A few years ago now, my church was going through a tough time and for whatever reason the concept of grace as a foundation for living kept coming up in my mind over and over again. In a way, putting my thoughts on paper about grace became the event or the thing that got me on to the idea of writing as a hobby. This is one of those posts I’ve been wanting to share for a long, long time. Grace is something I’ve been reminded of recently. It’s been humbling, but I’m grateful. Grace is a gift. Always has been. And, that’s all it ever will be. A precious gift.
So, it’s my hope this post comes to you from a position of gratitude, reflection and most of all, humility. This piece is actually something I wrote back in 2013 and I think it represents the type of reflection about the Bible and life I wanted to share in this blog from the start. I’ve added a couple updates mainly so I could split it up into two parts (yeah, the original was a bit long like most of my posts so far). It comes out of this weird and crazy ending to a popular story I’ve known since I was a child. I always found the last chapter in this book a bit bizarre, open ended and even dark. It’s not very flattering to our protagonist or even the people he represents. It’s the story of Jonah. You know, the prophet. This is the guy who could not bring himself to carry God’s message of repentance to the people of Nineveh. After all, they were really bad folks and the enemies of Israel. His unwillingness ran so deep he decided to run from God and even attempted to take his own life. So what does God do? He sends a giant fish, of course, to rescue Jonah from drowning in a stormy sea. And then, after spending three days in what we might call God’s version of “time out”, Jonah travels to Nineveh and finally does what God had asked him to do – speak to the people of Nineveh about God. And this crazy thing happens. The citizens of Nineveh follow the lead of their king and repent. Their lives are spared. And they all live happily ever after, right? Well, no not really. To be blunt, Jonah is pissed off (not the reaction you’d expect from one of God’s very own), which brings us to the surprising and unexpected ending to a story about one of the Bible’s most famous prophets:
Chapter 4:
But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing 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, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
5 Jonah had gone 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 leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 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, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”
“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”
10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”
And there, ladies and gentlemen, is the ending. Do you see what I mean? If this were the typical “Hollywood” story, you would expect Jonah to finally see God’s point at the end of the scene. Then, he would travel back to Nineveh and join the citizens in the celebration of their salvation from destruction. Instead, what we witness is anger and frustration. We’re left to wonder. Does Jonah finally travel back to Israel and come to grips with God’s pointed questions? Does he finally get over being mad at God? Does he finally get it? We simply don’t know. The author doesn’t say. It’s open ended. There is this tension between God and Jonah which is left unresolved. It’s as if the author wants us to wrestle with this final scene and talk it over. Reflect on it. Ask our own questions about how we might react if we had been placed in this situation. Or, ask ourselves if there have been similar circumstances in our lives in which we need take a second look at how we responded? Have we ever been like Jonah? Have we ever wished the people who have wronged us “got what they had coming to them?” Do we have trouble wishing our enemies good will? Do we have issues with holding on to resentments and bitterness?
Before we try to answer these questions, we should take a step back and try and take an honest look at this story. It’s easy to pick on Jonah, isn’t it? It’s easy to think Jonah’s bitterness and anger are something we would never carry around. For some of us, we want to simply look at the Bible as some factual account of history (ok, so maybe the giant fish thing is a little difficult to swallow – I get it), which then gives us the excuse to stay detached from the story in an “analytical sort of way” and observe it from afar. We know what happened; so we’re done. No need to worry with the crazy story about giant fish swallowing a prophet any further.
But, the Bible is really not like that. Especially in this story. And with the ending being what it is, we are invited into a discussion where we examine ourselves in light of Jonah’s circumstances. It’s tough. It requires honesty. And we have to be willing to be fair and honest with Jonah; and that means looking at his struggle a little more deeply. A little context will help:
First, we know Nineveh is the capital of Assyria and the Assyrians represent a grave threat to Israel. You might recall it’s the Assyrians who will ultimately topple Jonah’s Israel later in the year 722 BC. But, even in Jonah’s time, the Assyrians have been around a while and their reputation must be well known. I would guess Israel may have already experienced some of their cruelty first hand. Nevertheless, it’s safe to say the Assyrians were ruthless and inhumane in their effort to conquer neighboring lands and maintain their empire. All this has been well documented by modern scholarship. For instance, one of the tactics the Assyrians used to dissuade uprisings would be to hang the skins of victims on the city walls. Victims were typically skinned while they were alive. This little factoid alone should be enough to convince you that if any country deserved God’s judgment, it was the Assyrians. To put it into a modern context, the Assyrians would be the equivalent of the Taliban or Al Qaeda, I suppose (In 2016, ISIS would come to the top of the list). Perhaps they were worse than any of those modern examples. Once we put Jonah’s story in context, I think we understand why he might be a little hesitant to travel to Nineveh (any of us would be) – to the point where drowning in the sea might seem like a better option. [2016 comment: If we were talking about Jerry Falwell, Jr. instead of Jonah, then I guess the other option would be to arm your students and be prepared to wage war. Does anyone else see the irony here?]
With this little bit of background, it’s a good time to ask: what are we to make of this exchange between God and Jonah? In the story, Jonah finds a spot east of the city to watch its destruction. Jonah would be well versed in the Scriptures, so I suppose he was expecting a show like the one described in Genesis involving Sodom and Gomorrah. You know what I’m talking about – the thunderstorm of burning sulfur raining down on the city creating fire, death and chaos – the envy of any modern action film. I also love the detail which tells us Jonah’s willing to wait as long as it takes, because he even builds a shelter and essentially sets up camp. What’s even more interesting, though, is we find God providing a leafy plant to bring shade and comfort Jonah; only to also send a worm the next day to eat the plant and allow the intrusion of the sun and this scorching east wind.
In a nutshell, though, here is what we know: Nineveh is spared and Jonah is suffering in the heat. He wants to die. He lies in misery and his enemies are dancing in the streets. He’s suffering in the scorching heat and Nineveh is celebrating God’s mercy. Jonah has been a faithful prophet most of his life while the Assyrians have been torturing and killing their neighbors. It’s not right. God gave Jonah a leafy plant to provide shade and ease his suffering for a bit and then God took it away. But, Jonah did what God asked him to do. Why isn’t God on his side? What’s happened to Jonah is wrong, isn’t it? It’s not fair. And yet, God asks him: “Do you have a right to be angry about the plant?” Surprisingly, Jonah is defiant in his answer; and I have to admit I can’t imagine being that brave (or reckless) with God. But, the God we find in this story is tolerant of Jonah’s anger and patient with his stubbornness and gently responds with this straightforward idea Jonah seems persistent in overlooking: In the grand scheme of things, the plant is nothing compared to the city of Nineveh. Because Nineveh is the home to a 120,000 people. God is essentially saying if you can be concerned with a plant, then you can bet I will be concerned about the welfare of the city because these people you are so eager to see destroyed don’t know their right hand from their left.
And this is where the crucial point of the story is made. There are many verses we could discuss, but here is where I think we should focus: What does it mean to not know your right hand from your left?
There is this fundamental truth about life we could easily overlook, which God is trying, I think, to get Jonah to see. And this truth is simply this: we don’t choose where we are born. We don’t choose what country we are from. We don’t choose our parents. And we don’t choose those destructive ideas which become hardwired into our brains during childhood. This “heritage” is something given to us. It may put us on a path to discover and follow God; or it may be a huge obstacle. How many of us have had to come to a realization these notions about life and relationships we grew up with were wrong and were taking us into all kinds of crazy places? Who out there has struggled with this notion you aren’t enough and you’ve been striving your whole life to prove you are and then failing and then striving and then failing and ultimately disappointing those closest to you over and over again? And, for the longest time, you had no idea why? It sucks. At times, dying would seem more merciful.
Fortunately (for everyone ever born, right?), God’s wisdom is perfect and He sees through all these obstacles and circumstances of life. And that, in a nutshell I think, is what grace is all about. It’s an awareness of how difficult it can be to find God’s love in a broken home, a broken community or a broken world. It’s an awareness we all need to wake up to if we are going to be God’s people. How do we ever learn how to love if we have never been truly loved? How do we learn to be merciful if we’ve never seen mercy? How do we get to know the God of grace if all we’ve ever known is condemnation? This is the lesson here, isn’t it? It’s this big idea we God’s people are called to share in the world.
So, let’s ask ourselves this question: are we like Jonah? Is our family or community prone to being like Jonah? Or, are we a people who are growing daily in this awareness of how our God is a god of grace and mercy.
Go back several hundred years in the story and we realize that Jonah and his country wouldn’t exist if it hadn’t been for God’s grace. What did Jonah’s Israelites have to offer God when he called them to be his people? Nothing. What could they have offered God as slaves in Egypt? And yet, he rescues them anyway and fashions them into a nation because of a promise God made to man named Abraham – someone none of them knew personally and probably thought of as more legend than real. And throughout the entire rescue operation, the Israelites grumble, complain, and stumble along the way. Sounds like Jonah. Sounds like me at too many times in my life. The Israelites have been given everything; and honestly, many times they appear really ungrateful. So, what beef could Jonah really have with God if God wants to share his grace and mercy beyond the land of Israel?
Like the Israelites were once slaves in Egypt, the common people in Nineveh and the Assyrian empire are in slavery, are they not? God says they “don’t know their right hand from their left”. Consider this phrase for a moment. Right and left are opposites. In some cases right represents power and left represents weakness, so right may represent a place of strength or favoritism. But in this case, the idea is pretty clear, I think. Simply put, the people of Nineveh don’t know how to live. They don’t know any better. Like a child that doesn’t know how to distinguish their right hand from their left; the people of Nineveh really don’t know right from wrong. They just know how the Assyrians have always lived. They were born into this way of living and they just don’t know any better. They are slaves to their heritage and it’s all they’ve ever known.
For a few years of my life, I was fascinated with the US Civil War – the buildup leading up to the war and how a large population of this country could justify the institution of slavery. When you claim to be Southern Baptist (and I once did) and then (one day) you realize many Southern Baptists of the time used the Bible to justify owning slaves, you wonder how it could ever be. But, one day it occurred to me: if you were a little baby born into a family that worshiped God and yet owned slaves, how would you know any different? I think we are all born into a world of a certain time and a certain place and of a certain people which compel us to follow certain beliefs that run counter the teachings of Jesus or to get even more basic: right and wrong. If you are born into a family of slave owners, you believe your parents are good people and for the most part, they probably are. And yet, your family own slaves and over the course of your childhood, the chains just become a part of the landscape. It’s just the way life is. Except, we know clearly in our day, it’s wasn’t just the African descendants who were in chains. No, the white slave owners were, too. It’s just in their case; their hearts were in chains. Their hearts were in chains to the idea they were somehow superior, special, chosen, enlightened, predestined, saved, redeemed – the “in crowd”, you might say. They were a lot like Jonah. And somehow, they could study, preach and teach the Bible and still hold onto the idea there are people in this world whose lives or futures don’t really matter. God made them to be slaves to serve us. Or, in Jonah’s case, there were people who didn’t deserve another chance. God should just take them out.
I think we find the book of Jonah in the Bible because Jonah and his people are struggling with this very issue. I think we could say they are in slavery again and this time it is of their own making. But let’s be honest. We struggle with it too, don’t we? God’s grace is often way too big for us to accept. We want to say our church doors are open to everyone, but there are certain types of people who make us really uncomfortable, so it’s better if they just stayed away. You know what I’m talking about. But here’s the one truth we can’t avoid in this discussion: God’s grace is for all – even the bad people – and we’re going to have to eventually come to grips with this if we are ever going to truly experience salvation, if we are ever going to be God’s hand and feet in the world, if we are ever going to be that light Jesus talked about. If we are ever going to find peace and joy, grace is essential. Otherwise, life is defined by all we have done or the wrongs we have suffered and we end up living by a standard we can never meet. Ever. These wrongs become such a burden to bear; and they weigh us down and prevent us from moving into freedom. Resentments burn through our hearts until there is so little of it left, there’s nowhere for joy to reside. There is nowhere for peace to take up residence. We become like Jonah suffering in the sun enduring a scorching east wind while we wait for God to deliver punishment to those who have done us wrong. And we wait…