Jonah 4:1-11 Sermon July 26th, 2020 - Grace, Benson and Grace, Vail Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. Jesus said those words many years after Jonah, the people who heard him must have wondered, how could anyone possibly do that? How can you love someone who is so different from you, even who makes life worse for you, even someone who physically harms and oppresses you? That’s the struggle Jonah went through. More than anything else the book of Jonah is about God’s love for a unlikely group of people, the people of Nineveh, contrasted with Jonah’s contempt for them. If you had to pick between the two: loving your enemy or having contempt for them, you’d have to say contempt is much more common and natural. The story of Jonah and Nineveh shows us the compassion and call of God that still extends to us today. Before you too easily say, “what was wrong with Jonah,” let me tell you a little about the people in Nineveh, the ones he wanted to see punished and destroyed by God. The Ninevites were notoriously cruel and violent; godless and vile. They have been called the original terrorists, it wasn’t enough for them to defeat another nation in war, they wanted to win in a way that would make other nations terrified of them. They impaled and tortured captives, they humiliated and dominated the defeated. They would not too long after Jonah’s time besiege the northern 10 tribes of Israel for 3 years, until they finally defeated and deported them. The Ninevites weren’t just a little different than Jonah and the Israelites; they were morally worse, they worshipped violent gods, they had all kinds of cultural practices that would have made most Israelites sick just hearing about. That was the group that God told Jonah to go and preach to. God actually called Jonah for that mission 3 times. The first time, Jonah went the opposite way. God sent a storm, and Jonah was thrown into the sea, only to be rescued by a fish God provided. After 3 days in the fish, Jonah got out and God once again called him to go to Nineveh and preach. This time, Jonah went, and he preached, he said what God told him, “Repent, or in 40 days God will destroy you.” Amazingly the people repented. They put on sackcloth and ashes, they fasted, and God was willing to relent on the disaster he had warned. That’s when we see what was really in Jonah’s heart. Yes he had obeyed the Lord in going to Nineveh; but he didn’t want what God wanted. He said, “Lord, wasn’t this exactly what I said when I was still in my own country? That is why I previously fled to Tarshish, because I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger and abounding in mercy, and you relent from sending disaster. So now, Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” Even though Jonah didn’t mind when God showed mercy to him and rescued him from drowning, he wanted no part in the mercy of God being given to people like them. Not Nineveh. When do you fall into the same kind of thinking? When do you appreciate the mercy of God for yourself, but don’t want to see the same mercy given to others? It’s hard to love your enemies, to want what is best for the cruel and violent, the godless and vile. It’s easy to look at yourself and say, “At least I try to be a morally upright person.” It’s easy to look down at others and say, “they’re disgusting, and unworthy of the message of God coming to them. I’m not even going to try. They deserve whatever punishment they get.” Just think about what Jonah really wanted for the Ninevites. He wanted God to kill them and condemn them to hell. He wanted their separation from God to last forever. He wanted them to weep and gnash their teeth in the darkness of life apart from God forever. Maybe he didn’t really get that specific in his thoughts, but that’s what happens to someone who dies without faith in God. Jonah wished eternal destruction on those people.
When you wish God’s judgment on someone, you are taking a step in the same direction as Jonah. You may not think it all through, but the end result for any person you know, even the person who you’d consider your worst enemy in this life; if they die without faith in Christ, their eternal existence will be one of torment. Do you really want that for them? We need to admit that we have it in us to wish that kind of curse on another person. We need to see how God dealt with Jonah in that situation and apply it to ourselves. God first questioned Jonah. “Is it right for you to be angry?” God wanted Jonah to think this through. Then God patiently watched as Jonah went outside the city to see what would happen. God let a plant grow to give Jonah shade from the middle-east heat. And Jonah was happy about the vine. You know why he was happy, here in Arizona, at certain times if you are outside with no shade for hours, you’ll be uncomfortable and it can even get dangerous. Heat stroke, heat headaches, dehydration all possible. So when a plant came and provided shade for Jonah, he was happy. It made him comfortable, relieved him from the dangerous heat. Then God sent a worm of some kind, and it ate up the vine. God sent a scorching east wind and made the sun extra hot that day so that it beat down on Jonah’s head and he grew faint. Because of the withering plant and the heat, Jonah got angry. When God questioned him again, “Do you have a right to be angry about the plant?” Jonah again replied, “I have a right to be angry enough to die.” God drove Jonah to see how much he cared about his own comfort, and by contrast how little he cared about the comfort and well-being of Nineveh. God would give reason to care about Nineveh. Not that they would become like him if they repented. Not that they would do only good things in the future, like I said earlier, they later destroyed the 10 tribes of Israel. Not that their repentance was perfect in any way. The reason God gave Jonah to care about Nineveh was simple: God cared about them. That was enough for Jonah to care about them. God had compassion on them. That’s enough for Jonah to have compassion in them too. The same is true of your least favorite person or people in this world. If they are still breathing, God has compassion on them. God cares about them. God wants you to have compassion too. God wants you to love the place where he has put you, not because everything will always go the way you want; but because he loves the place where he has put you. God wants you to love the people he has put around you, not because they always make you happy; but because God loves the people around you. God said to Jonah, “You did not work for the plant or make the plant grow.” Why say that? God wanted Jonah to realize how patient God had been with the city of Nineveh. God makes plants grow, he gives people life. God had invested in the city of Nineveh, he had patiently watched them develop into a large center of life and culture; and despite the fact that they were largely godless and vile, God had patience with them. He wanted them to repent and come to know him. All Jonah had to do was spend 3 days preaching to them. God had seen what the Ninevites were up to for every day before that. If anyone had a right to be disgusted with them, it was God, but he had compassion. And he invited Jonah to join him in his compassion. The same is true for Benson, Vail, Tucson. You didn’t cause it to spring up. God is the one who patiently allowed these places to develop, and build, and create job opportunities, and attract people to move here until it’s become what it is today. God wants you to love the people of Benson, Vail, Tucson because he does. Because he is patient with the people you rub shoulders with, just as he is patient with you. Of all the things God has made in this world, people are the most important to him. They are still the crown of his creation. There’s a reason he made people last when he created everything. He wanted everything ready until at last he invited humans to the party he had prepared. Only human beings were made to bear the image of God. And even though we have fallen from his creative design for us, even though we’ve lost his image, he wants to give it back to us. He wants to reclaim people for himself. He wants to do it everywhere there are people. Including big cities.
Nineveh was big for those days. 120,000. Today cities are bigger. Whether you find yourself in a city or in a rural place, where there are people, those are people that God wants to gather to himself. He cares about people primarily, but animals too. Why say at the end, “There are 120,000 people, and also many animals,”? Why mention animals? 2 reasons. 1, animals were their currency back then. Instead of paper money and coins, their wealth was largely contained in big, hairy, hoofed beasts. Instead of cars, donkeys or horses were your expensive forms of transportation. Instead of meats and proteins in the freezer and fridge, their meals were walking around outside eating grass until it was time to butcher them. Their animals were a big part of their economy. What happens when the economy of a major city center falls? It’s not long before the people in the small towns and country areas feel the pinch. God cares about the economy of big cities. That doesn’t mean economies won’t fall. There is no “too big to fail” with God. There are times and places where he allows nations and economies to fall. It happened to Nineveh later on. But in general, God is in favor of thriving economies so that people can live in peace and security. The other reason God mentions the animals of Nineveh being saved is this: God is in favor of people being restored to himself first. But in addition, God promises a renovation of a new heavens and a new earth. That means a new universe, like this one, only perfect. There will be animals in the eternal kingdom of God, not the same ones brought back, but new and better ones. There will be plants and land and water. God will restore all things in the end. He starts with people, but the restoration will apply to every part of the new heavens and earth. God knows that often you are more concerned with your own comfort and preference than you are with the eternal well being of the people he’s placed around you. So in order to readjust your attitude, like he did with Jonah, he may need to take some of your comforts away. Imagine it’s a hot day and you’re enjoying your A/C. You’re having no thought of getting to know the people around you better. ANd suddenly your A/C stops working, and it gets hot. What do you have to do when that happens? There may be a few of you who would go fix it yourself. But the rest of us need to call someone up. We interact with people, people that God loves, to get the A/C fixed. You might tell your neighbor about it, and a conversation happens that might not have happened otherwise. You may even need to stay at someone else’s house for a while, and your relationship with others gets more involved. I actually had a day when I thought about Jonah. 11 days ago, I was volunteering for the Vail Food Pantry, and I was going to Walmart to pick up their donations and bring it back to the food pantry. And at Walmart, you need to knock on their large garage like door, and wait for someone to open it. The day was hot. My head was hurting. There was no shade outside the door, and I knocked, no one answered. My head was getting hot. I knocked again and no one answered. I started feeling angry at the nameless people behind the door who weren’t opening the door. And I thought of Jonah. I thought to myself, “Why are you doing this? Is it only for your comfort?” If I was really doing this volunteering to get to know people and serve them and care about them, that doesn’t just apply to the people who will get fed by the food pantry. It also means caring about the people at Walmart who sometimes leave me out in the heat because they have their own responsibilities to take care of too. God calls me to love them, even when they give me a heat headache. Not because they give me a headache, but because God loves them. God calls you to love the people he has put around you, even when they give you headaches. Even when they are acting as fallen, cruel, godless people. You are not called to love their wickedness or cruelty or violence, but to love the person behind the cruelty and violence. That’s the way God has treated you, it’s the
way he calls you to view others. And sometimes to get you reoriented that way, God takes away your comforts. But we need to remember, God never calls us into any challenges or difficulties that he doesn’t himself take on and experience. He is not only the God who says love people when they give you headaches, he’s also the God who allowed the worst human headache to be his own. Jesus like Jonah went outside a city because God’s judgment was about to take place. But unlike Jonah, Jesus did not desire the judgment to fall on the city, but on himself so that the city of Jerusalem along with every other city and every person in this world could have the judgment of God turn away from them. We don’t know how hot it was on the day they crucified Jesus, but we do know they drove thorns into his head. He died under the fiery judgment on human rebellion, so that by rising again, he’d have a message of compassion and care to share that can transform even the most vile and violent into a thankful follower of him. Jesus lived the best life possible, but he got a terrible life for you and I. The result of what Jesus did: a new way for you to be compassionate with the people around you. You have freely received from God, so freely give. Is that what Jonah did? The story seems to end as a cliffhanger. Jonah was angry, God took away the vine and spoke to him, then the book ends. Why end that way? Did Jonah get the message? The best way to answer is to ask, why is the story in the Bible? Why would Jonah give this kind of information about himself? Why would he be so comfortable admitting his worst moments? Answer seems to be: he got the message. He saw God’s grace in a new light. He saw it for himself, he saw it for Nineveh. He put his story down in print because he was secure that despite his flaws, he was saved by grace and the persistent call of God. Jonah had been saved not only from drowning in a stormy sea, he had been saved from drowning in his own fickle emotions. So happy about the vine, so angry when it withered. So angry about Nineveh repenting. Jonah was ruled by emotion, and that’s an unstable place to be. God rescued him, putting into his emotional landscape compassion and care, from God to him, and then through him to others, even Nineveh. God knows that when you’re ruled by your emotions, it’s a dangerous sea which threatens to drown you. He wants you safe and sound, able to receive the compassion he’s given to you, able to be a channel of his compassion extending to others, even your enemies, the people who give you headaches. God can use you like he used Jonah. God has put you where you are for many reasons, but one primary reason is that you would share the words of God when you have a chance. God is in the process of sending the message of his son first to the church, but then he extends his mission beyond the church to people in their everyday lives. He gives you opportunities to talk about Jesus, not just on Sunday mornings, but throughout your weekly interactions with others. He wants you to love your life right where you are, because he does. He wants you to love the people who are currently around you in your daily life, because he does. He want you to love the people around you who don’t think like you, act like you. talk like you. believe like you. Why? Because they need to hear the message of Jesus. And you may be the person God will use to tell them. He wants them to form a relationship of trust in Jesus in their own unique way. So the way you feel about your A/C, the happiness you get when you drink a cool drink on a hot day, he wants that happiness to be yours when you think about people. Because that’s how he feels. He invites you to join him in caring for a world of people, willing even to die for them, able to give resurrected life. That’s the call and compassion of God. Amen.