to celebrate in the miraculous mercies of our gracious God.
There is another option, to tear down the dungeon of resentment and choose to be like the real main character of the story– God. God does what Jonah cannot– God changes God’s mind. God chose not to punish but instead to forgive. When there was new evidence before God—that the people of Nineveh had changed their ways, God was willing to change God’s mind too. If the God of the universe, who created you and me and all that we know can change their mind, then maybe we can too. Maybe we can allow the people we most despise the ability to change their ways. And if they do, maybe we can stop punishing them for who they have been and start welcoming them for who they hope to be. Maybe we can learn from Jonah’s mistake and be willing to change our minds about others.
When you read Psalm 145, may you know deep in your bones that God is good to all– and all means all. May we have the humility, the bravery, and the audacity to say, Thanks be to God.
