Jonah the racist!

Can you imagine resenting the mercy of God? Getting angry over souls being pardoned?

It is the resentment which comes when people who we believe have lived lives a whole lot less worthy than ours, receive the same reward!

I have been thinking a lot lately about why some of us who have been very traditional in our relationship with Christ, our worship styles, and our evangelism methods, are troubled by a more emergent or progressive methodology.

I have been led to study Jonah! Rather than being the hero of the book named after him, he was really the loser. In fact I read in amazement as a man who had been called to preach the love of God, actually harbored hate!!

Why would Jonah have such contempt for the people to whom he had been called to preach the love of God? Could it be that he felt himself superior? It was almost as if he was saying, “God I am worthy of you love! I have done (well almost) everything you have asked …. But these are not your people, I am! They are not worthy of your love, but I am!

It was F.B. Meyer who once said that when we see a brother or sister in sin, there are two things we do not know: First, we do not know how hard he or she tried not to sin. And second, we do not know the power of the forces that assailed him or her. We also do not know what we would have done in the same circumstances.

Stephen Brown, Christianity Today, April 5, 1993, p. 17. Jonah was a man who although preaching the mercy of God actually wanted the judgment of God to fall on Nineveh! Perhaps in the recesses of our hearts we are truly resentful over “the price we have paid” to follow Christ. Being told dancing is sin, bowling is sin, jewelry is sin, slacks are sin, and the list goes on and on, has filled our hearts with both resentment against those who have not made these sacrifices, and the thought that they, could somehow share in our forgiveness is troubling to us! After all some of them even have tattoos!

Or it might just be spiritual arrogance, that we are amongst the few truly worthy of the love of God. When in Jonah 3:10, we are told, “When God saw what they did and how they turned from their evil ways, he had compassion and did not bring upon them the destruction he had threatened.” What was Jonahs response? Jonah 4:1, “But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.” G. W. Knight writes, “When a person works an eight-hour day and receives a fair day’s pay for his time, that is a wage. When a person competes with an opponent and receives a trophy for his performance, that is a prize. When a person receives appropriate recognition for his long service or high achievements, that is an award. But when a person is not capable of earning a wage, can win no prize, and deserves no award—yet receives such a gift anyway—that is a good picture of God’s unmerited favor. This is what we mean when we talk about the grace of God.” G.W. Knight, Clip-Art Features for Church Newsletters, p. 53.

Oh yes he was glad he was “saved!” But really longed to see the judgments on Nineveh!

Jonah had successfully delivered the message of the Lord to the people of Nineveh and had seen 120,000 people saved from the wrath of God, yet he had failed to learn any lesson about God’s love or about himself.

Jonah 4:5-11 reads, “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. 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. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. 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." 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." 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. But 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?"

At the conclusion of the book God attempts to let Jonah know that his concept that he owns the vine, even though he had nothing to do with it, is flawed.

He enjoyed its presence much like we have enjoyed the Church, but that Jonah neither had created it nor had the right of ownership to it! Perhaps the same way we feel we have a right to the mercy and protection of the Church, and then try to determine the methods used to bring people into it, and who is worthy of the mercy of God and how it should be distributed. In his book

No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, Max Lucado tells the following story to illustrate God’s love, grace and concern for those who are lost. “Longing to leave her poor Brazilian neighborhood, Christina wanted to see the world. Discontent with a home having only a pallet on the floor, a washbasin, and a wood-burning stove, she dreamed of a better life in the city. One morning she slipped away, breaking her mother’s heart. Knowing what life on the streets would be like for her young, attractive daughter, Maria hurriedly packed to go find her. On her way to the bus stop she entered a drugstore to get one last thing. Pictures. She sat in the photograph booth, closed the curtain, and spent all she could on pictures of herself. With her purse full of small black-and-white photos, she boarded the next bus to Rio de Janeiro. Maria knew Christina had no way of earning money. She also knew that her daughter was too stubborn to give up. When pride meets hunger, a human will do things that were before unthinkable. Knowing this, Maria began her search. Bars, hotels, nightclubs, any place with the reputation for streetwalkers or prostitutes. She went to them all. And at each place she left her picture--taped on a bathroom mirror, tacked to a hotel bulletin board, fastened to a corner phone booth. And on the back of each photo she wrote a note. It wasn’t too long before both the money and the pictures ran out, and Maria had to go home.

The weary mother wept as the bus began its long journey back to her small village. It was a few weeks later that young Christina descended the hotel stairs. Her young face was tired. Her brown eyes no longer danced with youth but spoke of pain and fear. Her laughter was broken. Her dream had become a nightmare. A thousand times over she had longed to trade these countless beds for her secure pallet. Yet the little village was, in too many ways, too far away. As she reached the bottom of the stairs, her eyes noticed a familiar face. She looked again, and there on the lobby mirror was a small picture of her mother. Christina’s eyes burned and her throat tightened as she walked across the room and removed the small photo. Written on the back was this compelling invitation. "Whatever you have done, whatever you have become, it doesn’t matter. Please come home." She did.” Max Lucado, No Wonder They Call Him the Savior, Multnomah Press, 1986, pp. 158-9.

Dear Jesus, I am a product! A product of society, Church culture and my own personality! Please dear Lord, remove anything that would cause me to be an obstacle to the demonstration of your mercy. And rather that I be a vessel to help accomplish it! When your mercy is shown, allow my heart to truly rejoice!! Amen