Not sure exactly what brought me to it this morning, but for some reason it occurred to me that my favorite verse in the Book of Jonah in the Old Testament is chapter 4, verse 4, where God asks Jonah if he has any right to be angry.
There's context here, so I'll explain it: We all know Jonah ran from God, right? Took off in the opposite direction form Ninevah to avoid having to do what God had asked of him, which was to minister to those people? Boarded a ship on the sea and ended up thrown overboard and swallowed by a fish? Repented of his running from God and was spit back onto dry land?
That's merely part of the story, not at all the whole thing. What we refuse to read is that he does go to Ninevah and preach, the theme of his message being: God's going to kill all of you in 40 days. Probably not a very popular subject for a sermon. Then he leaves, watches over the city from afar, waiting for the fire-and-brimstone lightshow that he's certain God is going to put on these sinners.
But it doesn't happen. The city repents. The King of Assyria himself announces that this God whose prophet has arrived and foretold disaster needs to be heeded. The king humbles himself before God, and mandates that the people do the same, which probably wasn't hard for them to do, considering the entire population was a bit frightened by Jonah's message. God, moved by this display of repentance, stays His Hand. The lightshow Jonah promised never begins. The city is spared. The people of Ninevah rejoice.
And Jonah, high atop his lonely little hilltop outside the city limits, is pissed.
This resets the story for me. Go back to the beginning, where Jonah runs away. I honestly don't think Jonah was afraid of the Ninevites, which is the cute little cuddly version we were all told at Bible-Story-Time. Jonah simply didn't want to go. He didn't think the sinning Ninevites worthy of a message from God. So he turned the opposite direction.
And boarded a ship, which I think is also significant. Historically, Hebrews were taught to be afraid of the sea. They likened it to the Abyss, or Hell. It was a terrifying place to them that held all manner of beast (like, say, Big Fish), and they did what they could to avoid it. Jonah's act, braving the sea rather than preaching a message to the people, was his way of saying: look, God, I'd rather go to hell than do what You've asked of me. These people are not worth warning. I'd rather you crush them without giving them a fair shake (which lends me to believe that Jonah knew God's penchant for redemption and didn't want to see the Ninevites saved).
Jonah turns his back on God. And ultimately, it ends in disaster, with Jonah thrown into that Abyss, which God rescues him from by sending the Fish. Jonah is given a second chance--redeemed, if you will.
So he's learned his lesson, right? Not quite. You'll notice when he goes to the city, he only tells them that they'll be destroyed. No second option, no mention of the possibility of redemption. Simply: God is going to destroy this place in 40 days. End of sentence, thought, and sermon. You're all going to die, and there's nothing you can do about it. Rather convenient, I think, to leave that part of the message off, especially when preaching to people you don't really want spared. Maybe they'll just continue their wicked ways in light of this horrible God who's threatening to kill them all.
But no, the people DO repent. And God, do they ever repent! They discard all their symbols of wealth for sackcloth. They abandon any notion of hygiene by covering themselves in ash. They throw themselves on the mercy of the court (something which Jonah, in his boating episode, failed to do), and they are spared. God sees that their hearts are sincere.
So, the evening of Day 40 passes, with the frightened people of Ninevah trembling in anticipation of Divine Wrath, and Jonah on the hill, grinning like an idiot waiting to see it. The Sun comes up and it's suddenly Day 41. The city is still there. The people are spared.
Which, if prophecy is purely about prediction of the future, means that Jonah is a false prophet. What he said would happen did not come to pass, and thus he is a liar. So perhaps the idea of prophecy as a foretelling of the future needs to be reexamined, because Jonah is still listed with the Prophets in the Old Testament, despite his wildly inaccurate prediction.
Anyway, Jonah can't help but notice this. Despite the fact that thousands of people have been spared from horrible death, he's all too concerned with his own appearance. He feels he's been made a fool of by God, that the people of Ninevah will be laughing off his prediction rather than rejoicing that they're, you know, still alive. And he gets a wee bit upset with all of it.
Never mind that, you know, two chapters ago, God rescued Jonah himself from death. Jonah's own disobedience is conveniently forgotten in the wake of God sparing these people that Jonah didn't really want spared. So he finds all the more reason to be angry about it, railing on God for making him look like a fool rather than just giving these people what they deserved.
Sounds familiar. Sounds like, maybe, this story was retold generations later by another Jonah of sorts, this man they called Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus also came to rescue outsiders from their sin, people outside the fold; people who had fallen away and people without the Hebrew birthright. And in one of his more famous stories, he echoes these sentiments in the character of the Prodigal Son's older brother. The kid is furious that Daddy killed the fatted calf for the disobedient brother, making the faithful son out to be the fool. And in that story, as in Jonah, the Father Figure says pretty much the same thing: "Do you have any right to be angry?"
The answer is no. And that resounds throughout Christ's teachings, one in particular being about the Plank in Your Own Eye. God is doing work in others, he says, and it's really not up to you what their problems were or are. I'm sure you have plenty of your own problems to deal with.
I suppose the message here is to be graceful. Or, alternatively, in light of the passage in Hebrews 11 where we look at all the Heroes of Faith and their great deeds, the message here needs to be: Don't Be Like Jonah. Preach the good news, but not so that you get the pleasure of seeing those who reject it destroyed. And don't spend all that time lingering on the misdeeds of others. We have plenty within ourselves that needs to be worked out. We've spent enough time running from God, telling Him we'd rather go to hell than obey Him. So now that He's been graceful with us when we were not repentant, shouldn't it also stand to reason that He would also be graceful with others when they are, or even when they aren't? And don't we claim to be like God in that respect, claiming that we want to be like Him in all that we do? Surely no one here is so perfect as to cast the first stone?
Or, to quote my friend Fred Clark: "A happier ending is always available. Ninevah is a great city. Your brother is alive and well. Why miss the party? It's right this way. You know the way, or at least you should. Haven't you been paying attention?"
So it's my opinion that Jonah is not a hero to be admired, but a warning against vanity and haughty behavior. God tends to humble the proud. And sometimes, He does it so simply as to just say, "Do you have any right to be angry?"
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