When Mercy Ticks Us Off

This week’s sacred story is the book of Jonah (yup, the whole book…which is only 4 chapters of drama). Read it here or watch an adorable kid tell her version here. It basically goes like this: God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh as a prophet and warn them against the consequences of their evil ways. Jonah runs from God tries to get as far away from Nineveh as possible via boat. Big storm, thrown in sea, swallowed up by big fish. Jonah prays to God and gets spit out of fish. God tells Jonah again to go to Nineveh and he does and they repent and commit to changing their ways. But Jonah is big mad and builds a pouting shed outside the city. God is there too and they talk it through.

art by Jim LePage

So here’s the sermon:

I wonder what was going on before this story.

I wonder what comes after.

I wonder what details you noticed or that stood out to you.

I wonder where you are in the story or what part of the story is about you.

I wonder what feels familiar about this story.

I wonder what was new or surprising about this story.

As I read the book of Jonah this week, the WHOLE book, maybe for the first time and without Veggie Tales running alongside or the Sunday School felt boards or coloring pages…

I noticed that this sacred story was a more complex mix of:

What I knew, what I thought I knew, and what I definitely didn’t know.

I knew that Jonah was told to go to Nineveh, I knew he ran away from this call and I knew that ended him up in the belly of a fish…that eventually spits him out.  Of course, there was a time in my life I thought I knew that fish was a whale, but it turns out that was mostly legendary embellishment. But even until this week, I didn’t know much about what happened to Jonah after that, or why he was told to go to Nineveh in the first place or what happens to Nineveh in the end or why Jonah had was running away. I filled in the gaps with my own biblical imagination.  There are plenty of prophets who initially wrestle with God’s call for them so I just assumed that, like with others, bearing the Word of God to anyone is hard and scary and so resisting that call is pretty natural.

I didn’t know that Jonah was so angry. I didn’t know WHY he would be angry.

I filled in the gaps with what I thought I knew. Nineveh is a foreign (read: not Hebrew) city. Asking people who don’t share your beliefs to trust you enough to change is hard. Contemplating their inclusion in the holy promises that ground and guide you and your people, even through repentance and God’s mercy…I can imagine that would cause some serious soul-searching. And all that’s true, but it’s also not the whole story. Based on what I thought I knew, honestly, I thought Jonah was acting like a bit of a narrow-minded coward. But this week I read the story for the first time in many many years and I read the whole story. I learned that Nineveh is not just a foreign city, filled with religious and ethnic outsiders in Jonah’s eyes but…Nineveh is an Assyrian city – a power seat of an empire known for its brutally cruel treatment of enemies. You can visit museums that show ancient art of the Assyrians piling up heads like Jonah’s on spikes. These people had done profound harm, and Jonah gets to tell them about the divine judgement headed their way. I can imagine that powerful mix of both terrifying danger and strange sadistic satisfaction.

Jonah has every reason to anticipate that things will go badly and, I think, is justified in fear and resentment. Jonah gives the most half-hearted prophetic call I can think of.  As he walks through the city there’s no grand speech, just one simple line – “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” That’s it.

But then…things actually go well. The people believe God and take it to heart, and take on the acts of repentance. The whole people, from the King to the livestock, commit to change and participate in the work in the hope of redemption.

You would think this would be a pleasant surprise to be celebrated. What seemed unlikely at best and doomed at worst has somehow arrived quickly and peacefully. And God relents of their destruction. Seems like best-case scenario stuff.

But Jonah is pissed. He throws God’s goodness in God’s face and says, “this is exactly why I didn’t want any part of this.” “for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.” I don’t know if he’s spitting mad because in hindsight it seems like it wasn’t worth him getting involved or because he had to risk his own skin for their benefit or because God’s mercy toward these people is absolutely scandalous. What I do know is that he’s mad enough to want to die. He’s ready to cut off his nose to spite his face. He even builds himself a booth outside the city (read: wallow pit) to wait and see if this mercy will really hold out. And I mean…it’s Moira Rose level melodramatic. But you know what? I don’t really blame him. It doesn’t seem fair or just.

Trained caregivers know that when human beings experience anger, it is a secondary emotion to something else. It provides cover for our raw underbelly experiences of hurt, fear, guilt, grief, trauma, among a number of vulnerable feelings we struggle to acknowledge or express.

Under the surface, between and behind this story of what Jonah is doing, is a story of what God is doing.

When Jonah is hurled into the violent sea, God provides a giant fish that actually holds him safe. God lets Jonah stew, and even provides some respite of shade so that he can stew comfortably. But God won’t let him stay bound by his anger forever, which is a kind of mercy too.

God expresses it as concern. God shows the seemingly impossible breadth of bearing concern for both Jonah and the people of Nineveh AND not only the people but all the creatures. After all, if God can have mercy toward Nineveh, isn’t it just as profound that God speaks to Jonah a second time after running away? Isn’t is just as scandalous that the person who’s fear ran amok to the endangerment of random sailors…would still be invited and included in this way of setting things right?

With what then, shall we be concerned?

Someone once said, “When we live from our boundaries rather than from our center – from who we think we aren’t rather than who we really are – then we will fail to see our connectedness with those we perceive to be different.”

God’s mercy says “enough.” God’s grand mercy binds our redemption together and extends beyond what we are prepared for.  God’s mercy shows up in the incarnation of care and concern for our whole and true self as well as the other. God’s mercy endures forever and is new every morning.

I don’t always like it, and I’m not always thankful for it despite myself. Which is also why I desperately need it. I need it to swallow me up and make its home in my heart and my hands. I need it to come a second time. I need this God of mercy to come and be with me in my bones.

O come, O come, Emmanuel. Amen.