Sermon: “God Loves the People We Hate”
November 8th, 2020 Rev. Betsy Perkins
Scripture passage: Jonah 1-4 First Baptist Church, Delavan WI
It’s been a stressful week! It has been a stressful year! As I began to think about this sermon at the beginning of the week and even as I wrote it in the middle of the week, it was impossible to predict what the outcome of the presidential race would be. We are unable to predict the outcome of the pandemic and so many other aspects of our lives that seem to hang in the balance. But thankfully, the story of Jonah that we are given for today, fits any outcome, all outcomes. It’s also full of humor and probably what we all need most is a good laugh!
1 The Lord’s word came to Jonah, Amittai’s son:
Let’s pause right there for the first chuckle of irony that this story provides – Jonah is identified as the son of Amittai. In Hebrew the name Amittai means ‘to be faithful’, but if you know anything about what’s coming in this story you’ll know that Jonah proves to be anything but a ‘son of faithfulness’! More often he is called a ‘reluctant prophet’, known for being defiant, uncooperative and irritable. But to Jonah, son of faithfulness, God says this:
2 “Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their evil has come to my attention.”
Now we need a bit of a history and geography lesson to really understand what God is asking of Jonah. Nineveh was an important city in the Assyrian Empire, located on the Tigris River, about 500 miles, a full month’s journey from Israel. The Assyrian army was an aggressive enemy against Israel. At one point they attack the northern capital of Israel and deport over 27,000 residents, inviting foreigners to take their homes and land. The battles were fierce and the Assyrian soldiers were ruthless. In museums today you can see large ancient carvings depicting one of the battles called the Siege of Lachish, a town in Judea, Israel. The relief shows scribes counting stacks of human heads, the decapitated heads of the Jewish people, in order to pay soldiers according to a per head policy. This wall carving was discovered by archeologists, hanging in the king’s palace in Nineveh. Not only was God directing Jonah, a Jew, to go to Nineveh to deliver a message of condemnation, he would have to travel a month through enemy territory to get there, territory presumably filled with contingents of soldiers wanting to make a little money off a Jewish head! It would have probably been safer for a Jew to go into Auschwitz to deliver a message to Hitler, than for Jonah to go to the king of Nineveh.
3 So Jonah got up—to flee to Tarshish from the Lord! He went down to Joppa and found a ship headed for Tarshish. He paid the fare and went aboard to go with them to Tarshish, away from the Lord.
Tarshish, Tarshish, Tarshish. Again geography is important, for Tarshish is in the opposite direction of Nineveh. God said “Go east,” and Jonah went west. Jonah was not just reluctant – he was actively uncooperative. He wanted not only many miles, but the whole Mediterranean Sea between him and Nineveh. And I can’t say I blame him.
4 But the Lord hurled a great wind upon the sea, so that there was a great storm on the sea; the ship looked like it might be broken to pieces. 5 The sailors were terrified, and each one cried out to his god. They hurled the cargo that was in the ship into the sea to make it lighter. Now Jonah had gone down into the hold of the vessel to lie down and was deep in sleep. 6 The ship’s officer came and said to him, “How can you possibly be sleeping so deeply? Get up! Call on your god! Perhaps the god will give some thought to us so that we won’t perish.”
Jonah is laughable! Just when the boat starts to heave and shake on the stormy sea, just when it’s time to do some serious praying, Jonah decides to take a nap. Jonah, who is so terrified of the Ninevites, is now sleeping in a storm that is terrifying seasoned sailors. What a guy!
7 Meanwhile, the sailors said to each other, “Come on, let’s cast lots so that we might learn who is to blame for this evil that’s happening to us.” They cast lots, and the lot fell on Jonah. 8 So they said to him, “Tell us, since you’re the cause of this evil happening to us: What do you do and where are you from? What’s your country and of what people are you?” 9 Jonah said to them, “I’m a Hebrew. I worship the Lord, the God of heaven—who made the sea and the dry land.” 10 Then the men were terrified and said to him, “What have you done?” (The men knew that Jonah was fleeing from the Lord, because he had told them.) 11 They said to him, “What will we do about you so that the sea will become calm around us?” (For the sea was continuing to rage.)
Sailors are known to be a rowdy, superstitious bunch. Before the days of doppler radar and Storm Track Weather apps, they blamed angry gods and somebody’s bad karma for sudden changes in the weather. These sailors figured out it is Jonah’s fault. And amazingly, Jonah does the one right thing in the first part of this story – he testifies to his faith in the Lord, the God of all creation, who made the sea and the dry land. Jonah accepts responsibility and offers the sailors a solution, though it may have actually been another attempt to escape from God:
12 He said to them, “Pick me up and hurl me into the sea! Then the sea will become calm around you. I know it’s my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” 13 The men rowed to reach dry land, but they couldn’t manage it because the sea continued to rage against them. 14 So they called on the Lord, saying, “Please, Lord, don’t let us perish on account of this man’s life, and don’t blame us for innocent blood! You are the Lord: whatever you want, you can do.” 15 Then they picked up Jonah and hurled him into the sea, and the sea ceased its raging. 16 The men worshipped the Lord with a profound reverence; they offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made solemn promises.
Jonah is supposed to be paddling to save his life, but he has thrown up his hands. Jonah is supposed to be the pious one, but it’s the sailors who come to faith. Those rowdy, raunchy sailors are models of morality, distraught at the thought that they could be responsible for the loss of an innocent life, praying to Jonah’s God, offering sacrifices and vows to honor the Lord. The believer is acting hopeless, and the ones who didn’t have a hope have become believers. What a fun twist!
17 Meanwhile, the Lord provided a great fish to swallow Jonah. Jonah was in the belly of the fish for three days and three nights. 2 Jonah prayed to the Lord his God from the belly of the fish: 2 “I called out to the Lord in my distress, and he answered me. I called to you from the land of the dead, and Lord, you heard me!… Deliverance belongs to the Lord!”
It is actually a much longer prayer than that – it fills chapter 2 and is printed on the back of your bulletin. But here’s the thing about his prayer – when Jonah is in the belly of the whale and supposed to be begging God to save him, what does he do instead? He prays a prayer of thanksgiving – he can’t even get that right! Or maybe he does, maybe Jonah has a lot more faith in God than we give him credit for. He seems to know God better than we realize.
10 Then the Lord spoke to the fish, and it vomited Jonah onto the dry land. 3 The Lord’s word came to Jonah a second time: 2 “Get up and go to Nineveh, that great city, and declare against it the proclamation that I am commanding you.”
God gives Jonah – reluctant, uncooperative, disobedient Jonah – a second chance. Sure, that chance begins in a pile of whale vomit, but hey, he’s alive. It reminds me of Psalm 139 that asks, “Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” Jonah has discovered that there is nowhere he can run to get away from God! For some that is reassuring, for others it might be annoying or even downright disturbing.
3 And Jonah got up and went to Nineveh, according to the Lord’s word. (Now Nineveh was indeed an enormous city, a three days’ walk across.) 4 Jonah started into the city, walking one day, and he cried out, “Just forty days more and Nineveh will be overthrown!”
“Forty days and Nineveh destroyed!” That is the sum total of Jonah’s preaching to the Ninevites – just 5 words in Hebrew. The bare minimum to fulfill God’s assignment, and yet of all the sermons preached in the history of the world, astoundingly, this may be among the most effective! Again, I think the author of this story wanted us to listen and laugh, to shake our heads and smile.
5 And the people of Nineveh believed God. They proclaimed a fast and put on mourning clothes, from the greatest of them to the least significant. 6 When word of it reached the king of Nineveh, he got up from his throne, stripped himself of his robe, covered himself with mourning clothes, and sat in ashes. 7 Then he announced, “In Nineveh, by decree of the king and his officials: Neither human nor animal, cattle nor flock, will taste anything! No grazing and no drinking water! 8 Let humans and animals alike put on mourning clothes, and let them call upon God forcefully! And let all persons stop their evil behavior and the violence that’s under their control!” 9 He thought, Who knows? God may see this and turn from his wrath, so that we might not perish.
The Ninevities, from the king to the cows, believe God. From the king to the cows, they recognize how wrong they have been. From the king to the cows, they apologize to God and determine to change their ways. The irony of this scene is that God had been sending prophets to the people of Israel for more than a hundred years to try to let them know they were headed down a destructive path – Elijah, Elisha, Amos, Hosea, Isaiah – but the people of Israel rarely repented like this.
10 God saw what they were doing—that they had ceased their evil behavior. So God stopped planning to destroy them, and God didn’t do it. 4 But Jonah thought this was utterly wrong, and he became angry. 2 He prayed to the Lord, “Come on, Lord! Wasn’t this precisely my point when I was back in my own land? This is why I fled to Tarshish earlier! I know that you are a merciful and compassionate God, very patient, full of faithful love, and willing not to destroy. 3 At this point, Lord, you may as well take my life from me, because it would be better for me to die than to live.”
There! He said it! Jonah finally admits he didn’t run away from his assignment because he was afraid of the Ninevites, he ran away because he wanted no part in a positive outcome for people he hated. He knew God might treat them compassionately, mercifully, lovingly – and it irritated him! He wanted God to hate his enemies as much as he did, yet he knew in his heart of hearts that wasn’t true. Jonah knows God, and he doesn’t like God’s way of doing things. He wants to imagine God as hateful and vengeful as he is.
I don’t know if you’ve ever seen the t-shirt that’s around with this saying: God Loves the People We Hate. Think about that for a moment. God loves the people you hate. Are there people you want to hate because of the way they voted? Or the way they wear or don’t wear masks? Or how they treat people of another race or nationality? Or a whole host of other reasons from how they rake their leaves to how they spend their money? God loves the people we hate!
4 The Lord responded, “Is your anger a good thing?” 5 But Jonah went out from the city and sat down east of the city. There he made himself a hut and sat under it, in the shade, to see what would happen to the city.
Jonah has gone off to sulk. And while we are surprised that God gave the Ninevites a second chance, we should probably have been even more surprised that God gave Jonah the second chance. Yet even in this new rebellion, even in his deep depression, God is with Jonah.
6 Then the Lord God provided a shrub, and it grew up over Jonah, providing shade for his head and saving him from his misery. Jonah was very happy about the shrub. 7 But the next day at dawn God provided a worm, and it attacked the shrub so that it died. 8 Then as the sun rose God provided a dry east wind, and the sun beat down on Jonah’s head so that he became faint. He begged that he might die, saying, “It’s better for me to die than to live.” 9 God said to Jonah, “Is your anger about the shrub a good thing?” Jonah said, “Yes, my anger is good—even to the point of death!”
It’s gotta make us smile, that the shrub, the worm, the sea, the fish are all more cooperative with God than Jonah is! Four times now Jonah has admitted that he just wants to cling to his angry resistance against God. He would rather die than extend to others the mercy that God has extended to him. He would rather die than forgive. How hard it is to forgive those we hate. Perhaps that is why Jesus taught us to link God’s willingness to forgive us with our willingness to forgive others: “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.”
10 Then the Lord said, “You ‘pitied’ the shrub, for which you didn’t work and which you didn’t raise; it grew in a night and perished in a night. 11 Yet for my part, can’t I pity Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than one hundred twenty thousand people who can’t tell their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”
It is amazing how Jonah is more concerned about a plant than he is about people. But the fact is that Jonah’s opposition to God’s mercy and grace is not unusual. We see it in the begrudging attitude of the elder brother in Jesus’ story of the prodigal son. We see it religious leaders who were offended when Jesus heals a blind man on a Sabbath day. If we’re honest, we might see it in ourselves. The book of Jonah ends with a question, a question that is now ours to answer. Will we do any better than Jonah? Will we accept God’s love for lawless sailors and evil Ninevites? Will we accept God’s love for those we disagree with? We can’t predict what’s going to happen in these uncertain times, but we can predict that God will extend mercy and grace and love, even to those we hate. And if God can forgive them, well then, God can forgive me and you as well!
Closing Song: “There’s a Wideness in God’s Mercy”
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