Mountainside UMC
May 25, 2014
Every Which Way But Loose: Jonah – Part 4
Who Matters to God? -Jonah 4:1-11
Today we are finishing our series on Jonah: Every Which Way But
Loose looking at a strange story with unusual twists with some
humor and comedy along the way. For a quick review of the basics
if you missed the earlier messages. It began with the prophet of the
God of Israel, a “righteous” person, who rebels against God. God
tells him to go to Nineveh, but he hates the people of Nineveh and
he instead gets on a ship going to Tarshish.
A great storm comes and threatens the life of everyone on board
and finally Jonah confesses that he is running away from God and
is likely the cause of the storm. Reluctantly the sailors throw Jonah
overboard the sea is calm and the “unrighteous” pagan sailors
repent and faithfully worship God of Israel the God of Creation.
The Lord then intervenes by sending a great fish and this is where
the story gets a little fuzzy because if you ask the average person
about this story they would say that Jonah was actually swallowed
by a whale whose name was Monstro and Jonah is running away
from Geppetto and wants to be a real boy instead of a puppet
named Pinnochio and ….you can imagine the confusion.
** So Here’s a Little CARTOON HUMOR on the topicActually God appointed and commissioned a Great Fish to pick up
and deliver the rebel prophet to the Great city of Nineveh where all
these wicked people live. Jonah delivers this amazing sermon
entitled “40 Days and You’re Toast” and that was not only the title
of the sermon but it was the entirety of the sermon. Through this
reluctant prophet and the shortest sermon in recorded history the
entire city from the kings to the paupers they all repent.
And last Sunday chapter 3 ended with these words…Jonah 3:10
10 Then God saw their works, that they turned from their evil way;
and God relented from the disaster that He had said He would
bring upon them, and He did not do it.
2
So in the end the evil Ninevites repent and get right with God and
everything is good! If the story of Jonah would have ended with
chapter 3 everything would have been great and there would have
been “A Balance in The Force” as the wickedness that once came
up before God from the people in the city would have disappeared
as everyone in the city repented and called out to God for mercy.
However, the book does not end with chapter 3. There is a chapter
four and as we’ll see everyone else is “Happy, Happy, Happy”
over God’s mercy except Jonah. The rebel prophet is not happy.
Which is incredible because what preacher would have not been
delighted to add to his resume the conversion of an entire city of
120K people and their animals(even the cats repented-Don’t get
that?-Don’t drop head and tuck tails – Cat’s confronted-SO!).
Which now leaves this story in a state of dissonance or disharmony
and unsettledness. We could have had a nice happy ending to this
story if Jonah wasn’t such a whiner and complainer but NOOO.
Jonah has to be upset at the success God gave him and God’s
mercy and now we have this weird ending to this great ironic
comedy. But then again what do you expect, Jonah has been
whiney in almost every chapter why should he change now. So
let’s read this for ourselves..
Jonah 4:1, 1 But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.
Another translations says it this way, “And it is grievous unto
Jonah -- a great evil -- and he is displeased at it;” Jonah can't take
it. He looks at Nineveh repenting and being forgiven by God, and
he says, "This is evil." Not just evil, what kind of evil? "…great
evil." This is the only time in the story that these two words are
brought together, and there is a reason. What is great to God, grace
to Nineveh, Nineveh being forgiven is great evil to Jonah.
Jonah was okay when grace was being given to him, but now it's
going to Nineveh. Now Jonah is not okay. Now Jonah is furious,
POUTING- Now Jonah says, "This is great evil." At the start of
the book…to any Israelite reading it...to you and me, we think
3
God's big problem in this book is, "What are you going to do about
Nineveh?" That is sin city there’s the problem.
That's not God's big problem. God's big problem is, "What am I
going to do about Jonah? What am I going to do about the man of
God with a smug, superior, resentful heart?" At this point God is
probably wanting to tell Jonah to take a ship back to Jerusalem so
that he can tell the whale … “That instruction I gave you about
being careful to swallow and not chew. Pick him up again but this
time chew thoroughly. I’ve had it with this pompous whiner.
God probably didn’t do that. When you think about it, if God
immediately judged anyone including US anytime we were
offended that someone else received mercy when we didn’t think
they deserved it… none of us would probably be left. So at the
beginning of chapter 4 we have Jonah calling evil that which really
is ….Good. But there is more irony.
Notice the irony of Jonah’s prayers. The first time he prays when
he's desperate, when he's in the fish, in the water, and it looks like
he's going to die, and he wants to live. "Oh, God! Oh, God! Oh
God, help me. Let me live. Forgive my disobedience." Don’t let
me die. What does God do? God gives him grace. But when God
gives grace to Nineveh how does Jonah respond?
Jonah 4:2-3
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." Unbelievable prayer. It’s like “God it makes
me so angry that you are merciful…to others.” The first time
Jonah's about to die, he prays, "God, let me live." The second time
he's in the middle of this amazing triumph of life, he prays, "God, I
want to die." At this point, he doesn't really want to die. This is
like having a child trapped in a supposedly adult body.
4
God’s thinking, “First you are begging me to live and now you are
begging to die…make up your stinking mind.” Interestingly Jonah
says, "I knew you're a gracious and compassionate God." He's
quoting here the most famous confession of God's identity in the
history of Israel. Almost…
It’s actually missing something. This is the actual quote that every
Israelite knew from heart like we know the Happy Birthday song
"The Lord, the Lord, the gracious and compassionate God, slow to
anger, abounding in love and truth.” It’s a phrase out of Exodus.
Only Jonah leaves something out. This would be screamingly
obvious to any Israelite reading this text.
Again Jonah quotes it as saying.. "The Lord, the Lord, the gracious
and compassionate God, slow to anger, abounding in love..." In
Exodus it's,"…abounding in love and truth." Jonah leaves out the
truth. Jonah is attacking the character of God.
Grace…yeah…sure…abounding in grace. What about truth, God?
You said You were going to blast them, and I took you at Your
Word. I told them, 'Forty days, Nineveh and it's Sodom and
Gomorrah time. It's hellfire and brimstone.' Now it's not going to
happen, God, and I'm going to look like a fool. What’s worse is I'm
going back to Israel and it will look like I like the Ninevites. I don't
like the Ninevites. I thought You didn't like them either.
Jonah accuses God of a serious character problem in that he is
lacking in confronting truth. Now I could understand this if
Nineveh didn’t repent and God was permissive toward their
rebellious and sinful actions. But Nineveh repents. God is so
patient with Jonah. 4 But the LORD replied, "Have you any right
to be angry?" Jonah goes on this tirade and assails God's
character, and all God says in return is, "Is it right for you to be
angry?" Jonah doesn't give any answer.
5
Jonah gives God the silent treatment. In the next part of the story
we are told Jonah went out and sat down at a place east of the city,
and waited to see what’s going to happen. Jonah's still
hoping…forty days…Nineveh is going to get blasted. After this
dispute the story gets even weirder.
Jonah 4:5-9 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
vine 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."
Is this guy a “Drama Queen” or what? Let me get out my little
violin and play you a tune. Does that seem a little immature to
anybody? It's like God's dealing with a five-year-old here.
And Jonah has gone east of the city. It is not just a random
geographical detail. Israel was located on the Mediterranean Sea.
The Mediterranean is to the west of Israel; to the east were Israel's
enemies. The east became to Israel the place of the enemies of the
people of God. When Adam and Eve left Eden they went East of
Eden. Cain after he kills his brother Abel, he goes to the land of
Nod, east of Eden. Jonah goes east, to the place of God's enemies.
Jonah is in the boiling sun, and then God does this unexpected
thing. Jonah is just mad, mad about Nineveh, sitting in the sun, and
God sends shade. That is full of meaning for an Israelite reader.
6
Psalm 121:5, "The Lord…" It is said to Israel…"…is your shade at
your right hand. The sun will not harm you by day. God will
protect you as your shade." Psalm 17, "Hide me in the shade of
Your wings from the wicked who assail me.”
In fact, the phrase that says that the gourd was to ease Jonah's
discomfort, literally in the Hebrew the text says, "To deliver him
from evil." Ring any bells with anybody? We pray that in the
Lord's Prayer. "Deliver us from evil." That's the word in this book.
Jonah knew where the evil was, where the discord was. Out
there…Nineveh. Those people who aren't like me.
That's why Jonah is very happy about the gourd in the text. When
the plant goes up, literally what the text says, "And Jonah rejoiced
in the gourd with great joy." To Jonah, it's not just physical
protection, the plant going up it means Nineveh is going down.
God's going to protect His people. God's going to destroy their
enemies. That's why Jonah rejoices in the gourd "…with great joy."
He is rejoicing in the destruction of the people of that he hates.
Nineveh is going down and he waits for it’s destruction.
It's a funny thing, Jonah received grace when he hit bottom. Now
he's offended by grace when it goes to somebody else. Jonah has
this superior, judgmental, unloving heart. God has a harder time
getting saving grace to Jonah than He does saving Nineveh.
So we come near the end of this story. The repentant sailors are
happy, the Ninevites are happy, the whales probably fine but Jonah
is mad at the Ninevites, God and the Gourd(vine).
God gives a little parable to finish the story, 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. 11
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?"
7
So the story ends with a question which is really not the question at
all. The question itself is rhetorical and has an obvious answer. The
real question is given as we “read between the lines” so to speak.
For example let me offer my opinion of the real question. God is
saying, “I am concerned about this city, it’s people and even the
animals. But the real question is what about you? Will you care?”
What was Jonah’s answer? We don’t know. Given his attitude up
to this point it doesn’t look good for Jonah. The only indication
that he might have had a change of heart at the end is that it is
believed that he actually wrote the book and honestly portraying
himself as an arrogant foolish prophet possibly expresses some
degree of humility and repentance. We however don’t know.
Needless to say, the Lord didn’t have this story and this question
written up in the Bible for Jonah’s sake but clearly for ours. God
asks this question of us. Can we have compassion on those who are
not like you us even upon your adversaries? Will We Care? Will
we choose God’s heart when sent to those we don’t want to be
with or sent to a place we don’t want to go?
Interestingly about a couple hundred years later there is another
prophet who has a book of the Bible that also bears his name. He is
not just sent to the land of his enemies. His enemies actually force
him to leave his homeland after they destroyed it and haul him off
as a captive to a foreign land. However this prophet doesn’t act at
all like Jonah but instead chooses to act in an opposite manner.
This prophet while in the presence of his enemies takes the role of
a servant and in doing so captures the attention of the kings who
conquered his people and land. Through this prophet Daniel, God’s
grace and power was seen and expressed and the result was that
these two “once” wicked kings had quite a change of heart. In fact
listen to the testimony of two kings of whom Daniel served. First is
King Nebuchadnezzar King of Babylon that conquered Judah. He
8
says this in Daniel 4:34 & 37 34 At the end of that time, I,
Nebuchadnezzar, raised my eyes toward heaven, and my sanity
was restored. Then I praised the Most High; I honored and
glorified him who lives forever. His dominion is an eternal
dominion; His kingdom endures from generation to generation.
37 Now I, Nebuchadnezzar, praise and exalt and glorify the King of
heaven, because everything He does is right and all His ways are
just. And those who walk in pride He is able to humble.
The next words come from King Darius who conquered the
Babylonians as he ruled over the Medes and the Persians. This
follows his foolish edict that ended with Daniel in the den of lions.
Daniel 6:25-27 25 Then King Darius wrote to all the nations and
peoples of every language in all the earth: “May you prosper
greatly! 26 “I issue a decree that in every part of my kingdom
people must fear and reverence the God of Daniel. “For he is the
living God
and he endures forever;
his kingdom will not be
destroyed, his dominion will never end. 27 He rescues and he
saves;
He performs signs and wonders
in the heavens and on
the earth.
He has rescued Daniel
from the power of the lions.”
Everyone of us have relationships that God has given us whether
they are in the workplace, in our community or among our family
and friends. God asks us a question. Will we care? Will our
attitude toward others be more like Jonah or Daniel?
One other thought occurred to me. All these people in Nineveh
repented, but if Jonah never repented then was there anyone there
to disciple them? If that was the case it is no wonder that seventy
years later these same Assyrians came down and attacked and
destroyed Israel. Discipleship might be more important than we
think. Daniel discipled those around him and years later King
Darius also believed by some historians bearing the name Cyrus
King of Persia is the same king to declared and resourced the
rebuilding of the Temple after it was destroyed 70 earlier by the
Babylonians. It’s an interesting example of how one persons
choice to serve his adversaries can have amazing results. Again
who are we going to be like? Jonah or Daniel?