The story of Jonah should be a good story. This should be a gloriously happy story. After an attempt at running away from God, then being swallowed by a fish, Jonah finally does what God asks him to do: he enters the great and wicked city of Nineveh to proclaim God’s judgment and their impending destruction. Then something amazing happened: all the people of Nineveh listened to Jonah. They repented of their evil deeds and turned to the Lord. God also repented – that is, God changed his mind – and did not destroy the city. That’s where the lesson for this coming Sunday ends. This should be a gloriously happy story.
But the lectionary doesn’t give us the whole story. If you read the book of Jonah (it’s only four chapters long, so you can read it in under 15 minutes), you will find that, instead of being gloriously happy, Jonah is exceedingly displeased and becomes very angry. Why?
Because when it came right down to it, Jonah couldn’t abide God’s love and compassion being offered to foreigners. He couldn’t abide God’s love and compassion being offered to the enemy. He couldn’t abide God’s love and compassion being offered to other people in the same way it was offered to him.
Upon reflection, aren’t we a bit like Jonah? How much compassion do we show when someone sits in our pew? How loudly does our Judge-O-Matic go off when someone who doesn’t fit our expectations, or who looks like they “don’t belong,” shows up at church? How much compassion do we have toward panhandlers, or foreigners, or people who blow their leaves into our yard, or . . . or . . . or? There is no shortage of opportunities for us to be an angry Jonah.
In this Epiphany season of revelation and manifestation, in this season of outsiders bringing gifts and insiders trying to eliminate them, may we be more like the foreign Ninevites who turned to the Lord, and less like Jonah who was angry that he couldn’t keep God to himself.
Blessings,
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