Things Jonah Can Teach Us
If you are like most folks, you have at least a passing recollection of the story of Jonah.
This reluctant prophet was called by God to travel east from Israel to proclaim God's message in Nineveh, the capital of ascendant Assyria. Known for brutality and ungodliness, this land of foreigners (in present day Iraq) was a direct threat to Israel. Understandably, Jonah scooted west and hopped a ride on a ship to Tarshish (probably a port in present day southwest Spain). Instead of going some 700 miles northeast, he intended to get as far away west as possible.
After encounters with a storm, a swim and a great fish, Jonah was called a 2nd time to go. This time he trudged east, probably muttering all the way, and entered into the city so large that it took three days just to walk across, preaching a message of doom unless they repented. To Jonah's great chagrin the people responded to his message, all the way up to the king, so God relented on the promised punishment. And Jonah was royally ticked off. Listen to him after the Assyrians turned around.
Jonah was furious. He lost his temper. He yelled at God, "God! I knew it - when I was back home, I knew this was going to happen! That's why I ran off to Tarshish! I knew you were sheer grace and mercy, not easily angered, rich in love, and ready at the drop of a hat to turn your plans of punishment into a program of forgiveness. So, God, if you won't kill them, kill me! I'm better off dead."
What was Jonah's problem? Easy enough to say it was a lack of loyalty to God or a guy denying his calling. But he really thought he was doing the right thing. After all, Nineveh was the control center of his nation's threat, which later would come about through conquest. And they were foreigners, non-Jews, "others". It made no sense to show mercy to these heathens.
So it seems Jonah's problem was that he was blinded by his racism and nationalism and could not, would not see what God was asking as anything resembling good. He ends up railing at God for doing what he does: extending grace and mercy to ... everyone. Jonah's thinking was that they were not Jews, so they deserved no smile from God, and they were a national threat, so saving them was to do God's people harm in the long run. How could God do this?
By his own words, God is acting in concert with his character, and that really chaps Jonah. The book ends with Jonah disconsolate and God still demonstrating his care for his creation. The story has no neat conclusion where Jonah "gets it" and goes on home. God has the last word in the story:
"So, why can't I change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than a hundred and twenty thousand childlike people who don't yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?"
Jonah felt justified to expect punishment for the Assyrians and stood shaking in anger when God refused to act according to his (Jonah's) will. He had baptized his racism and nationalism and assumed God was on board. In his true heart Jonah knew what God was like, as we can see from the text, but to save these enemies was more than he could take.
While I can read Jonah and shake my head at his reluctance to follow God and his agenda, I occasionally surprise myself when I do the same thing. Like when a racist thought elbows into my mind, or when my ideas of how an election should turn out ... doesn't, or when others see the world differently than I do. Why doesn't God get on board with what clearly seems to me to be the right way? Turns out that I can be just as off base as Jonah, so one question to my heart is what do I do with my anger when it comes up against God's radical grace?
What God insists on toward the Assyrians, in the face of Jonah's understandable objections, appears to make no sense. He is giving an out to those most deserving of punishment. God's judgment and anger would never be questioned, but this? This is one of those times when God's radical grace flies in the face of what looks like fact.
Like Jonah, I have crafted a pretty tidy world in my thought life, where good should be rewarded and evil punished, and my tribe has decided who is who. "Evil" attaches to those we don't like or agree with. If I'm pro-life, pro-choice folks are on the outside, looking in. If I'm a Democrat, those Trumpers couldn't possibly be under God's smile. If I'm white ... well, you get the idea. Once we become the self-appointed arbiters to call moral or ethical or racial balls and strikes, we crowd out any place for the radical grace of God to work in folks who don't see the world like we do, and may never see it our way.
One thing that Jonah can teach us today is that the grace of God cannot be controlled by my interpretation of how the world should be put together. If God, in this story, can show mercy to the Assyrians, how much more to someone we look down upon. Sure, we are to study and be convinced in our minds of what is right and wrong, but a little humility goes a long way to us welcoming in grace when it shows up.
Jonah allowed his convictions on life to overrule God. His response is to be righteously (in his mind) furious, and he will not be swayed. I would love to have a fifth chapter in the book where the story arc between God and his prophet resolves itself, but the book just ends with Jonah sulking and grace flowing. How many times have my "little gods" of how stuff should be done tried to rule God? What do I do with my disappointment, my confusion, my anger? Just like Jonah, I must make a choice between masters: me and my ideas or Jesus and his.
In a recent Christianity Today article, Russell Moore writes,
...perhaps we should remind ourselves every week [in church] that Christ died for the ungodly. That the "whosoever" of John 3:16 does not come with the caveats of our commercial advertisements: "Void where prohibited; some restrictions apply." Perhaps we should ask how we can remind ourselves - all the time - that all of life is a call to repentance and that the gospel really is good news.
Let me encourage you to read Jonah again, maybe in a different translation to freshen the story. Lean into Jonah's heart and ask the Spirit if there is some of him in you. Doing that caused me to confess some junk I have held above my devotion to Jesus. God's grace is amazing and radical and uncomfortable and will cut across all of our prejudices and preconceptions of who might be in and who is out. For God so loved the world...
...and Music for now
How about a couple of lame jokes...
At a Texas Dude Ranch:
Tenderfoot: "Can we ride some horses now?"
Cowpoke: "Sure. You want a Western or English saddle?"
Tenderfoot: "What's the difference?"
Cowpoke: "The Western saddle is the one with the horn."
Tenderfoot: "The one without the horn is fine. I don't expect we'll run into too much traffic."
__________
A Dutchman was explaining the red, white, and blue Netherlands flag to an American.
"Our flag is symbolic of our taxes. We get red when we talk about them, white when we get our tax bills, and blue after we pay them."
The American nodded. "It's the same in the USA, only we see stars too!"