Sunday Homily - September 20, 2020 - "Is it right for you to be angry?"
The Prophet Jonah Icon
Sixteenth Sunday after Pentecost
Jonah 3:10-4:11
Psalm 145:1-8
Philippians 1:21-30
Matthew 20:1-16
I.
Anger is an emotion
that is often difficult to manage.
Have you ever had to coach your kids or grand-kids
how to manage their anger?
Or even better, have you seen a kid
who had a meltdown when they couldn't figure out
what to do with that temper rising inside of them?
I don't know about y'all,
but I've never had such a sympathetic connection
with the parents at Walmart who are on their last nerve
with a child who just isn't having it.
Often, kids aren't mad about being just the fact of being in Walmart, right?
There are all kinds of other factors that lead them to that tantrum
that they aren't even aware of at the time.
Missing nap time makes anyone cranky,
but for kids who need naps,
that can lead to some problems controlling anger!
How about hunger?
We even have a word for this:
hangry!
Have you ever had difficulty handling your emotions
when you missed a meal?
And, if you haven't guessed yet,
this isn't just something kids deal with.
No matter if you are 5 or 55,
there are factors that lead to anger and other emotions
that have nothing to do with what is happening at the moment you feel it.
The tough day at work,
a lack of adequate sleep,
a rough emotional situation in your life
will often skew our responses to relatively small things.
It is helpful to remember the factors that lead up to big outbursts,
because often those factors that lead to the outbursts
are far more important than that moment where anger comes out.
II.
This is exactly the case with the Prophet Jonah.
Now, most of us probably know Jonah much better
from the earlier story in this prophet's life
when he gets swallowed by a giant fish
and lived in its belly for three days.
But, it is helpful to get the whole context of what Jonah is asked
by the Lord Most High when he calls Jonah as his prophet.
The very first two sentences of the book of Jonah
set the theme pretty clearly:
"The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Tarshish."
[Jonah 1:1-3, NASB]
Basically,
Jonah is called by God to go and preach against Nineveh.
And in response, Jonah, both figuratively AND literally
goes the exact opposite direction,
as Tarshish is decidedly NOT the same direction as Nineveh.
But, there is so much more to the subtext of these opening verses
in the book of Jonah.
And these factors are very important to understand
as they are far more important
than it may seem on the surface.
First, we have to discover how audacious this call from God was
to call Jonah to prophesy against Nineveh.
Jonah lives, according to 2 Kings 14,
during the time of King Jeroboam II of Israel,
and only a few generations before Israel is taken captive by the Assyrians.
But,
can you guess what city was Assyria's capitol?
The capitol of the Assyrian kingdom that eventually conquered and took Israel captive
was none other than Nineveh,
the exact city that God commanded Jonah to prophesy against.
What do you think may have gone through Jonah's mind
when he first received that call to prophesy
against the powerful kingdom of Assyria
against which any provocation could lead to war with Israel?
I can't help but sympathize with him for running.
It still wasn't right, but goodness I can at least understand a little as to why.
But in Jonah's running,
this is where we have the most widely known account of Jonah:
he sails away from God on a boat,
the Lord sends a great storm,
the captain and crew members of the boat find out it is Jonah's fault that God is angry,
Jonah tells them to throw him overboard,
and when they do,
the sea becomes calm.
And instead of letting Jonah drown,
the Lord had the big fish swallow him.
But there's more to the story, right?
Because God's call on Jonah was still in effect,
and when that big fish spewed him up onto the dry land,
The Lord once again told Jonah to go prophesy against Nineveh.
This time, Jonah went.
And what happened?
When Jonah began to speak to Nineveh
and to prophesy that it would be overthrown shortly,
all the people of the kingdom did something astonishing:
they all believed God and repented!
In fact, the repentance was so widespread
that when the King of Nineveh heard the warning from God through Jonah,
the king decreed a city-wide fast,
and put away his robes to put on sack-cloth and to put ashes on his head
and to repent and ask the mercy of the Lord Most High.
Even the animals were decreed to fast!
The response of the people of the capitol of Assyria was astonishing!
And think about how Jonah,
from a rival kingdom of Israel
must have felt to see one of your main enemies who are wishing to kill you
now in repentance and in weakness, asking for mercy.
Jonah must have felt some level of satisfaction,
knowing that God's judgment was assured
and that he got to see and be the mouthpiece
of that judgment.
But then the huge twist in the story happens:
God saw their repentance,
and what happened?
The Lord relented of his judgment
and chose not to carry out what he had said he would do.
These are the factors in the story that lead us to today's reading
from the Prophet Jonah.
And these are the factors that lead to Jonah's self-focused anger.
Because what does Jonah do in today's reading?
Jonah is LIVID with God.
And why is this?
Because God forgave and relented from punishing
a rival power in the world
that Jonah thought was a threat to Israel's very existence.
Jonah was thinking in terms of Israel's political situation,
and the dire straights that they faced as a people of God from Assyria.
And yet,
God does the unthinkable:
God relents of his judgment against even outsiders like Assyria!
And the greatest line of all of Jonah happens in Jonah's anger:
"[Jonah] 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 God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
[Jonah 4:1-4 NRSV]
Jonah basically said he was so angry that he wished he was dead!
And here we are basically watching one of those temper tantrums at Walmart, right?
But it is deeper than that.
The factors that lead to this outburst
become clear in what Jonah does in response to God's mercy.
He goes outside of the city,
and waits to see what's going to happen.
In other words,
regardless of what God said,
Jonah is just going to sit and wait to see when the city gets destroyed.
So God decides to give Jonah a visual lesson
by the vine that gave him shade.
The vine grew one day, and Jonah was happy about the shade from the hot sun.
Then the next day, God had a worm eat it and the harsh hot wind scorch it,
so that it died and Jonah became faint.
And once again, Jonah was so angry that he wanted to die.
But once again, Jonah's anger wasn't about the vine.
It was still about Nineveh,
and perhaps to a deeper extent
about God's mercy and grace toward Nineveh.
And I think God puts the point of the entire story of Jonah
in perspective,
because the last paragraph in Jonah contains an incredibly important question by God:
"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. 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?”
III.
and the sort of outlandish things that he says
in the last part of the book of Jonah:
- When he wishes to die because he is so angry.
- When he is so upset at God's mercy and grace.
- When, in his stubbornness, he just goes and waits to see the judgment of the city.
But the factors that go into getting to this part
are so much deeper and more important than just his outward show of emotion
at which we might be quick to poke fun.
It was a deep anger at God forgiving a rival nation
that warred with Israel for years
and that Jonah, as an Israelite, would undoubtedly feel harsh animosity towards,
especially in his call to prophesy against Nineveh, the Assyrian capitol.
But is Jonah really that different from us in that respect?
Are we not quick to be angry at rival nations that God shares His mercy and grace towards?
Or, perhaps in different language,
are there not groups of people in the world
that we become angry at God for showing compassion toward them
because we think that they are all reprehensible by necessity?
Better yet,
where in our shared world are we tempted
to clump and label entire groups of people
as being unworthy of God's mercy?
Because God has a word to say to us through Jonah:
"Should I not be concerned about...more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons
who do not know their right hand from their left...?"
We sometimes like to determine
who the Lord should be merciful towards
and who the judgment of God falls upon.
But all of that must be subject to a simple fact:
we aren't God!
We need to be very very careful
about sitting around under our vines,
and wishing for God's wrath to fall on those people we hate.
If God even has mercy and grace toward the repentance of Nineveh,
God will most certainly have mercy on all who repent of their sins
and cry out for God's forgiveness and mercy.
Instead of wishing for judgment upon someone,
rather refocus and change your perspective
to one of likewise repentance and peace.
And, as in the case of Jonah,
simply speak the word that God has given you
and leave the rest up to the Lord Most High.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.
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