Jonah’s Anger at the Lord’s Mercy

August 29, 2004

Stephen Thomas, Lay Speaker

Montgomery United Methodist Church

Jonah 4

¹This change of plans upset Jonah, and he became very angry. ²So he complained to the LORD about it: "Didn't I say before I left home that you would do this, LORD? That is why I ran away to Tarshish! I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. I knew how easily you could cancel your plans for destroying these people. ³Just kill me now, LORD! I'd rather be dead than alive because nothing I predicted is going to happen."

⁴The LORD replied, "Is it right for you to be angry about this?"

⁵Then Jonah went out to the east side of the city and made a shelter to sit under as he waited to see if anything would happen to the city. ⁶And the LORD God arranged for a leafy plant to grow there, and soon it spread its broad leaves over Jonah's head, shading him from the sun. This eased some of his discomfort, and Jonah was very grateful for the plant.

⁷But God also prepared a worm! The next morning at dawn the worm ate through the stem of the plant, so that it soon died and withered away. ⁸And as the sun grew hot, God sent a scorching east wind to blow on Jonah. The sun beat down on his head until he grew faint and wished to die. "Death is certainly better than this!" he exclaimed.

⁹Then God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry because the plant died?"

"Yes," Jonah retorted, "even angry enough to die!"

¹⁰Then the LORD said, "You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. And a plant is only, at best, short lived. ¹¹But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn't I feel sorry for such a great city?"

Jonah went to save the Assyrians in Nineveh.  Now, how many of you have ever met an actual Assyrian?  I would like to tell you the story of a particular Assyrian, my grandfather:

My grandfather was born in Diyarbakir, Turkey.  One day, when my grandfather was about 13, two men came up to his house and asked, “Are you Ablahad Bahto?”  To which he replied yes.  “We just took your father and five uncles a few miles out of the city, poured gasoline on them and burned them.  Have a nice day.”

This left my grandfather as head of the household having to provide for his five younger siblings and his mother.  And let me tell you there were not a lot of job opportunities for him back then.

 This was during the Armenian massacres, and even though my grandfather was Assyrian, his father and uncles owned the local groceries and banks in town and the Muslims wanted them.

Now a few years later my grandfather’s older brother, George, was in the army there. He saw a Christian beaten to death by two Muslims.  Nothing happened to these men even though there were many witnesses.  George had decided to leave and head for America.

When my grandfather was about 15 or 16, a friend of the family came to warn my great-grandmother that my grandfather was about to be drafted into the army.  Fearing for his life, they hired a bunch of Muslim nomads to sneak him out of the city.  Now let me tell you about Diyarbakir.  Diyarbakir is a city completely surrounded by walls, 20 feet high.  There was only one way in and one way out, which was through the main gate.  They hid my grandfather in the governor’s stable for a week, they shaved his head, dressed him like a Muslim and taught him to ride a donkey like a Muslim.  Then the day came for him to leave.  As he rode towards the Main Gate, he saw two guards, one of whom was the man who years earlier had told him about his father and uncles.  As the gates of the City opened, he realized before him stood his freedom, but behind him he was leaving his family.

After they got a few miles outside the city, the head of the nomads asked him to sit down and write a letter to his mother letting her know he was okay.  It was then he realized there are good and bad in all peoples.

There are good and bad in all peoples.  And there IS good and bad in all people.  Good and Bad in each one of us.

The Question: Why didn’t Anger win?

Now I was sharing this story with Matt Brucker last week when he asked, “Why didn’t they kill your grandfather?  Why would they leave someone around who would take revenge against them?”  I had never thought of that before, but the question that raised for me was why didn’t my grandfather follow the path of vengeance?  Why didn’t anger, hatred or even self pity take over?  Why didn’t anger and hate win?

Let’s look at anger in the story of Jonah. Why was Jonah angry?  Listen to verses one and three with me: 

¹This change of plans upset Jonah, and he became very angry. …

³Just kill me now, LORD! I'd rather be dead than alive because nothing I predicted is going to happen."

Jonah was angry because God changed the plans. Wait a minute, this isn’t what I was expecting.  Jonah had predicted that the Assyrians would be destroyed by God.  Now God had decided to show them mercy and give them a second chance. Not what Jonah had expected or predicted.

Jonah was also upset, because nothing he predicted what going to happen, so upset he wanted to be killed!

Now, I’m going to take a detour in the sermon here for a minute and talk about marriage.  Do you know the three most beautiful words your spouse wants to hear? They are, “Honey, you’re right.”  I have no problem with admitting that my wife is right.  There have been many times that had I listened to Alba Lucia we would have been much better off.  Really, I love it when Alba Lucia is right, which she is a lot of the time; we are a team and we both make decisions that affect our family, and her being right is a great thing.

The problem I have in admitting that she is right, is the part where her being right means that I am wrong.  Admitting mistakes, especially when it makes me look foolish, something for which I need very little help, is not one of my strong points.

With Jonah all his anger is because of things that happened to him.  My plans changed, I get proved wrong, and I’m here in the scorching desert without even a shade plant.

In the story God asks: “Is it right for you to be angry about this?”

Jonah knows how God deals with anger: I knew that you were a gracious and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. I knew how easily you could cancel your plans for destroying these people.

The words that jumped out at me when I read that were “God is slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.”  Jonah himself had experienced that slowness to anger and unfailing love.  As Matt had mentioned in his sermon, many times Jonah hadn’t listened and hadn’t obeyed, yet God kept reminding him and giving him more chances and never failing Jonah and never letting Jonah fail in God’s plan for him.

The worm also fascinated me in this story.  The shade plant and the worm are like God giving Jonah a comfy pillow and asking are you comfortable?  Yes.  Good, then pulling the pillow and sheets out from under him and causing him to fall on the floor.  Now did God send the plant and the worm to set Jonah up and pull a fast one on him?  No.  I believe he did it to teach Jonah a lesson. 

Listen to what God says here as he is talking to Jonah: "You feel sorry about the plant, though you did nothing to put it there. And a plant is only, at best, short lived. But Nineveh has more than 120,000 people living in spiritual darkness, not to mention all the animals. Shouldn't I feel sorry for such a great city?"

What God is saying to Jonah here is that instead of being so worried about changes in your plans, you being proved wrong, and your personal comfort during your short time on earth, think about the others, think about the 120,000 living in spiritual darkness, even though they tried to wipe you out, think about the animals, think about my unfailing love for everyone.

Let me tell you a story.  It’s about a boy who had just gotten a new bike for his birthday.  He went to his grandfather very upset.  And his grandfather asked him, “What is wrong?”  And the boy replied “Grandpa, some bigger boys at school made fun of me and said I didn’t deserve a new bike, then they knocked me down and took my bike.  Grandpa, I am so mad at them, I hate them.  I want to hurt them but I know it is wrong.  Grandpa, what should I do?”

The grandfather sat quietly with his grandson for a while, then finally he said, “Inside me I often feel I have a Red Wolf and a White Horse who fight each other a lot.  The Red Wolf feeds on my anger and pain; the White Horse feeds upon my compassion and love.”

They sat there a little while longer and then the boy asked “Grandpa, which one wins?”  And the grandfather said: “The one I feed.”

I believe that my grandfather didn’t become vengeful, because he fed the White Horse.

But that begets the question: How?  How did he feed the White Horse?  How could you possibly feed the White Horse enough to defeat the Red Wolf who had just had a huge meal with the death of his father and uncles?

I thought about that a lot this week, and I believe I know his secret. And I’d like to share that secret with you.  My friends, with all the problems in this world, it is a secret that we could use.  I believe that my grandfather’s secret was that he would spend one hour every night in bed, reading the Bible.

That was how he planted his daffodils one bulb at a time.

One hour a day,

Seven hours a week,

365 hours a year, sometimes 366.

Over the course of his lifetime I would estimate well over 20,000 hours reading the Bible.

As I think back I don’t ever recall seeing many books in my grandfather’s house.  In fact I can only recall two, the phone book and the Bible.

The Bible: what an amazing book!  The Old Testament has parts that are about 3400 years old, the New Testament about 2000 years old, and it is still the bestseller today. According to the International Bible Society and the Gideons group, 168,000 Bibles are sold or given away each day in the U.S. alone. 168,000 a day. Imagine if people actually read it?

I don’t know about you, but I have a fair number of books, I figure about 9 tall bookshelves full between work and home.  Books used to be my biggest personal budget item.  Now mind you I haven’t read all those books or even come close.  I have bought many a book with the best of intentions but for one reason or another they never get finished and some never even get started.

I’d like to share something with you from one book I am actually reading and have almost finished. You may have heard of it, and some of you may have it. It’s called “The Purpose Driven Life.”  I’m on about chapter 28, each chapter is supposed to be done in a day, and it should take 40 days to complete.  They even label the chapters, day 1, day, 2, etc.  Well after about four months I’m on Day 28. Let me read to you one section that really called out to me:

“One reason most books don’t transform us is that we are so eager to read the next chapter, we don’t pause and take the time to seriously consider what we have just read.  We rush to the next truth without reflecting on what we have learned.”

I believe part of grandfather’s secret was also that he only had that one book in the house and that he drank deeply from it everyday.

So the question is, which will you feed?  The Red Wolf or the White Horse?

Friends, I have a dream for our church.  It’s a dream for a daffodil garden like that Miss Lilly spoke about so eloquently in her sermon.  It’s a daffodil garden that we all contribute to one bulb at a time, one hour of Bible study at a time.  And that we all feed that horse and she gets stronger every day.

Because God loves you unfailingly, and so does Pastor Tony.  Have a blessed week.