Listen to the audio of today’s Reflection:
https://soundcloud.com/hapearce/reflection-for-october-24-2022
Jonah 3:1-5 and 10; 4:1-11
Jonah Goes to Ninevah
3 Then the word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.”
3 Jonah obeyed the word of the Lord and went to Nineveh. Now Nineveh was a very important city – a visit required three days. 4 On the first day, Jonah started into the city. He proclaimed, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” 5 The Ninevites believed God. They declared a fast, and all of them, from the greatest to the least, put on sackcloth.
10 When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened.
Jonah’s Anger at the Lord’s Compassion
4 But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “O Lord, is this not what I said when I was still at home? That is why I was so quick to flee to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, O Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4 But the Lord replied, “Have you any right to be angry?”
5 Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God provided a vine and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the vine. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”
9 But God said to Jonah, “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?”
“I do,” he said. “I am angry enough to die.”
10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this vine, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11But Nineveh has more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well. Should I not be concerned about that great city?”
All most people know about the Book of Jonah is that there’s a guy named Jonah who gets swallowed by a big fish. Actually, that’s not strictly true – most people think it was a whale. The church I served before I came to Medina had a fountain in its courtyard with Jonah sitting on what I’m pretty sure was a sperm whale.
In any case, the truth is that the big sea creature isn’t really what the story is about – it’s just a detail. The real theme of the Book of Jonah is the grace of God and his willingness to forgive – even to forgive the sins of the worst sinners.
The story of Jonah starts with the prophet being commanded by God to go to Nineveh, where he’s to announce God’s judgment on the city. But Jonah doesn’t want to go, because Nineveh was the capital of the Assyrian empire, and the Assyrians were the hated enemy of the Israelite people. There had been two separate kingdoms in what we think of as Israel – the Kingdom of Israel in the north and the Kingdom of Judah (or Judea) in the south. Jerusalem was the capital of the southern kingdom.
In 722 BC, the Assyrian army had conquered the capital city of the Kingdom of Israel and had shipped off a lot of its people into exile. Then the Assyrians brought in a lot of foreigners from other parts of their empire, and settled them in Israel. Over the years, the Israelites intermarried with the foreigners. That led to them being rejected as ‘ethnically impure,’ by the religious leadership in Jerusalem.
So that’s why Jonah ran away when he was commanded by God to go to Nineveh and call his nation’s enemies to repentance. In fact, he headed for the far end of the known world. That led to him being thrown overboard from the ship he was on, and being swallowed by the big fish that brought him home and barfed him up on shore. The truth is that Jonah didn’t want the Ninevites to repent – he wanted Nineveh to be destroyed by God, not to be forgiven.
Which, as it turns out, is exactly what happens. Jonah announces God’s judgment on the city, and the people of Nineveh repent of their sins and declare a fast. So God forgives them.
That, of course, makes Jonah absolutely furious. He basically tells God, ‘I knew it! I knew you’d forgive them! So just kill me!’ But God answers by asking Jonah why he (God) would not care about Nineveh – after all, there were more than 120,000 people there.
So as we said, it’s not really a story about a big fish. But I think there are a couple of important lessons we’re meant to carry away from the story of Jonah.
Maybe first and foremost, this book reminds us that God is ready to forgive the sins of anyone who will repent. The Israelites thought of the Assyrians as bloodthirsty murderers, but God forgave them when they confessed and repented. So this story should probably help us to trust in God’s promise of forgiveness in confessing our own sins. If he was willing to forgive the Assyrians, we can trust that God is more than willing to forgive us, too.
It also seems to me this book makes the point that we are called to be instruments of God’s gracious love and forgiveness in the lives of others – and that includes people we consider unworthy of that love and forgiveness. We’re not so eager to be agents of God’s blessing to people we think are unworthy. But after all, we can’t claim to be worthy of God’s blessing, either.
Lots of modern readers think that the Old Testament is full of bloodshed and judgment and the New Testament is all about forgiveness and grace. But the Book of Jonah seems to make it clear that forgiveness and grace aren’t something that came along with Jesus. Instead, those things are aspects of God’s character that have been revealed in the scriptures for thousands of years.
Let’s pray. Lord, we thank you for your willingness to forgive our sins, and the sins of everyone who will confess and repent. Move us to be willing to forgive those who offend us, even those we think are unworthy to be forgiven. Remind us daily that we are unworthy to be forgiven, too. Amen.
Grace and Peace,
Henry
(The other readings for today are Psalms 62 and 145; Revelation 11:1-14; and Luke 11:14-26. Our readings come from the NIV Bible, as posted on Biblica.org, the website of the International Bible Society.)
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