Jonah & Mercy
Readings: Jonah (all, but chapter 3 was read), Hebrews 9. 24-28
Jonah is a fairly small book, tucked away amidst the other minor prophets, and yet this story packs quite the punch. We often associate it with children, it’s a nice little story about a runaway prophet who gets swallowed by a big fish. But if we dismiss it because we associate it with children we’re missing out. The story and book of Jonah have quite the challenge for us, especially on this Remembrance Sunday.
You likely know how the story goes. God speaks to Jonah, tells him to go and preach to Nineveh, warning them of God’s coming judgement. And what does Jonah do? Hops straight in a boat heading the other way. Why? Why does Jonah run away rather than go and speak to the people of Nineveh?
It’s because Jonah knows what God is like. He knows that God is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending disaster, from punishing. That’s why he runs away. Why would he run away because God is like that? Because he doesn’t want the people of Nineveh to repent, he doesn’t want them to experience God’s love and compassion and grace. He wants them to get what’s coming to them. And how human is that? How modern is that? We don’t want to engage with our enemies, we don’t want to treat them like us, we want them to get what’s coming to them. When we think of the wars and violence raging across the world, we will often side with the weaker side, the victim. We naturally want the aggressor punished, we want the aggressor to get what’s coming to them. And in some ways it’s rooted in a desire for justice, we want right to prevail, we want evil to be held to account, we want the victims cared for.
You’ll remember I opened the service with that famous quote from another of the minor prophets, the prophet Micah; ‘what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God’. We want justice, what is right to prevail. But so easily a longing for justice tips into a longing for vengeance, a desire to see the enemy punished, dealt with, pay every last bit of what is owed. And this sort of attitude isn’t just about wars and violence, its seeped into every part of our public discourse, and the way we handle differences. We want those who don’t agree with us to get what’s coming to them.
Jonah is so like us, he’s been waiting for Nineveh to get what’s coming to them, and now that he’s being sent as the agent of their saving, he runs away, he doesn’t want them to be saved, he wants them to be punished. Our desire for justice can so easily slip into a desire for vengeance.
Jonah runs away, and yet God won’t let him. A huge storm hits the ship, it’s going to sink, everyone aboard will die, and eventually he has them throw him overboard. And so they do, the seas calm, and Jonah is swallowed by a big fish. He’s there for three days and three nights, before being vomited up on the shore and once again commissioned to go and preach to Nineveh.
And we hear in our passage about that preaching and its results. The people repent, they turn from their evil. Hearing that God is about to act in judgement they get their act together. And boy do they get their act together to show their sorrow for their sin, they even have the animals fast, even dress them in sackcloth. And God see’s and he relents, he doesn’t come in judgement, instead he has mercy. Unlike us who often want to see our opponents get what’s coming to them, God loves mercy, withholding what is deserved in terms of punishment. Mercy is different to permissiveness or not caring. Mercy is tied up with a change of heart, to see those who have done evil change. Jonah doesn’t want to give them that opportunity, he doesn’t want them to change, he wants them punished, God who is merciful wants to give them the chance, and seeing them change he shows mercy.
How much does our world need mercy at the moment. A willingness to sit down with opponents and enemies and to talk. Whether it’s to speak of the pain inflicted, the suffering caused, the evils done. We cannot live in a world without mercy, because in a world without mercy we fall into an eye for an eye, and slowly the world is blinded. Somewhere, at some point, mercy needs to be shown. And again mercy isn’t about sweeping wrongdoing under the carpet, quite the opposite, it’s to pull it all out into the open, every last bit, to heap it up upon the table for all to see. As Jonah goes through the city preaching that their evil is about to come undone, he’s pulling their evil into the open for all to see, laying it bear. And once we’ve laid it all out, plain for all to see, we’re to watch what happens, will they repent? Faced with the wrongs and evils, will they repent, turn back? And when they do to then show mercy, to sweep it all of the table and say it’s done, it’s gone. Mercy is still about justice because it pulls evil and sin into the light, but it stops short of saying ‘therefore I’m owed something and I want every last drop’.
As Christians we’re to be a people who love mercy, as Micah reminds us. Who long to see those who do wrong, even great wrong, who do it against us, to long to see them realise what they have done and turn from it. And when they truly do to welcome them, to rebuild. War will never cease when one side needs to get what they are due.
We’re to be a people of mercy. And it’s because at the root we’re a people who have been shown mercy. Jonah as he’s demanding that Nineveh be punished is overlooking the fact that he’s run away from God, that he should face the consequences of that, and yet at every turn God is showing him mercy, turning him back, saving him by the fish, shielding him from the sun with the plant in chapter 4. God is constantly pouring out mercy on Jonah. And God has poured out his mercy on us. As we heard in that reading from Hebrews, Christ has taken upon himself our sins, taken them from us. When we turned from our sin, repented and turned back to God we have received mercy, for we have not received what our sins deserved, Christ has, so that we can go free. The fact that God is merciful is wonderful news, because if he wasn’t none of us could ever stand before him. None of us, no matter how good we may think we are, would ever measure up to that perfect standard we are meant for. So having known the forgiveness and mercy of God in our own sin, our default mode should be to long that more should know that forgiveness and mercy in theirs.
The final part of that quote from Micah ‘to walk humbly with your God’. Jonah having preached goes up a hill outside the city to watch the fireworks, and when they don’t arrive, when the city isn’t destroyed, he’s furious. He doesn’t want God to have relented, Jonah knows what’s best, why won’t God do it, they deserve punishment not mercy. Jonah isn’t humble, he won’t accept that God’s ways are not his ways, indeed are better than his ways. Jonah wants God to do as Jonah wants. And again we’re so often the same. We’re not humble, we don’t submit ourselves to what God is doing, trust in what he’s doing, we think we know best. Our pride bubbles up, blinds us to our own sin and need for mercy, and declares that we know better than God.
And yet God speaks to Jonah of how he has watched this people grow, raised them, tended to them. He loves them, longs for their good. Of course he wants to save them. In acting justly, loving mercy, we’re also to walk humbly with God, trusting that his ways are better than ours, that he sees a far bigger picture than us.
Because God is good, and sadly Nineveh doesn’t escape forever, whilst this generation turn to God and are saved, within a few generations they are knee deep in sin and evil again, and God does come, and he does bring justice. He will not allow evil to flourish, instead in his mercy he gives time, time to either repent and turn back, or to go so deep into sin that they condemn themselves. And as part of that trust is not going after vengeance ourselves, not enacting God’s judgement before he does, is there someone you think is beyond the pale, who should never be forgiven? Let us not long for their destruction but their salvation, and pray that as we wait for God to act, that they would repent.
We’re to trust, trust that God will ultimately bring justice, that good will prevail, that all will be held to account for their actions. Whilst evil and violence may flourish in our day, a day is coming when peace will come, peace without end.
What does the Lord require of you? Let us be a people who long for justice to prevail, for evil to be faced up to, confronted and stopped in its tracks. Let us be a people who love mercy, who long that hearts may be changed, that people may turn from wrong and know the forgiveness of God. And let us be a people who walk humbly with the Lord, trusting that evil will not win, that righteousness and justice will prevail, that he is truly for our good.
Amen.