2-1-09   //   Celebration of Worship, Northside Presbyterian Church, Ann Arbor, MI

Scripture     Jonah 4

 

          My two sisters and I got our ears pierced when we were about nine.  But then what came into fashion was double piercing, so of course we all wanted to get that done.  My Mom agreed but we had to wait until we were twelve years old.  My older sister, of course, was first in line. The day she had been so patiently waiting for finally arrived and she was excited.  My younger sister and I were more than a little envious because, according to my Mom’s plan, I would have to wait an entire year and my younger sister four more years before we could get the double piercing.  When Mom came home from work to take my older sister to the mall, all seemed right in the world.  In that moment my sister was sure of my Mom’s grace, justice and steadfast love.  That is, until it was time to go and my Mom told not just my older sister to get in the car, but my younger sister and me too.  My Mom had changed her mind, and all three of us were going to get our ears double pierced at the same time!  Well, in that moment my younger sister and I were definitely sure of Mom’s grace, justice and steadfast love.  For my older sister?  This wasn’t justice this was injustice!  She had to wait until she was twelve, so why didn’t we?  That was the deal!  She was so annoyed and resentful.  Even though we all laugh about it today, when my older sister tells her version, there’s still lingering resentment in her voice and a sulky look on her face behind the smile.

 

          When we encounter the prophet Jonah in our text today, he too is very annoyed.  His is heaps more than just a lingering resentment.  Much more than his face is sulking.

 

          Many of us might give the Older Testament book of Jonah the subtitle, “Jonah and the Whale”.  But this is no Big Fish story.  A more accurate subtitle might be, “Jonah, The Prophet With His Curls in a Bunch”, or “Jonah the Sulky Prophet.”  Jonah is not happy.

 

          You see God has sent Jonah the Israelite prophet on a mission to the city of Nineveh.  It was a great and mighty city.  It was so large that it took three days whole days to walk through it from end to end.  Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, which conquered the Northern Kingdom of Israel and took the Israelites into captivity. While in exile there, they endured horrible atrocities at the hands of the Ninevites. In the eyes of Israel, Nineveh is the worst of the worst of their enemies.  Asking Jonah to go to Nineveh is like asking a Jew to go to Germany right after the Holocaust.

 

          But God tells Jonah to go there and to tell the Ninevites that if they do not repent, that if they do not stop their violence they and their city would be destroyed.

 

          Jonah gets up and goes, as we recall, but he goes in the opposite direction!  He boards a ship bound for the city of Tarshish in Spain – far, far away from Nineveh.  His disobedience to God lands him in the belly of a great big fish.  Realizing his precarious situation he prays to God for deliverance.  God hears, the fish spits him out on a beach, and God says to Jonah again, “Get up, go to Nineveh and give them my message.”  Jonah goes at last.  Once inside the city, short and to the point, he yells,  “Just forty days, Nineveh, and you’re goners!”  That’s all it took. The whole city repented.  God saw their change of heart and decided to give them a second chance.

 

          To say this upset Jonah is a gross understatement.  The scripture says he was “displeased”.  The Hebrew says, “displeased with a great displeasure”.  The repetition of words stresses the intensity of Jonah’s feeling.  The Scripture also says he was “angry”, which in the Hebrew literally means “burned up”.  Anger and resentment are burning up his Jonah’s insides.

 

          He yells at God, “I knew it! While I was still at home, I told you so! I knew that you are gracious, and merciful, and slow to anger, and full of hesed, that complete and boundless love that endures forever.  I knew you might change your mind about Nineveh and let them off the hook if they even hinted at repentance.  That is why I fled to Spain.  I am of your chosen people, God.  You made a covenant with us, Israel.  You promised that you are our God and that we are your people.  These Ninevites are Gentiles, outsiders, and they abused your people. How could you offer them your hesed?  Your mercy is audacious!  I don’t get it, God.  According to me you’re not playing fair, and I’d rather be dead than see you pardon these wicked enemies of Israel, so just take me now!”  (Phew!) Jonah has spoken.  God hears.  God does not argue.  God simply asks, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

 

          My older sister thought it was her right to be angry.  According to her my Mom’s grace was audacious.  She was inappropriately generous when she included my younger sister and me in the ear piercing. She didn’t stick to the plan. She wasn’t playing fair.

 

          Who is not playing fair in our lives?  Has our idea of justice ever been challenged?  Are “bad” people not getting what they deserve?  Maybe, like Jonah, we think God is not playing fair.  Maybe God’s steadfast love seems to include the wrong people.  What resentments may be burning up our insides?

 

          “Is it right for you to be angry?” God asks.  Jonah doesn’t answer.  He is done with this conversation.  He gets up, leaves Nineveh and finds a spot where he can still see the city and there he sits, all by himself.  He watches to see what

God will do.  He waits hoping that God’s hesed - God’s steadfast love that endures forever - will not include these wicked people.

 

         Jonah has been willing or ready to die from the beginning, rather than carry out his mission to Nineveh.  Yet God keeps saving him.  As God sent the big fish to save Jonah from being swallowed up by the sea, God sends a bush to save Jonah from being swallowed up by the desert heat.  Jonah is very happy about the bush!  But as the shade cools him on the outside, he is still burning up on the inside.  His resentment at Nineveh’s repentance and at God’s merciful response drives Jonah away from everything and every body, including God.

 

          As quickly as God sent the bush to save Jonah from the elements, God destroys the bush in an effort to make a point and to save Jonah from himself.  A worm gobbles up the bush as a fierce, hot desert wind begins to storm.  Jonah’s outsides are now burning up as much as his insides and he is angrier than ever.

 

          “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” God asks.  “Yes,” Jonah replies, “angry enough to die!”

         Anger can be deadly.  Resentment, poisonous.  Ask anyone trying to break a bad habit or recover from an addiction.  Nothing will lead a person to engage in self-abuse like resentment.  Resentment drives us into isolation, into ourselves, where we stoke the fire of our anger, at the same time we try to numb its effects with this destructive habit or that addictive substance.

 

          Maybe we have lived with resentment for so long, we aren’t even aware of it anymore.  It is no longer a raging fire, but just a constant companion of glowing embers. We don’t even know it is burning us anymore.

         Fear is at the root of resentment.  So, what is Jonah afraid of?  If God’s hesed does include the Ninevites, the outsiders, what’s the worst that would happen?  Is Jonah afraid there’s not enough of God’s goodness to go around?  Is he afraid God won’t provide for him anymore? Is he afraid of losing some special place in God’s Kingdom, afraid of being shoved aside, forgotten, of being left all alone?

 

          What are we afraid of?  What’s the worst that would happen if those who have done wrong don’t receive the justice we think they deserve?  What if those we resent get further ahead in this world than us?  What’s the worst that would happen if instead of nurturing our resentments we just let them go?

 

          Jonah burns with resentment about this withered bush, or as the Hebrew says, he has “pity” for this bush, which literally means “the eye flows because of it”.  So, imagine Jonah throwing a tantrum - sad, mad and crying over the death of the bush as he pounds his fist into the ground.  God notes Jonah’s extreme response, “You shed tears about this bush that you did not plant or cause to grow and that you knew less than 24 hours!”  Then God asks, “Shouldn’t I shed tears for Nineveh – for the thousands of men, women, children, and all their animals, who I created?  These are lost people, Jonah.  They do not know what they are doing. They do not yet understand what you and the Israelites do - that I the Lord am the One True God, and that I am a God of hesed, of steadfast love that endures forever.  That I am the God of second chances.   Is it right for you to be angry that I love all people as much as I love you?”

 

          We are at the end of the story.  The author doesn’t tell us what happened to Jonah, the central character.  The author doesn’t seem to care if we know whether Jonah had a change of heart, because Jonah is really not the main character after all.  We are.

 

          The story ends with a question.  But a question is not an ending at all, but an invitation for further examination.  This question is for the main characters – for us, and for anyone who ever has and who ever will hear this story.  It’s our hearts the author cares about.

 

          When God asks “Is it right for you to be angry” God is asking us, “Can you learn to love the way I love?  Can you trust me with your life?  Can you trust that there is enough of me and my hesed to go around?  Can you come and learn that my love heals, my love includes, my love can melt your fear and resentment away?”

 

          “And then”, God continues, “can you point others to my love, which is made perfect in my son, Jesus Christ, whose steadfast love for all people endures forever and fills you with the fullness of me?”

 

          In the name of God our Creator, our Redeemer and our Sustainer. Amen