The past couple of weeks have been full of turmoil and heightened emotion for our country and for our community. I find myself with many mixed emotions and conflicting thoughts. I need to go to the Lord and sit with these thoughts and feelings, processing them before sharing anything. For me, when I share the first things out of my heart and mind, they’re not only not my best, but usually things I later regret.
As I was praying over the past couple of weeks and everything they have wrought within me, God gave me Jonah 4. All of us probably know the story of Jonah. He is commanded by God to go to the Ninevites and preach repentance to them. Instead of going toward Nineveh, Jonah takes off in the opposite direction, towards Tarshish, by boat. In Jonah 1, we don’t really know why Jonah runs from God, just that he does.
God’s not having it. He causes a massive storm to arise, so great that it threatens to destroy the ship and everyone on it. Jonah informs the captain that he is the reason the crew’s lives are in danger, urging them to toss him overboard. Understandably, the captain is reluctant, figuring that anyone who could make God cause this storm shouldn’t be jacked with. Eventually, however, the captain relents, and off Jonah goes, right into the belly of a big fish.
Jonah takes a three-day timeout in the belly of the fish (which was probably less sitting on a rock like Pinocchio and more like floating around in someone’s intestinal tract—pretty disgusting). Jonah repents, and the Lord causes the fish to vomit Jonah onto dry land. Hopefully after a long shower, Jonah goes to Nineveh and preaches to the Ninevites. Hearing the message of imminent destruction, they repent.
Is Jonah thrilled that God has used him mightily to effectuate the repentance of an entire major city, a feat that seems unrivaled in ancient culture? Hardly. Jonah is furious, which takes us to Jonah 4.
We now learn why Jonah fled God. Jonah rails at the Almighty: “This is why I fled to Tarshish; I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better to die than to live.” Ordinarily, the idea that God is merciful wouldn’t seem to be bad news, but it is to Jonah. Jonah runs because he hates these people, abhors them, and wants them dead. He wants God to destroy them. He flees from God because he is aware of God’s mercy, and if he prophesies to the Ninevites, there is a significant likelihood that God will show them compassion and spare them, a prospect he despises!
Jonah is so filled with nationalistic hatred for those not like him that it throws him out of alignment with God’s plan, hope, and will for these people.
God’s reply to Jonah’s misalignment is that of a loving father, “Do you do well to be angry?”
God’s firm and loving question resonates in my head and heart this week, as anger seems to be the predominant emotion surrounding all of us. Anger is directed towards all sides, and people are surely taking sides. Anger at “those people,” who aren’t like me. Anger so intense that it’s leading us to not think clearly, to ask hard but good questions like, “Do we really want to take away the rights of others in the name of someone who actually fought for and advocated for those same rights?” If God says, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” are we behaving right now in a way that we would hope would be directed towards us when the shoe is on the other foot, as it will always someday be? If God says, “Love your enemies, and pray for those who persecute you,” are we really doing that?
Do we do well to be angry?
In His loving kindness, God gives Jonah another shot. Jonah goes outside the city of Nineveh to sit and watch it “till he should see what would become of the city.” Maybe Jonah’s hoping God will change his mind and go ahead and destroy it. The sun is beating down on him, and God causes a plant to grow over Jonah to give him some shade. As the sun gets more intense, God brings a worm that causes the plant to wither and die, leaving Jonah exposed to the sun.
If Jonah is angry before, now he is seriously livid. Once again, God asks, “Do you do well to be angry for the plant?” Jonah angrily responds, “Yes, I do well to be angry, angry enough to die.” (Jonah is a bit of a drama queen at this point).
God responds, “You pity the plant, for which you didn’t labor or make grow. Why shouldn’t I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than 120,000 people who don’t know their right hand from their left, and also cattle?”
God’s question convicts us yet again: What is my plant? What is the minor issue that currently angers me to such an extent that I am nearly unaware of God’s intention to use this cultural moment to bring salvation to others, perhaps even those I do not genuinely favor?
The story ends abruptly, leaving readers uncertain about Jonah’s restoration. It calls to mind another famous story, one Jesus told. About a wayward son who ran from his father and eventually came home, broken and penniless. Rather than enslaving him, the father rejoiced that his son returned.
The older brother was not so overjoyed. He hated his younger brother. Filled with self-righteousness and pride, he demanded justice, despite his father’s coaxing to rejoice. The story ends with the older brother outside, unaligned and resolved in his anger.
The brother and Jonah suffer from the same malaise. They both demand justice, but on their terms and based on their individual notions of good and evil. But their father, who has been wronged a thousand times more deeply than they, won’t allow them the satisfaction of wallowing in their anger, because he chooses to exercise compassion and forgiveness. And, rather than aligning their hearts and expectations with the Father’s, they stay outside, rest in their hatred, and choose to doubt the Father’s goodness and justice, assuming they’re right. They end with hearts that are far from God, whereas “the crazy people” are actually already reunited with God inside the house.
In an extraordinary time, when the world wants us to hate and to apply its definitions of righteousness that are far from God’s heart, do we have the courage to step into God’s upside-down kingdom and love as He loves, extending the same grace to others that our Father extends, even when it’s difficult to do, even when we feel like “they” don’t deserve it? God has a heart of reconciliation; even when He disciplines, He does so with a heart that those He reproves will repent and return to Him. The Father’s heart for reconciliation is evident in both of these stories and is rejected by those who choose, instead, to hate.
Paul tells us that God has given us the ministry of reconciliation in Christ (2 Cor. 5). This means we must extend grace and work to reconcile others to Christ and each other. It would be a terrible waste of everything that’s happened over the past few weeks if the only thing that comes of it is doubling down on division, hatred, and strife. We don’t do well to be angry, but to love and to reconcile.
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