God's Pervasive Love

God knows and understands our feelings, but our feelings and God’s feelings are not always the same. God loves people whom we have trouble loving or cannot imagine ever loving, which can be difficult for us to understand and accept.

Anger can be a very toxic emotion. Mark Twain wrote “anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.” Billy Sunday, a famous preacher of the past, once encountered a lady who said, “I blow up, and then it’s all over.” Sunday replied, “So does a shotgun, and look at the damage it leaves behind.”

The Bible has much to say about anger. Jonah had a problem with anger. As the Lord worked through him to bring the people of Nineveh to repentance, God also worked with Jonah to help him overcome this problem. Anger is not sinful in and of itself. But irrational anger needs corrective action, and that’s what God provides Jonah in today’s lesson.

Jonah’s Pettitness -

Jonah 4:1–4 NRSV

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; 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. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

The compassionate decision of God in is not what the prophet wants to hear! He is angry that his preaching results in the city’s being spared God’s destructive wrath. This is not the way a preacher would normally react when his message brings repentance by the thousands!

Jonah turns his anger into prayer, but his motivation is not to become compliant with what God has done. Instead, he seems to be trying to make God feel guilty for sending him on the mission trip to Nineveh. He wants God to do things Jonah’s way, not God’s way.

A certain parallel can be seen in churches where people enjoy Christianity’s benefits but are unwilling to support ministries adequately. The sad result is to deny people in other lands and cultures the blessing of everlasting life through Jesus. After realizing how much the Lord has forgiven us, we should want others to know that there is a God who is willing to forgive them as well.

How can we avoid feeling resentful when God extends his mercy to others?

Jonah’s frustration with the flow of events overwhelms him - so much so that he expects his preference for death over life. This contrasts with his attitude when he was inside the fish, for there he wanted to live and see God’s temple again. Jonah’s inconsistent reasoning serves as a marvelous set-up for the memorable lesson God is about to teach him.

As with Job, the Lord responds to Jonah’s anger with a question. The Lord does not ask his question because he needs information - the Lord already knows everything. The question is designed to get Jonah to think. But Jonah is so aggravated that he cannot process the question.

What are some steps to take for moving from anger to mercy?

Jonah’s Protection -

Jonah 4:5–8 NRSV

Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

Our view of Jonah now shifts from the emotional to the physical actions he takes. After he is out of the city, Jonah finds a mound or high point that gives him a better view of Nineveh. There he builds a crude hut for shade where he can wait to see what will happen to the city.

God’s love and mercy can make us uncomfortable: God’s capacity for love and forgiveness is so much greater than our own. We cannot even love ourselves as thoroughly as God loves us, and for some people, a limited idea of divine love begins with denying that love to themselves. It takes a leap of faith to simply accept that God’s love is abundantly available to others without diminishing that love for us. God’s love goes beyond what we can understand or justify.

Is there anything about God’s love that you find difficult to understand or accept?

God used a great sea creature to correct Jonah’s attitude about a trip to Nineveh. Now he uses a plant and worms to teach his prophet a further lesson. The plant and the worm does what God designed and programmed them to do. God has used a great fish and a storm to get Jonah to go to Nineveh. Now God uses transforms his anger to a merciful level of understanding.

What can we do to prepare for times that will be difficult to endure?

God’s Pronouncements -

Jonah 4:9–11 NRSV

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

God is not finished with his efforts to correct Jonah’s thinking. Jonah is being challenged to think correctly about the mind-set a true prophet should have. God is probing deeper as he requires Jonah to think about something specific, something that is not associated with the city of Nineveh.

Jonah’s response if pretty defensive, and almost defiant. Jonah cannot comprehend why he has to suffer the loss of the plant. God’s directive for Jonah to preach in Nineveh seemed to strike a deep vein of resentment in that prophet; thus we see him “flying off the handle” at God.

In America’s pioneer days, axheads were made in the industrialized East, then shipped to the frontier West for fitting with handles. The handles were often fashioned by unskilled handymen, yielding the deadly possibility that an axhead could fly off an ill-fitting handle when in use. Do you deal with your anger any better than did Jonah?

God’s second question is soften Jonah’s attitude. God’s observations of fact challenge Jonah’s thinking by reminding the prophet that he had no ownership of the plant, for he had neither planted nor tended it. These facts should compel the prophet to realize how absurd and small his defensive statements really are.

The Lord’s final question demands that Jonah contrast his thoughts about the plant with God’s thoughts regarding Nineveh. Jonah should feel embarrassed, for it is obvious that the population of a large city is more important than a single, solitary plant. Jonah’s self-centeredness is now so obvious that even he should see it.

How God feels about someone else is not for us to choose. God will decide how to act in the world. Did Jonah trust God to be God; do we? How has you understanding of God’s love changed over time?

Conclusion

In general, there are two mistakes we can make in our relationship with God. First, we can lag behind, failing to move as fast as he wants us to. The other mistake is to run ahead of him. It is so easy to run ahead of God and presume that he must do such and such! The presumption resulted in anger and pouring on Jonah’s part, and it can do the same to us. Don’t run ahead of God!

Prayer

Lord we love you, and we trust you; but sometimes, when your ideas are different from our own, we become confused and upset. Changing our hearts and changing our minds is uncomfortable for us. Forgive us for demanding that you limit your love in the same ways as our own love is limited. Forgive us for trying to make you in our image instead of allowing you to shape us into your own image. Give us the courage to love as you love; in Jesus’ name. Amen.

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