Hello my friends,

Today’s gospel from the Lectionary is the parable of the vineyard workers from Matthew 20:1-16. I wrote a newsletter on this parable called “Resting Generosity,” which you can read here. Essentially, it is a parable about those who resent generosity shown to those they believe don’t deserve it.

Today, I want to look at the first reading for today, Jonah 3:10-4:11, and how Jonah becomes furious with God’s compassion being shown to people he believes don’t deserve it, and how it reflects an attitude that is dominating mainstream Christianity in America today.

Recommended Resources

​-New Beacon Bible Commentaries.⁠ Many of you have asked me for good Bible commentary recommendations. I have always enjoyed working with the commentaries from the NBBC series. They have one for every book of the Bible and they are written in a very clear and accessible way.

​⁠-The Trump-Era Laughter at Immigrant Suffering Is Deforming Our Souls⁠ I found this article to be incredibly powerful and highlighted a very dehumanizing trend that needs to be repented from in our nation.

​⁠-How two swing states changed American voting This is an episode from one of my favorite history podcasts Throughline. With everything that's going on with voting in our country and with midterms coming up, they do an excellent job laying out the historical context of what brought us to where we are today.

Getting Furious About Compassion.

Jonah 3:10-4:11

When God saw what they did 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 had gone 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 leafy plant and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant 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 plant?”

“It is,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, 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 of 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?”

Misunderstanding Jonah

In my experience preaching through the Bible, Jonah is one of the more misunderstood books among the major and minor prophets. Mostly because it is a very different genre from the rest. While the other books with prophets’ names feature their discourses and ministry, mostly calling for God’s people to repent of injustice and idolatry and turn back to God, Jonah is not like that at all.

Jonah, often called the “reluctant prophet,” only says 8 words of prophecy in the whole book and does so half-heartedly: “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” (Jonah 3:4). All this after trying to run away from God’s call for the rest of the book.

This is because the book of Jonah is a satirical critique written by ancient Israel for ancient Israel. Jonah embodies the entrenched resentment of many Israelites toward their enemy, Assyria, whose capital was Nineveh. You can read the book of Nehum to see how Israel felt about Assyria and the prophet’s condemnation of Nineveh, even celebrating its destruction. When we understand how brutal and evil Assyria had been to ancient Israel, it is easy to see why such fury would be stoked towards them and how resentment towards them would be entrenched for generations to come.

Yet, this is why the elders of Israel constructed Jonah. To ask the people of Israel a timeless question about how God’s compassion should be exhibited through them, even toward their ancient enemies. As history went on, Assyrians and Israelites would be exiled in Babylon together. This proximity would not only lead to familiarity, friendship, marriages, and understanding, but it would call into question long-held resentment and grievances that many would be reluctant and even angry about the idea of letting them go. The idea of letting God show them mercy and compassion. Like Jonah.

The satire and humor of Jonah is completely lost when we try to read it as a “literal” account. We miss how everything and everyone obeys God, from pagans on a boat and giant fish to the Ninevites and even their livestock. Everything and everyone except for Jonah. We also miss how Jonah is such a drama queen, as we can see in our passage today.

Jonah's Anger

After delivering his 8-word prophecy, he experiences what every other prophet dreams of. It works! Everyone and everything repents, and God refuses to bring any destruction upon them because they have stopped pursuing the ways of death and destruction and have chosen life and renewal instead.

Yet instead of celebrating this incredible response, you can almost feel Jonah rolling his eyes and his hot anger sizzling off the pages. He begins laying into God about not destroying Nineveh. He lays out that this was the very reason he was running away. He didn’t want God to be compassionate on them at all. He even uses the exact words from Exodus 34:6–7, but not as praise but as an angry complaint against God: “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” His anger reaches its peak when he tells God, “Lord, take my life!” What a dramatic tantrum.

I love how God responds to Jonah’s hysterics: “Is it right for you to be angry?” Like, trying to just gently question the dramatic display of getting that upset over people not being destroyed.

Jonah doesn’t even respond to God’s question and goes to sit east of the city with a good view, as if he hopes God will have a change of heart and destroy the city after all. While sitting there, and after building a shelter for himself, God provides a plant to grow, giving Jonah a comfortable, shady place to sit as he watches the city. Yet the next day God “provides” a worm that eats the plant as well as “provides” a scorching wind that blazes on Jonah’s head. Then we witness Jonah’s melodrama once again.

Jonah: “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

God: “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

Jonah: “It is. And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

Then the entire book ends for its audience, not with a grand theological statement, but with God asking a rhetorical question, pointing out that Jonah cares more about a plant he didn’t ask for, grow, or tend than about a city of over one hundred thousand people. The author then intentionally ends with the word “livestock” for one last humorous jab at Jonah’s dramatic behavior. This not only points out that innocent animals are being saved, but also recalls the absurd picture of livestock putting on sackcloth and ash to fast and repent to God in chapter 3. The cows even took the posture toward God that Jonah refused to take.

Ancient Hebrew readers would have found this ending deeply subversive. Jonah is the ultimate anti-prophet: he runs away, complains constantly, throws a tantrum over a withered vine, and cares more about his personal shade than human lives. By having God prioritize the survival of innocent animals over Jonah's nationalistic pride, the author uses comedy to humiliate Jonah's narrow-minded bigotry.

The punchline of the book of Jonah is not Nineveh’s repentance but Jonah’s fury at God’s mercy and compassion. It is a scathing parody of nationalistic religion that wants God on “our side” and cannot stomach the possibility that God’s love extends beyond our religious and political borders, especially to those whom we consider ‘enemies.’

Jonah Is The Prophet We Need Right Now

Jonah has become one of my favorite books of the Bible. Not only is it creatively written, but I also love that Israel included it in its sacred texts. It shows an openness to self-critique, a refusal to take themselves too seriously, and a willingness to laugh at themselves. People are only able to get to that point through humility. To humbly ask themselves, “Is it right that I am getting angry about this?” To ask themselves why mercy and compassion toward a certain group of people would make them so outraged.

I wish American Christianity would be that open and that humble.

We have entered an era where undocumented immigrants, Muslims, LGBT people, independent women, people on welfare, and really anyone who isn’t right-wing is treated as an enemy, as a grave threat to both Christianity and America, and is deserving of being destroyed by God. Simply look at how many prominent Christian figures have demonized empathy, called it toxic, and even a sin, and how it is leading to the erosion of Western civilization. Yet it isn’t just empathy in general. No, this position on empathy comes with the expectation that we are to have empathy for the evils in our nation’s history, for this administration, for the president, and for his supporters. It is only when we advocate for and show empathy towards anyone deemed an “enemy,” like undocumented immigrants, that the line has been crossed into toxicity.

We have created an entire political ideology in American Christianity built on Jonah’s anger towards his enemies and his desire for God to destroy them rather than on God’s mercy and compassion and the desire to save and restore people.

This is a two-way street, though, because it’s not just about those who treat others as enemies in God's name. It is also about how we see those who treat others as enemies in God’s name. The question for us becomes: if they repent someday and turn from their dehumanizing, cruel, and destructive ways and choose the way of life, of renewal, healing, and justice, would we hold onto our anger toward them, or would we show compassion and mercy?

I struggle to answer that question for myself. Maybe you do too.

I truly do believe that our world needs less anger and destruction and so much more mercy and compassion. Towards our fellow human beings, our planet, and yes, even all animals.

Prayer

God, like Jonah, we so often find ourselves envisioning a world where you destroy our enemies, rather than a world where Jesus calls us to love our neighbors as ourselves, even our enemies. Would you soften our hearts, help us understand the root of our anger, and show us why mercy shown to a certain group of people would outrage us? Would you challenge our narrow view of the world and expand our definition of mercy and compassion? Help us to see the toxic environment of vengeance we have come to treat as normal in our time and equip us to clear the air with the renewal that only love can bring. Amen.

Now I'd like to hear from you! Did you find this helpful? What thoughts came to your mind as you read? Feel free to respond to this email and share your thoughts with me. I look forward to reading them. A 30 Day Day Devotional: I wrote a daily devotional in hopes to provide a companion for people seeking to follow Jesus through the season of we are currently navigating together. You can find out more below: $20.00 Following Jesus In A World Obsessed With Empires: 30 Days of reclaiming the hope, compassion, and justice of Jesus. Today, our world can often feel overwhelmed by darkness, division, and despair. I created this 30-day devotional to... Read more Get it now! ​ Ways to support: If you'd like to support this project, you can do so through one-time-gift of any amount you feel is right. You can also subscribe through a $5/mo, $15/mo, or $25/mo. Several others have also asked for a recurring gift option that is different from the ones offered here, like this one. If you'd like me to set up a different option for you, please just send me an email with the word "support" in the subject line. As always, I really want to thank all of you for reading and for all the ways you support me and this project every single week. I'm thankful for the ways we are building this together and hope it creates a lasting, positive change in our world along the way! I sincerely appreciate you all, Ben Remember, you can now view this and all previous newsletters as well as invite friends to join through this link: https://benjamin-cremer.ck.page/profile.

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