Friday, July 20

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Friday

But Jonah was greatly displeased and became angry.  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.   Now, O LORD, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”   - Jonah 4:1-3

For the second time in this story, Jonah prays.  In the first part (Jonah 2) he prays when he's desperate, when he's in the belly of the fish, in the depths of the sea, and it looks like he's going to die, and he wants to live. "Oh, God!, help me. Let me live. Forgive my disobedience." and God hears him and gives him grace.  

In his first prayer, Jonah's going to die and he prays, "God, let me live." This time he's in the middle of this amazing triumph of life, he prays, "God, let me die."  At this point, he doesn't really want to die.  This is like an adolescent. "God, I want my own way, and I want it to be the destruction of the Ninevites." "Please," he says twice in this verse. This is not a polite please; this is an annoying two-syllable please that kids use when they are whining - “Puh-leeaase!” 

Notice that Jonah says in his prayer, "is this not what I said when I was still at home? "  Now, in fact, Jonah didn't say anything like this back home in the first chapter.  The truth was that he said nothing at all, he just ran away out of fear.  Now he conveniently remembers himself as the champion of justice. "I saw this one coming." He claims he always knew God was going to go soft.

There's something else going on in this prayer that would be very apparent to its readers. It's important for us to see this to get the tension. Jonah says, "I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God." He's quoting here one of the most famous confessions of God's identity in the history of Israel.

Exodus 34:6 - And he passed in front of Moses, proclaiming,  “The LORD, the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

God is revealing here, not just His reality, not just His power, but His character...His heart. This was so sacred to Israel. This was the most prized revelation of God's identity in the history of their people. Any devout Jew knew these words by heart.  They knew these words like we know the words to the song, Happy Birthday.  Only Jonah leaves something out. This would be glaringly obvious to any Israelite reading this text.  Let’s compare the two texts...

Exodus 34:6 - the LORD, the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness.

Jonah 4:2 - I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love,

What word is missing?  “faithfulness” 

What is going on here?  Did Jonah just make a mistake?  Was this simply an innocent omission?  I don’t think so.  Jonah is intentionally impugning the character of God.  He is saying (in effect) “Oh sure God, You abound in love, but what about faithfulness to Your Word?  You said You were going to punish Nineveh....well?  What about it?”

How does God respond?

God is so patient with Jonah. Jonah goes on this tirade and impugns God's character, and all God says in return is, "Is it right for you to be angry?"  Jonah doesn't give any answer. Jonah gives God the silent treatment.  (it may seem ridiculous to us, but don’t we often do the same thing when we ignore the clear Word of God?)  

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. I think Jonah's still hoping...forty days...Nineveh is going to get blasted.

Then there's this odd little part of the story. If you've ever read through the book, you may have wondered about this. It is such a strange account. 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. (4:6) That word "provided" is going to recur here, same word as provided a great fish back in the first chapter. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the vine so that it withered. (4:7)  That seems like a dirty, little trick, doesn't it?  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.” (4:8)

But God said to Jonah,  (Here is that question again) “Do you have a right to be angry about the vine?”  “I do,” he said.  “I am angry enough to die.” (4:9)

Does that seem a little immature to you?  (me too)  It's like God's dealing with a five-year-old here. You understand there's something here going way, way deeper than Jonah just worrying about getting a sunburn or something.

God is trying to teach Jonah about His heart for people.  It's a funny thing, God seems to have have a harder time saving Jonah than He does saving Nineveh.  When Jesus came, the people that Jesus had the hardest time with were not the people that everybody considered the big sinners...not the prostitutes, not the tax collectors, not the people that you'd obviously associate with a place like Nineveh. The people Jesus had the hardest time with were people who considered themselves the spiritually mature. They had these superior, judgmental, unloving hearts. It's a funny thing.

People matter to God. The jobless person. The homeless person. The wealthy and successful person. They just matter to God. God is not like you & me. God doesn't look at categories like we do, and think, People in this category, they’re my kind of people. I like these kinds of people. But people in that category over there, I can let go of them without much pain. People matter to God. Depressed people. Educated people. Divorced people. People with different politics than yours. They all matter to God. Conservative people and liberal people. Muslims. Atheists. New Age people. Every color of skin. Asian people. Hispanic people. Caucasian people. African American people. Gay people. Old people. Young People.  All People matter to God. Every one of them!  And they should matter to us too.

Jeff Frazier