Sermon Jonah 4 “God's Concerns”
Presbyterian Church of Easton
July 25, 2021
Today I will be concluding my series of sermons from the Book of Jonah. So far we have been following Jonah through an amazing journey. It all started when Jonah was told by God to go to Nineveh and prophecy to this hated enemy of Israel. Jonah wanted no part of this so he disobeyed God and tried to flee to the farthest place on earth.
God stopped Jonah with a raging sea. The sailors threw him overboard to appease his God. God then sent a fish that swallowed Jonah and protected him for three days.
After experiencing this salvation from God, Jonah was ready to obey God's command to prophecy to the people of Nineveh. He told them that in forty days they would be destroyed. The people of Nineveh confessed their sins by fasting and wearing sackcloth. And they repented by turning from their evil ways and violence.
Then Jonah climbed a nearby hill to watch Nineva's destruction. But what he saw angered him. God did something that made Jonah furious. God forgave the people of Nineveh and reversed his sentence of destruction. This made Jonah very angry. It's time for God and Jonah to have a discussion about all this. We will listen in. But first let's pray.
“Grant unto us, O Lord, to be occupied in the mysteries of thy heavenly wisdom, with true progress in piety, to thy glory and our own edification. Amen.” (John Calvin)
Jonah 4:5 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.
Jonah was angry with the people of Nineveh. They had attacked his nation, Judah, relentlessly. Judean farms had been destroyed, and their cities besieged. The Assyrians of Nineveh had attacked and conquered the northern kingdom of Israel and resettled the Israelites into other areas of their empire. They had been ruthless and would have destroyed Judah too but for the protection of the Judean God. So Jonah was angry at them, so angry that he did not want to go there, so angry he disobeyed God. And now after proclaiming the destruction of Nineveh in 40 days, Jonah has climbed a hill to watch the destruction of this hated city from a ring side seat.
But as Jonah sat there, the sun rose in the sky. He watched as the Nineavites repented, turning from their evil ways. He watched as the destruction of the city did not happen. And as Jonah’s anger grew so too did the temperature. The sun grew hotter and hotter. Jonah became hotter and hotter. He was angry at God because God had forgiven them, the evil Ninevites. So this was a perfect time for God to teach Jonah something about anger and God's compassion.
Of course God too was angry at the Ninevites. He was angry at their evil ways. He was angry at the violence they used against their neighbors. God was so angry he was ready to destroy them completely. But once they confessed their sin and turned from their evil ways, God's love overcame His anger and they were forgiven. This is what we call grace. God loves us as our creator, but when we sin God gets angry and is ready to punish us. But if we confess our sins and turn away from them, God loves us so much we will be forgiven. God needed to communicate all of this to his prophet Jonah. He did that with a vine.
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.
There is a porch on the southeast corner of the manse at Pitts Creek church in Pocomoke City. It is the perfect place for breakfast. But the sun rises in the southeast during the summer and the porch is just too sunny to sit there in the morning with some coffee. So I planted some Morning Glories along the foundation of the porch. And I trained them to climb strings I tied vertically around the porch. They grew to about 15 feet tall with lots of leaves and flowers to shade me during breakfast. It was a great blessing for me just as God bless Jonah with the shade from the bush.
But after a good night's sleep Jonah woke up and saw and felt something else that upset him.
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.”
God used a vine to teach Jonah a lesson. As Jonah sat on the hillside, disappointed that the Ninevites had not been destroyed, and angry at God for not doing what he had promised, God sent a vine to protect Jonah from the intense summer sun. Jonah was overjoyed at the blessing he had received from God. But the next day God sent a worm to kill the plant which then withered away. This made Jonah very angry.
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?”
So what was God trying to communicate with this withered vine? To answer this question we have to remember that Jonah was angry when God did not destroy the Ninevites, and that Jonah also was angry when God did destroy the plant. So at times Jonah is angry when God destroys something and at other times Jonah is angry when God does not destroy something. What's the difference between the Ninevites and the vine that would cause Jonah to want one destroyed and the other saved? The answer to this question is simple. Jonah liked the benefits he received from the vine, but he disliked the Ninevites. So Jonah expected God to bless the bush he liked and curse the Ninevites whom he disliked. And Jonah was angry with God when God did not do what he wanted.
We have the same problem as Jonah. We expect God to bless that which we like, and we want God to curse that which we dislike. We think that God should take our opinion into account when deciding what to bless and what to curse. But God doesn't do that. God decides for himself what deserves to be blessed and what deserves to be cursed. God didn't consult Jonah about the Ninevites. When God heard their confession and saw their repentance he was ready to forgive regardless of what Jonah thought. Likewise when God decided to give a worm a nice vine to eat he didn't consult Jonah to see if it was o.k.
This is an important lesson for us. We don't decide whom God cares for and whom God destroys. God's concerns belong to God not us. And this is really good news. God does not check with anyone else about our own salvation. God decides what to do with us on our own merits. If we confess our sin and repent, God will forgive us. Like Jonah we have to learn this truth.
When I planted the Morning Glories at the manse in Pocomoke, I thought I had done something really special. I had a nice shady porch where I could enjoy my coffee every day. But God wanted to teach me a lesson that what might be a blessing for me might be a curse for someone else. In Pocomoke I had a regular Bible study with a group of farmers every Friday at 6 am. They heard about me planting Morning Glories at the manse. They told me that Morning Glories are terrible weeds. Morning Glories get into corn fields and wind around stalks. Morning Glories clog combines. The farmers wanted me to know that their pastor should not be planting Morning Glories at manse.
For Jonah, God sent a vine and a worm. What will God do to teach us? What God did was to send Jesus Christ into the world. The world arrested him and had him put to death. But God was not concerned with what the world thought about Jesus. God knew that Jesus was righteous. So after three days in the tomb God raised Jesus from the dead. This was a clear demonstration for us that God has no concern for what the world thinks. And in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead God has sealed upon us the promise that if we confess our sins and repent we too, like the Ninevites in the book of Jonah, will be forgiven. So I urge you this Sunday as I do every Sunday to bow your heads in prayer to confess your sins and turn from evil so you may embrace the gift of forgiveness from God.
With this we conclude our look at the book of Jonah. Like Jonah we hear God's call to proclaim God's forgiveness for all who confess and repent. But we flee from this command convinced that God will punish those we consider too evil to forgive. God won't let us get away any more that he let Jonah get to Tarshish. Like Jonah we symbolically drown in the baptismal waters and spend three days in the tomb with Jesus. When we emerge from the waters of baptism we are washed clean, forgiven and empowered to proclaim the gospel of forgiveness. It is not up to us to decide who should be offered forgiveness and who should not. That is God's decision. We are to proclaim the gospel of forgiveness to everyone, offering them the opportunity to confess and repent to receive God's promised forgiveness. God is concerned for all of his creation, so whenever he hears confession and sees repentance he does forgive. All of creation is offered this wonderful gift. Let us pray.
Lord God, we confess our sins and turn from our evil ways. We thank you for the blessing of forgiveness we have received. Help us to proclaim this good news to people in our community who desperately need to hear it so that they too will experience your forgiveness. This we pray remembering Jonah and in your son's name. Amen.
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