Sermon: "Joining God"

6th in the "Jonah" series.
Delivered May 16, 2010 by Rev. Rev. George Antonakos.
Sermon Text: Jonah 4:1-11

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"Driver's Manual" series study guide: booklet or ordered page layouts

Well today we're concluding our series on Jonah, and it's gone rather quickly for me. I have really gotten a lot out of this. I hope you have as well. I don't think before studying this I really understood the tremendous depths of what this book is trying to communicate about God's love and grace. And I've also been interested to see how God can just continue to help somebody who doesn't get it, to try to get it. And what we've seen here through these weeks is that when we really start to grasp how gracious God is even to those we think deserve it the least, we start to squirm a little bit.

And so let's pick it up from chapter 3, verse 10, and that kind of gives us a little context going into the fourth chapter, which we're going to read today. You can find it on page 845 in the pew Bible that's right in front of you if you'd like to follow it. But first, let's pray:

Our Lord, we bless you and praise you for giving us your Word. It is a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. It tells us, Lord, what we need to live upright and Godly lives. And so we pray that as we hear it read and spoken about that it will be truly your Word in our hearts in a specific way that each of us needs through Christ our Lord, Amen.

Jonah 3:10. "When God saw what they did [that's the Ninevites] and how they turned from their evil ways, he relented and did not bring on them the destruction he had threatened. But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 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. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.'

But the Lord replied, 'Is it right for you to be angry?' Jonah went 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. Then the Lord God provided a gourd and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the gourd. But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the gourd so that it withered.

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.' But God said to Jonah, 'Is it right for you to be angry about the gourd?' 'It is,' he said. 'And I'm so angry I wish I were dead.' But the Lord said, 'You have been concerned about this gourd, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city 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?'"

Not sure if you picked up all the questions in this text as we read it, but Jonah asks one, and God asks three. When it comes to questions, it's always a good thing to ask whether we're asking the right questions. And sometimes I think that maybe Jonah and we don't ask the right question. We're asking, perhaps, the wrong question because the unspoken question of Jonah when he said, "Isn't [verse 2] this what I said Lord when I was still at home?" The unspoken question I think is, "Will the day ever come when my enemies get what is coming to them?"

To the extent that we're focused on questions like that, it's going to be very hard to hear the unspoken gist of God's questions, God's three questions in this text. "Will the day ever come when you understand the depth and nature of my grace?" If you couldn't tell, Jonah is one very angry customer at this point in the story. Whenever we see the world through a lens of anger, it is very hard to hear God's questions to us.

Now you may not be feeling angry today, but we all know how anger is easily pushed down and suppressed, that it's often a secondary emotion. The primary emotions have to do with hurt, ways that we get hurt. And so anger many times is a mask for hurt. It's much easier to be mad than sad. And so there are different levels of anger that we may carry around. Clarence Darrow, the famed criminal lawyer, once joked, "Everyone is a potential murderer. I have not killed anyone, but I frequently get satisfaction out of obituary notices."

Now if we laugh, it may mean that we understand that joke all too well. Right? And what it reveals is that we can often appear calm on the outside and encounter people. But on the inside, it's a very different story that we have. There is a less subtle way of communicating our human nature. On my wall, I have Reinhold Niebuhr's Serenity Prayer. "God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change... " You know that one? Here is a variation of that that shows another level of anger. "God, grant me the serenity to forget the people I never liked anyway, the good fortune to run into the ones I do like, and the eyesight to tell the difference." So do I hear an amen on that?

And then there is Jonah. When it comes to the whole scale of anger, he is off the charts, and he is very upset that the day is not coming that he is hoping for. The Hebrew text brings out something that the English text does not. When the Ninevites repented of their evil ways in 3:10, it says "of their evil ways." It says in 4:1, instead of saying, "But to Jonah this seemed very wrong," it really reads the same word. "But to Jonah this seemed evil." It seemed evil to Jonah that they got away with murder.

If Jonah had a mantra, it would be "bad behavior should result in a bad end." And he probably had that mantra. He probably said it all the time to himself. "Bad behavior should result in a bad end." And he takes it very badly that it does not come true. He becomes furious, and his wrath is a bubbling over kind of wrath. He is in full rant mode. The word "I" or "my" is mentioned eight times in the Hebrew in just a couple of verses, so the total focus is on him. And this is what it would sound like I think. "I knew it! I knew this day was coming. I saw it coming from a mile away."

Speaking of a mile away, anybody see the top of the ninth inning last night in the Orioles game? How about that? I mean, for those of you who are uninformed, top of the ninth, two to nothing, Orioles are winning. Starting pitcher pitches his heart out. The closer... They have one out. He only has to get two more outs. He gives up a run. Now it's two to one. And I'm yelling now at the TV. I'm not yelling at the TV, I'm yelling at Dave Trembley who is on the bench. "Dave, he doesn't have it. Get him out! Get him out! It's clear he can't throw a strike."

The next guy comes up. Three-two. I said, "Watch. Just watch." I'm not... There is nobody else in the room. I said, "Just watch. He is going to hit a home run." Bam! He hits a home run. Four to two now. Indians are up. Then they score four more runs. It's eight to two before we get two more outs. And I'm there, "I knew it. Why didn't... ? I could be on that bench. I could do a better job on that bench." This is what I'm thinking. I know I couldn't. I know I couldn't. Well you believe it! I see I have you fooled! That's the antipathy toward our current state of affairs with Baltimore baseball.

But that's it. That means... It's like, "I could see!" That's the way Jonah is. "What are you doing? I can figure this out better than you. Wasn't this my word?" That's what it really literally says. It says in the text, "Isn't this what I said?" But literally it says, "Wasn't this my word?" As subtly comparing to the Word of the Lord? in other words, "Word of the Lord, my word. Your word is ill advised. My word is what really should go here. This is, by the way, why I ran."

And I bet you never would hear this verse spoken in anger. It's a quote from Joel 2:13. "I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity." If it wasn't so pitiful, it would be funny. "God, I knew you were slow to anger!"

Now here is some reading between the lines of verses 2 and 3. "God, your behavior does not conform to my theology. God, it is embarrassing to be the instrument in your mistake." Maybe a picture is worth a thousand words. You know the movie Bruce Almighty? There is a scene in Bruce Almighty where he has this angry rant with his fiancée, and he storms out of the house, upset about what God is or isn't doing in his life. I want you to take a look at this clip. He is not asking for a city to be wiped out, but he is just about as angry as Jonah.

[Video Clip - Bruce Almighty (21:04 - 23:26)]

"Okay, God. You want me to talk to you? Don't beg. Tell me what's going on. What should I do? Give me a signal. I need your guidance, Lord. Please, send me a sign! [truck full of caution and wrong-way signs pulls in front of him] Oh what's this joker doing now?

[Notices rosary, picks it up] Okay. All right. I'll try it your way. All right? Lord, I need a miracle. I'm desperate. I need your help, Lord. Please, reach into my life. Oh! [crashes car into streetlight]

What the... ? Ha ha! Oh! Hey! Hmmm. Fine! The gloves are off, pal. Come on. Let me see a little wrath. Smite me, O mighty Smiter! You're the One who should be fired! The only one around here not doing his job is you! Answer me!

[pager goes off, he looks at the number] Oh. Sorry. Don't know you. Couldn't call you if I did."

[end of video clip]

Do you notice how we tried to get our movie clips to coincide with our displays with the signs? That was complete coincidence. Anyway, verse 3. That's where Jonah is. "So if it's all the same to you, O mighty Smiter, just shoot me because I would rather die than see these people let off the hook. Yeah, that's it. Let them off over my dead body."

When Communism was the world's targeted enemy in the twentieth century, there was a phrase that was a popular bumper sticker. Maybe some of you remember it. "I'd rather be dead than red." And I've heard people say (maybe you have to) when it comes to people who really they don't think very much about, "I'd rather die before I ever saw that person again." That's slightly better than "I'd rather kill them. I'd like to kill them if I ever see them again," but it's not good.

Do you know what comes emotionally close to me in terms of connecting this text? When I think about 9/11, I still get such a visceral feeling about what happened on 9/11. I can't watch it. I can't even watch documentaries about it. What if our President in 2001 relented, responded with mercy instead of might? You know what the headline would have been? "You can't do that. It's going to expose us even more. That's going to create more problems!" I think we might have been angrier if that had been the case or just as angry as the event.

Jonah is one angry prophet, and he is a... It's amazing that God puts up with him. You know, if you've ever worried about getting angry toward God... "Oh, I better not say anything. You know, God might strike me down." Don't worry. You can't go anywhere close to this. We can hear the unspoken gist of God's question again. "Will the day ever come when you truly understand the depth and nature of my grace?" Good teachers ask good questions. And the first of three comes verse 4, but Jonah doesn't have an answer. God says, "Is it right for you to be angry?"

The reason that the question comes to him is, "Jonah, given all the ways that I've let you off the hook, given all the ways that I've shown grace to you, is it right for you to be angry?" The answer is, "No, I don't have any right." But Jonah goes pouting off to the east to see if anything will happen to the city. Just like there are three questions in this text, there are three agents of instruction: a plant, a worm, and a hot east wind. The TNIV says that God provided these things. The Hebrew more says God appointed them, just like the appointing of the big fish. Now other living forces, living things or forces, God is going to use to teach Jonah.

And apparently Jonah's shelter is not that great. Human effort apart from God seldom is. And so in verse 6, God miraculously allows a plant with big, broad palm leaves to shelter his shelter, and it really cools things down. The other day I was watching the Weather Channel. Just happened for a minute to show Middle East temperatures. It was over a hundred degrees in like April or May. And so it's scorching.

And then God sends this wind, this scorching wind, and Jonah is, after being rescued from his distress, it's completely gone. It's completely gone. First he is like saying, "Ah!" And the next minute, he is miserable, almost to the point of heatstroke. His surroundings feel like he is sitting in an oven. And he says once again, "It's better that if I were dead than alive."

And then God asks another question, but this time he asks it in relationship to the plant. "Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?" And Jonah says, "Yes, it's right to be angry. I'm damned angry!" That got your attention. You know what? There is an expletive. There is evidence for an expletive in the Hebrew text. Plus, I like to see if I can get away with cussing in church. He says, "I can't live in such an unpredictable world."

And so what's this all about that God puts him through, this living parable, so to speak? Well, it's God's turn to speak, and I think God might say something like this: "So Jonah, let me see if I understand your theology. You demand that I destroy something or someone in the physical realm. Let's see how you like an example of this theology in your own life in an infinitesimally small way to see what it would feel like to have that kind of judgment the way that you want me to carry it out on a whole city of people." We know that Jonah doesn't like it, so God continues.

"Let's analyze your anger. You were concerned; you had compassion on a plant that you did nothing to create. You didn't plant a seed. You didn't water it. Nothing. It just came up overnight, and it went overnight." That's what God is saying. You had compassion and pity on this plant. I remember pulling a dogwood tree out of my mom's front lawn the spring after she died. It wasn't pushing any buds that spring. And maybe you remember I used it as a sermon illustration not too long ago. And it was so sad to me when I was pulling that tree out because it represented my own loss. And I remember how sad I felt that this thing didn't make it.

Well that's what God is saying. "The only reason, Jonah, you were sorry that that plant died is because of what it did for you. You didn't do a thing about it." And so then God uses that to say, "Now, I have pity and compassion on a hundred and twenty thousand people and all these animals that I labored to create, to try to tend, to try to care for. I feel sorrow and distress when I think about destroying them."

The last verse shows an amazing depth of compassion and love that's rarely expressed in the Old Testament. It's not surpassed I don't think. But this same compassion is even more clearly revealed in the New Testament when Jesus comes upon a crowd of people, and he sees them harassed and helpless out in the scorching sun like sheep without a shepherd. And he teaches them many things, and he feeds them.

When the Lord says to Jonah, "I'm willing to spare these people who do not know their moral right hand from their moral left hand," it's like the words of our Lord Jesus Christ from the Cross, who said, "Father, forgive them because they don't know what they're doing." It's the same depth of compassion expressed even more clearly in our Lord Jesus Christ.

So what are the takeaways from Jonah? I think if we're honest there is a Jonah part that lurks in the heart of every Christian when push comes to shove. We can all limit the extent of God's grace to others. Inside of our heart, there are little angry nooks and crannies where we can nurse anger. And because they are there, we can limit God's grace, especially to those who seem to deserve it least.

This past week I was so blessed when I learned from Amy Lang, Director of HopeSprings Ministry (it's a ministry to those who have contracted HIV and AIDS) that 50 people were coming to this campus to receive training in how to conduct simple saliva tests for future screenings. Fifty people were coming to this campus to learn about that!

But later, you know, I walked away from that, and I thought, "I wonder if the day will ever come when those with the actual disease wouldn't be afraid to let that be known in church?" That day will only come in this or any church when people feel a God-sized compassion in our collective heart. It's not just those who have suffered from that disease, perhaps contracted it from certain behaviors. Many people contract it. It has nothing to do with sin.

But what about other kinds of problems? Will the day come when we more openly confess our sins to one another, when we can admit that we all stand in need of the mercy of God every day? That day will only come when we identify with the words of the apostle Paul, and we think about the extent of God's mercy to us. Talking about being ignorant, look at this passage from 1 Timothy 1:12 to 13. Great saint of God, but what he was before.

"I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me trustworthy, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because... " What? "I acted in ignorance and unbelief. And the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ was poured out abundantly to me."

Will the day ever come when we welcome everyone and anyone regardless of their brand of sin, that they will only come when we realize that we are all debtors to grace, and we will never earn our way into God's grace and favor by our self-effort? Will the day ever come when we might be free of all bitterness and anger and resentment? That day will only come when we hear again the words of our Lord Jesus Christ to a fictitious character in one of his parables who said this: "Ought you not to have shown mercy to your fellow servant as I showed mercy to you?"

And then perhaps that day will come when beyond all that we could ask or think, we will see realized more and more the very depth of God's heart expressed through our heart, hands, and voices the way Peter expressed it. "The Lord is not slow about keeping his promise as some count slowness. Instead, he is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance."

It is the longing of this congregation and many others to see that day come. And to that end, we saw a glimpse of the kind of days that God desires us to be busy with in this world as the Church, days that God is longing for so that we can join God in His passion for the world. Take a look at what happened at ServeFest not too many weeks ago.

[Video - Baltimore County ServeFest 2010 -- link to video]

"Wouldn't it be awesome just one day to see every single church in the Baltimore metropolitan area coming together as one big body of Christ and serving the community in which we live and we serve? That would be awesome!"

"We have about 119 people who are working here at the park."

"I personally made a decision to do ServeFest just because it helps you to get outside of maybe what you would normally do to reach and impact people."

"We're building a bridge, doing a lot of trail maintenance. We have a large beautification project going on where we're planting shrubs and mulching."

"ServeFest is a great organization that's helped me tremendously. I would not have been able to do any of this because it's hard work and it's tedious getting down on your knees and weeding and running wheelbarrows of dirt, and then coming back to fill up with mulch. So it's tough. But everybody is having fun with it."

"It's God's love giving back in serving other people, and that's the most important thing. Again, I made it not about myself but about something bigger."

"We're at the Prettyboy Elementary. Landscape restoration. This project has been... I think, will be a positive impact because it will show the public instead of churches being, you know, introverted, they are extroverted. They are focused on one serving. That's what it's all about. It's just not one church or one body of Christ but the entire Church, and that's what the beauty of this is all about."

"Today for ServeFest, we are loving on families with children with disabilities, and we are providing them with a little bit of childcare so they can go out, enjoy some time together with their spouses, run some errands and get some things done and not have to worry."

"Sarah and I started to get to know each other last fall. Sarah has this neat machine called a Pathfinder that helps her talk."

"I like walking around and being a helper. It gives _____?_____ stand out. Today even though my mom is cooking, I think she took part of Parents' Day Out."

"We're here today receiving food from the various churches in the Baltimore region, and we're actually storing... Taking the food, storing it in the basement here at the Trinity Episcopal Church."

"It's a good opportunity to give back and to do what Christ says to do, which is to serve one another."

"I understand they're building shelves to hold a lot of supplies for ACTC. Also, they're building a kitchen."

"There are people in the community who care about our mission. They care that there are providers like us that give services to the homeless population in Baltimore County."

"And I get excited about the idea of just working with these other churches and getting a part of the big vision of what we're capable of doing for the kingdom when we all work together."

"And now I know this is a place that could use our help in the future. We need more help in this area."

"We're here at Eastern Police District Headquarters in East Baltimore, and what we've done is we've had a time to clean up the outside. A lot of trash. This is a big piece of property with a lot of fencing. We've planted about a half a dozen trees, and we've actually repaired some of the fixed furniture on the walls in the holding cells."

"So we're drilling some new holes, putting some leg bolts in, and hopefully it will be a little bit nicer place for the people to stay while they're here."

"We are at Aigburth Vale Senior Living Center in Towson, and it is a senior living center for low income. They're all independent."

"And I think today the residents are questioning, 'Why is there a group of strangers here?' And it's a great open door. It's a chance to say, 'Well, we would love to shower you with love.'"

"You see all these people when they come out here later, and how much they'll enjoy their new rock garden and being able to see the sports next door. It's all giving back."

"Hunt Valley Church is just wonderful. It's like family to everybody here. I know that it's like family to me."

[end of video clip]

How many of you were able to participate in ServeFest? Raise your hand. Yeah. I'd ask you to stand, but I know you don't want to do that. It was a great day. What a great way to show the compassion of God in just a small way. So as that positive image kind of sticks with us, let's pray and ask the Lord to extend our compassion beyond what we can even ask or think.

Lord, we thank you for your love. We thank you for how it was expressed and manifested by thousands of people in the Baltimore County area and even beyond. We thank you, Lord, for these ways of stepping outside of ourselves and being your hands and feet to those in need. Lord, we don't do it to earn your favor. We do it because you have poured out your grace upon us. So help us to continue to do that in every aspect of our lives as we draw strength from you, our Lord Jesus Christ in whose name we pray, Amen.

© 2010, Rev. Rev. George Antonakos
Central Presbyterian Church, Baltimore, MD 21204 410/823-6145
www.centralpc.org