Lenten Reflection: When Grace Offends Us

Jonah 4:1-11

4 But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. 2 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 and merciful God, slow to anger, abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment. 3 And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” 5 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.

6 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. 7 But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8 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.”

9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” 10 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. 11 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?”

If I ask folks what they know about Jonah, most will tell me about a reluctant prophet who tried to run from God. They will mention a storm, a ship, Jonah being thrown overhead, and a large fish. (Usually a whale)

There retell usually stops there and the debate on whether someone could survive in the belly of a whale begins.

Eventually somebody will remember that Jonah was spit out onto dry land covered in fish slime, went to Nineveh, preached God’s message, and the city was saved.

But that is not really the heart of the story.

Like many biblical accounts, we think we know Jonah. We picture the dramatic moment in the sea. We focus on the miracle inside the fish. Yet the real story and scandal found in this small prophetic book happens after the preaching, after the repentance, after the revival that takes place among the people of Nineveh.

The real story and controversy is that God saves the wrong people.

Nineveh was not a friendly neighbor to the Israelites who are after all God’s chosen people.

They were enemies. Violent. Feared. They were “them,” not “us.” They were the kind of people you did not pray for. They were the kind of people you prayed against.

And yet God forgives them.

Jonah’s anger about this in chapter four is almost shocking in its honesty. He does not deny that God is merciful. In fact, that is precisely his complaint. Actually, some scholars say it is stronger language than complain but we will keep this G rated.

Jonah Gordon to say, “I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from punishment.”

Jonah is angry because God is consistent with God’s own character.

This reluctant proper would rather jump in the sea and die than live in a world where his enemies receive grace.

That is what makes this Biblical text so uncomfortable. It confronts something in us that we would prefer not to examine. You see we are often quite comfortable with mercy as long as it is directed toward us or toward people who think like us, vote like us, worship like us, or live like us. But when grace flows toward those we struggle to understand, disagree with, or quietly condemn, something tightens inside our chest.

The people who argue with us online.

The neighbor whose sign in the yard and bumper stickers makes our blood pressure rise.

The group we have already decided is beyond redemption.

Lent invites us to notice that uncomfortable tightening in us.

It calls us to examine the subtle prejudices we carry, the assumptions we would rather not question, the quiet boundaries we draw around who deserves compassion. It asks us to confess the ways we sometimes prefer justice for others and mercy for ourselves.

An interesting fact is that Jonah is the only prophet in Scripture who resents hearts being changed. The city repents. Violence ceases. Lives are spared.

And the prophet pouts. He actually goes and sulks outside the city.

Meanwhile, God asks a simple question that hangs over the entire book.

“Is it right for you to be angry?”

Jonah cares more about a plant that gave him shade for a day while sulking than about thousands of human beings who “do not know their right hand from their left.” He grieves a withered bush but resents a redeemed city.

And if we are honest, sometimes you and I are not so different.

We mourn our inconveniences. We defend our comfort. We protect our categories. But God’s mercy refuses to stay inside the boundaries we draw.

The good news, and yes perhaps the unsettling news, is that the same mercy that offends us is the mercy that saves us. The same God who refuses to give up on Nineveh refuses to give up on Jonah. And refuses to give up on us.

God’s grace is not limited. It is not rationed out according to our preferences. It overflows beyond every fence we try to build around it.

The book ends not with an answer but with a question.

“Should I not be concerned?”

Lent is not about answering that question quickly. It is about sitting with it. Letting it work on us. Allowing it to soften the hard edges of our hearts. And trusting that as God widens our compassion, we begin to resemble the One whose mercy has always been wider than ours.

Prayer

Gracious and merciful God,

slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love,

we confess that your mercy sometimes unsettles us.

We are quick to receive forgiveness

and slow to extend it.

We rejoice in grace when it reaches us

but hesitate when it reaches those we struggle to love.

Search our hearts in this Lenten season.

Reveal our hidden resentments and quiet prejudices.

Expose the boundaries we draw around your compassion.

Forgive us.

Thank you for being more generous than we are,

more patient than we are,

more loving than we are.

Teach us to rejoice in the wideness of your mercy

until our hearts begin to reflect your own.

Through Christ our Lord,

Amen.