10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.
4But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. 2He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 3And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
5Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. 6The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. 7But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8When 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.” 9But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” 10Then 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. 11And should I not be concerned about 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?”
Poor, Poor Jonah. The guy just cannot seem to get a break. First he gets a call from God that he really did not want to fulfill, so he ran. But he could not hide from God who caused a great storm that buffeted his boat about when he ran, so he was cast out of his boat by the fearful sailors and swallowed by a great fish. Then, after he accepted God’s call, and after being spit out by the fish, which I’m sure was not the most appealing or fun moments in his life, Jonah finally goes Nineveh and proclaims God’s judgment throughout the city. Now, if you remember from two weeks ago, prophets are not the peoples’ friend. They don’t go around talking about forgiveness, instead they went around proclaimed that the people had taken God past God’s limits and they were going to be smited. And every time, that smiting came and only after it did God relent and take His people back. So Jonah, after telling all the people what was going to happen to them, went up on a hill to watch the action, kind of like the Grinch waiting for Christmas to be ruined for all the Whos in Whoville. And much like the Grinch, Jonah watches and waits for what he thinks is inevitable, but instead gets an opposite reaction. The Whos keep celebrating Christmas, and the Ninevehites get to continue living. Instead of the judgment coming upon them, Jonah’s preaching took a hold in their hearts and they ceased their evil ways, due to their fear of God.
And Jonah was not happy at this. Ok, he was more than angry, the guy is screaming asking God to let him die due to God’s forgiveness of Nineveh. Now maybe this is because Jonah feels discredited as a prophet. He had preached destruction with no hope, yet the people found hope and forgiveness. The sole way to judge whether a prophet is a true prophet is if events play out as he or she has prophesied. Well, Nineveh stood, so the people could begin to believe that Jonah was not sent by God and did not carry God’s message. Or it could just be that Jonah really wanted to see Nineveh get blasted. After all, Nineveh was not only a Gentile, foreign city, but it was also the capital of Assyria, Israel’s greatest enemy! It was the Assyrians who would eventually wipe out the Northern Kingdoms of Israel. They were outsiders, not the People of God. They were the enemies of the God’s Chosen people! Yet, God forgave them and claims them as his own. This, of course, does not sit well with Jonah. To put it into perspective, it would have been basically equivalent to God saying during WW2 “I’m gonna destroy Berlin!” and then saying, “Nah, they should live instead.” I’m sure that if God had done that, there would have been a few people who had some choice words for God, especially those who proclaimed Berlin’s destruction.
Yet it makes perfect sense for God to act in this way. For what does Jonah say about God? “for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” And honestly, merciful is not a completely accurate translation. The word actually refers to having feelings for the people like a mother has for the unborn child in her womb, so it goes beyond being merciful, into a whole new realm of meaning.
Not being a mother myself, obviously, I went onto Facebook and asked my friends and family what they had to say about being expectant mothers. One said “Love and protectiveness are the first two that come to mind... you don't "know" this person yet, and you still love him/her already, and you would do anything necessary to keep that baby safe.” Another said “You know nothing about this thing growing inside you except it is a part of you and your partner. Mothers love their babies through success and failure and what one person considers a flaw, a mother only sees it as something that makes her child unique from everyone else.” There were quite a few more as well, but the overall sentiment was “I want to protect this child that I love unconditionally and will give up my life for it if needs be.”
Now that goes far beyond just merciful. It is a definition of the relationship between God and all of God’s children. Whether we like them or not, whether they have some flaw in our eyes, God sees them as a child in the womb, one who must be protected at all costs. So while Jonah is upset with God, and in human eyes rightfully so, God sees things a bit differently. Instead of His child fighting with a neighborhood bully, His two children are fighting amongst each other and causing each other pain, and one of them is rebellious to the nth degree, but that doesn’t mean that he is going to kill his child. Instead He longs for that child to repent and be brought back into a healthy relationship with Him and his brother. One would think Jonah would realize this even looking into his own past and beliefs. After all, What happened to Cain after he killed his brother? Did God destroy him? No, instead he cast him out to show him a lesson, but he also placed a mark upon his head that declared that anyone who hurt him would be punished. For even though Cain had sinned greatly, he was still a child of God. And many generations from this point, God will lay His own life on the line in order to save His children from themselves, to protect them from themselves. When Christ is on the Cross, that is not only God’s Son on the cross, that is God Himself, dying at the hands of His children so that He may show them His love for them and save them from their Sin so that they may live on eternally with Him.
Yet this is a hard lesson to learn. I think we can all remember the rage and the anguish that we felt just over ten years ago on September 11. And how much has changed in that time? Here we are, surrounded by the names of the fallen, and we are still mourning and still angry. Each of the names on our walls are a life that has been snuffed out too soon, and a group of family and friends they who never see them again, whose lives are forever changed by actions half a world away. And in the Middle East I am sure they also have lists of their fallen, those lost in terrorist actions, those lost in battle, those lost through living in dangerous neighborhoods and those who have lost their lives to disease and famine. And each of those names also carries family and friends alongside it, who also mourn each day of their lives, just as we mourn those we have lost. And God mourns for each and every one of those lives as well.
For all people are the Creation and the Children of God, and He was watched over them and cared for them their entire lives, no matter how we may feel about them. Whether we live in America, Zimbabwe, Russia, or the Middle East, we are all the children of God and God weeps whenever we are in pain. And should any be destroyed, God’s tears will be unceasing and great will be His gnashing of teeth, for all are God’s children.
This is why the ELCA has so much focus on working with Lutheran World Relief, why Lutherans are normally the first to get to disaster areas to give aid, because we understand that God has a global outlook on the world. Because we know that God weeps for His children in every corner of the world, whether we see them or not. When a child dies of malnutrition in Africa, God cares. When a youth happens upon a landmine in Afghanistan and loses a limb, God cares. When one gets stuck in the tracks here in Columbiana and is struck by a train, God cares. For all are the Children of God.
I remember one day in college, there was a prospective student walking around campus. I had remembered her sitting in on one of my classes earlier on in the day and I offered to give her a tour around campus. As we were wrapping up our walk, she asked me what the religious community was like around campus, and so I told her that like most colleges, and most places, there are those who are die-hard Christians, there are those who are atheists, and many are in between. I also let her know that my three best friends were a Jew, an atheist, and one dabbling in Wiccan. She turned to me and said “How can you be friends with people who are going to hell?” I was shocked and astounded at her statement. The thought of keeping people out of one’s life due to their faith or their differences never had occurred to me before, since all are sinners and all fall short and no one has completely figured out the mind of God. Yet all are still the beloved children of God, no matter where we live or what we believe or how much we rebel against God.
And there is great hope and comfort in that knowledge, to know that God cares for us so much that we are like the unborn child in a mother’s womb, unconditionally loved by our creator. It is what unites us with one another, not only with those in this congregation and town, but also with all those across the world, even those places we will never step foot. So when we are asked “Who cares about what happens in Sri Lanka” or when people say that charity should all be done at home and forget the rest of the world, we can say “God cares, and God wills that we help our brothers and sisters throughout this world.”
In preparation for our Blessing of the animals on Oct. 2, I should point out that the last line from God does not include just the humans in the area, but also shows compassion for the animals in the area as well. For God creates all things in this world, and all are cared for and protected by God. So whether it be our beloved pet or the geese that fill our yards and bite and leave messes for us to deal with… kinda like our pets… God cares for them as well and they are held within His heart.
This day I pray that each of us may remember our brothers and sisters around the world, that they may be held safe and they may be comforted in their times of trial and loss. And I challenge each of us to let go of the anger we may feel towards one other person and seek reconciliation with that person, so that God’s forgiveness, mercy and unconditional love may be seen and felt. Amen.
