Faces of Our Faith: Jonah | Jonah 3:10-4:11 | 7.19.26

Grace and peace to you in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.

So glad to be with you all this morning as we continue our basis of our faith series with uh another one that is perhaps more to us from vacation Bible school uh than from reading it as uh as adults.

I know it was for me, this was a favorite of mine.

But before we get into the scripture, I'd love for us to pray and to ask God to bless our time together.

Will you pray with me?

Prepare our hearts, O God, to receive your word in whatever way it might speak to us today.

Silence in us any voices but your own, so that your spirit, by your spirit, we may not only hear your word, but also live it through Christ our Lord.

Amen.

Um I had a lot of odd jobs when I was younger.

One of the most odd when I was in my late teens was I umpired Little League Baseball.

And there was one game in particular that I will never forget.

Um the the night had grown long.

These two teams had been tied at a bajillion runs to a bajillion runs for hours, it seemed.

And the the sun had gone down.

There were not a lot of lights at this ballpark.

The kids are 10.

They're all, it's well past their bedtimes.

And uh there's a hit out to right field.

And one team had scored, and this is the bottom of whatever inning it was, the bottom of the 26th.

And so this kid who was on first needs to get all the way to home to keep the score tied, or they're gonna lose.

The ball hits the right field fence.

I'm behind home plate.

I take my mask off, and I come out and I watch him grab it, and he throws it from right field, and the second baseman cuts it off.

But then when he tries to throw to third, it goes past him, and so the the guy from first, he's rounding third and he's headed home.

But the third baseman picks it up and throws it down to the catcher, and the catcher grabs it and takes this swipe in the middle of the lane right at the right at the guy who was running for home.

And guys, I did my best, okay?

It was dark, it was really dark, it was like 11 o'clock, and I knew that if I called this kid out, we could all go home.

Okay?

And to the best of my judgment, I thought and think that he thumped that kid in the back with the glove, and then he was out.

And yet, from where I was standing, I was on the other side, so I only saw his front.

Well, anyway, I called him out.

We all went home.

Our whole walk to the car for 15 minutes while I'm packing up my gear, the losing coach is in my ear, and he is just letting me know.

I was on the other side.

He missed, he swiped a neck glove, didn't touch him.

And and this coach, bless his heart, I finally had to tell him, Coach, you're setting a really bad example for your students right now.

These are 10-year-olds.

Okay.

I tried to get him to step back from the event that had just happened to see the bigger picture.

You know?

Sometimes when when there's been an injustice done against us, even if it's from a well-meaning 17-year-old, when that injustice happens, we feel like it's the only thing, the only thing in the world is that injustice that has happened.

And this coach just really needed me to know how angry he was and how wrong I got that call.

And finally, I told him, You may be right.

And there's nothing I can do about it.

I made the call I made.

We're all going home now.

And uh uh I guess I've got to say that that when we we forget what's important sometimes because we just want the right thing to have happened.

And that that sense of injustice runs really deep uh in us, but sometimes it can make grown men uh scream things at 17-year-olds that they should not be screaming.

That's all I'm saying.

That it happens sometimes, right?

I say all that because today we're thinking about Jonah.

And Jonah had experienced a real injustice.

Okay?

The Assyrians had done awful things to Jonah's grandparents.

They were terrible people.

They worshipped foreign gods, they were invaders and colonizers.

And Jonah receives this call from God to preach repentance to the folks of Nineveh.

Now, Nineveh at the time is the capital of the Assyrian Empire, the capital city, and these folks are the strongest and bloodiest and most ruthless empire the world had seen up to this point.

They have already conquered the northern kingdom of Israel.

They have killed the wealthy and kidnapped the educated and enslaved the poor.

But Jonah, for whatever reason, when he is asked by God to go and preach repentance to these awful people, for whatever reason Jonah decides he has no interest in delivering God's message to these folks.

He actively runs in the opposite direction.

I'm doing a quick recap of like three chapters, okay?

So hang with me.

He runs in the opposite direction from God's call.

And this is the sort of question that I think the author is trying to get us to think about.

What if a prophet doesn't give the message God calls them to give?

And why would Jonah, why would Jonah not want to go tell his enemies how awful they are?

We seem to love that.

We seem to love telling people we think are awful how awful they are, don't we?

But Jonah didn't do it.

He didn't want to go tell them.

And so he flees westward in the opposite direction, down to the coast, and he boards a ship, a ship to the other side of the Mediterranean, toward a city called Tarshish.

This was the ancient equivalent of going to the ends of the earth as far away from where you're supposed to go as possible.

And as Jonah goes down to sleep in the hull of the boat that's taking him to Tarshish, God sends storms to shake up the seas.

And when Jonah wakes up, he hears the cries of these pagan sailors, each one crying out to their own God, it says.

So the storm swells, and it threatens to break apart the boat into little pieces if they don't do something about it.

So they draw straws, and Jonah draws the short straw.

He explains to them that he is running from his God and that they should throw him into the sea.

The sailors try their best to row back to shore rather than throw him into the sea, but when they can't, they finally acquiesce and they throw him overboard, and then they pray, and they ask forgiveness of Jonah's God, and they make vows and sacrifices to Yahweh.

It's a surprising reversal we see here.

These pagan sailors are converted, exactly as we are witnessing Jonah's deconversion.

Then in chapter two, we see God's grace and love for us even when we're at our lowest point, even when we are actively running from the good that is ours to do.

We see that there is no place we can go that God won't swallow us up with a big fish.

And that's what happens.

While Jonah flails in the raging ocean, God provides a big fish to swallow him up.

And for some reason, this is the bit we've decided belongs on children's wallpaper.

This is the bit where we remember that Jonah spends three greasy days in fish guts, and he prays to God, and he gives and God gives the fish a timely and salvific bout of nausea after three days, and Jonah is hurled onto dry land.

God heard Jonah's prayer in the depths of the fish, and God answers God's prayer and delivers him from the depth.

Lesson learned, right?

Surely he has learned his lesson.

Sadly, no.

Then Jonah, after the slimiest taxi ride of all time, walks through Nineveh, delivering an eight-word sermon.

This is all he says.

Forty days more, and Nineveh will be overthrown.

That's all he says.

He walks through the streets saying those eight words, and I imagine that he delivered this news with all of the passion and earnestness of the losing Little League team, muttering, good game, good game, good game.

And they would rather have their heads buried in the infield dirt than have to look at the other team in the face.

You know what I mean?

And as God seemed to know might happen, even this uninspiring, uh lethargic eight-word sermon, this perfunctory proclamation from the worst prophet ever, somehow caused the Assyrians to begin to change their ways.

And word of Jonah's prophecy makes it to the king, and absolutely inexplicably, the king repents, and he covers himself in sackcloth and ashes and begins fasting.

And he directs all of the people in the kingdom to do the same, even their animals.

The king says this.

I'm gonna start reading at verse nine and we'll read through the end of the book.

Let's listen now for God's word for us today, uh, from chapter 3, verse 9 to the end.

The king of Nineveh said, Who knows?

God may very well relent and change God's mind.

God may turn from his fierce anger so that we do not perish.

And when God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed God's mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them.

And God did not do it.

Then Jonah, this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.

And he prayed to the Lord and said, O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still in my own country?

This is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning.

For I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.

And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.

I think he said it like this it would be better if I died.

And the Lord said, Is it right for you to be angry?

Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down in the east of the city and made a tent for himself there, and 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 and to save him from discomfort.

So Jonah was very happy about the bush.

But when dawn came the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered.

And 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 Jonah 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 with 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 God's word for God's people.

Thanks be to God.

I love how this book ends, by the way, and also many animals.

The end.

It's funny and it's challenging, right?

It's like God is saying, Look, I know you don't want mercy shown to your enemies, but there are children and parents and shopkeepers and even cows.

And should I not have mercy on the animals of Nineveh?

You think they don't deserve my grace and care?

Do you remember that question that the author sets up at the beginning of the story?

Why in chapter one?

The question is sort of why would Jonah not want to go?

To tell these murderous, militaristic colonizers to repent of their awfulness and what they had done to Jonah's own grandparents.

I feel like many folks today can't wait to hop into a pulpit or into a comment section to put their enemies on blast.

But Jonah didn't want to do it.

And in verse 2 of the last chapter, he tells us why.

This he answers the question.

And it's deeply relatable, I think, if we allow ourselves to connect with what Jonah might be feeling.

Jonah says in verse 2, God, I knew it.

I knew it before I left my home.

That's why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning, for I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from destruction.

Jonah would rather suffer than see his enemies receive grace and forgiveness.

And for many of us, myself included, same.

Most of the time, we humans prefer a more neat and tidy idea of justice.

Karma.

What goes around comes around.

Mess around and find out.

We want people to receive what we think they deserve.

We want people to get back what they've been putting out.

It's so much more satisfying when we see people receive the equal and opposite reaction to their own hatred and violence.

But what does that say about the state of my heart?

If I can't serve a God that actually still wants the best for my enemies, that would rather see a change in their hearts than a punishment bestowed upon them.

A God that would rather see an end to cycles of violence than forget to for them to get what's coming to them.

There are a lot of preachers in a lot of pulpits and a lot of comment section conquistadors who are happy as a clam to serve the God of Sodom and Gomorrah.

You know?

They get it.

They get what's coming to them, and brimstone rains down from the skies.

That's a god a lot of people are excited to worship.

But there are not nearly enough who have wrestled with what God actually prefers.

Jesus quotes the prophet Hosea saying it this way: Go and learn what it means that God desires mercy and not sacrifice.

The Bible says that three times.

God says, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.

And if the Bible says it once, it means it.

And if it says it twice, it really means it.

And if it says it three times, it really, really means it.

God would rather show mercy than receive sacrifice.

I was coming of age during a time when Hurricane Katrina and its devastation and recovery was top of mind.

I was uh first year of college, second year of college.

I I went to do some Katrina relief with an organization and spent a summer doing that.

And I'll never forget how many people of faith I saw uh listened to the TV preachers and the radio revivalists use that tragedy.

They used the tragedy of Katrina to spew hatred about whichever group they were mad at at the time.

Katrina was God's retribution upon addicts and gamblers and gay folks and the poor, calling people who lived there who were desperately searching for clean water and food, calling them looters and rioters, and they got what they deserved.

Friends, it's really easy to blame bad things on people we don't like.

But people we don't like and would rather see receive punishment are also people we probably don't understand.

We've been convinced that we have enemies out there who are to be conquered, but we do have enemies, and Jesus tells us to love them.

And when we do, as Jonah learned, we uh we can become enemies of what God wants to do in the world.

If we do like Jonah does and we run from the call to love our enemies, then we can stand in the way of what God is trying to do.

We can become obstacles for God's love in the world more than any pagan, sailor, or foreign empire.

Jonah, in his anger, became an enemy of God's will.

And yet God did not give up on him.

God didn't give up on Jonah.

God sent a storm to turn him back.

God sent a fish to swallow him up.

God sent a bush to give him shade in the desert, all in hopes that Jonah would change his heart, and that Jonah's enemies might be spared from the calamity of hatred and violence.

And here's the thing about Jonah that nobody tells you in vacation Bible school this is not a fish story.

It was never a fish story.

It's about a man who sat on a hillside sweating and furious and wishing he was dead.

Rather than watching mercy come to people he had already decided didn't deserve it.

And God's response to that, to a man-child throwing a tantrum because grace actually worked, God's response isn't a lecture, it's a question.

God asks this Is it right for you to be angry?

Is it right for you to be angry?

I don't know about you, but I have been Jonah more times than I've been the sailors who repented or the king who put on sackcloth, or even the worm doing its one small faithful job of destroying a bush on schedule.

I have sat under my own shade of self-righteousness, perfectly comfortable with my own positions, and watching through my screens at people who I judged unworthy.

I've watched them get loved by God anyway.

I've watched them live faithfully and care for their neighbors and build community and bring the world closer to earth as it is in heaven, and something in me curdled instead of celebrated.

And Jonah helps us repent from that.

And maybe that's the whole terrible, gorgeous point of this little four-chapter book.

You can read it in just like 20 minutes.

I encourage you to do it.

God never actually convinces Jonah to change his heart in the story as we read it.

It's left open-ended.

The story just stops mid-argument from God.

Because the author isn't writing an ending for Jonah.

He's writing a beginning for us.

We're supposed to sit in that unresolved, itchy silence and ask ourselves Well, is it right for me to be angry that folks are receiving things I don't think they deserve?

Grace, welcome, forgiveness.

Receiving things that I don't think they deserve.

Is that right for me to be angry?

And here's what I want to know.

Here's what I do know.

God is going to keep letting uh his mercy come to people who we least expect.

God is going to keep being merciful to people who offend our sense of who deserves it.

God was merciful to Nineveh.

And God is merciful to the addict and the immigrant and the person on cable news you've built an entire theology of contempt around.

Speaking from personal experience.

God does not need our permission to love.

God does not need permission to love our neighbors, God doesn't need permission to love us, and God especially doesn't need permission to love our enemies.

The person you dislike the very most in this whole world, bring them to mind.

God loves them more than you could ever imagine.

So the invitation from this face of our faith this morning isn't to feel warm and fuzzy about grace.

It's harder than that.

It's not easy.

It's harder.

It's to lay down our sunburned, worm-eaten sense of self-righteousness, to set aside our self-appointed job as Justice's little league umpire.

And to let God be God, gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in faithful love.

Even, especially when we would rather it weren't so.

Because the truth, Jonah couldn't stomach, is the same one that's coming for all of us.

Grace was never fair.

There's not a tick box that if someone finally ticks off all of these boxes, then they become worthy of receiving God's grace.

Is this not what Jesus teaches us?

Therefore, there is no one in this room or outside of these walls who can tick any box that you would have them do to then earn God's love.

God's love is flowing to them, and it would God would like for it to flow to them through us.

So it was never about fairness.

And thanks be to God, it wasn't fair to me either.

May it be so.

Amen.