Jonah 4

A Despicable Mercy
Sermon preached August 2, 2015
Opening
Sometimes, a crowd will gather to watch the spectacle of destruction.
On July 16, 1861, an army of Northern solders marched towards Confederate forces
holding a position near Manassas, Virginia. Most everyone in the North expected their
army to rout the rebel army; most everyone expected a quick end to the rebellion.
And so a crowd of civilians from Washington followed the Northern Army towards the
coming battle. Washington was rumbling with excitement about the prospect of the
Northern army covering itself with glory by crushing the rebels. Since it was Sunday, a
day off from work, whole families - momma, dad, and children, skipped church and piled
into horse-drawn carriages and clattered their way towards the battlefield. As did
newspapermen, politicians - including some U.S. Senators - and assorted others.
The battle began well for the North and more and more spectators streamed towards the
sound of the guns. One witness said it was like every carriage in Washington had been
pressed into service to bring people to the battlefield. Some brought picnic lunches. One
woman watched the battle with an opera glass. She was quite beside herself when a
louder-than-usual volley echoed from the battlefield. That is splendid, she exclaimed.
...I guess we will be in Richmond this time tomorrow.1
But later in the day the Confederate forces counterattacked and the inexperienced Union
troops panicked and like the knights in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, said, Run
away! Run away! Soon the Confederates encountered some of the battle watchers and
took U.S. Representative Alfred Ely prisoner.
Contrary to what you may have heard, the crowd of spectators were never threatened by
the Confederates, nor did they join the panicked Union soldiers in their mad dash towards
Washington. The spectators simply packed up, loaded their wagons, and headed home,
disappointed that the day didnt end with the destruction of the Confederates.
Jonah watching Nineveh
In our reading, there was a crowd of one hoping to see the spectacle of destruction.
Jonah, hoping for the destruction of the city of Nineveh, as God rained down fire and
brimstone from heaven.
God sent Jonah on a mission to Nineveh to get the people of that enormous-for-the-time
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city to turn away from their evil and cruelty and turn to the living God. He runs away,
God swallows him up in the great fish, Jonah repents and the fish vomits him up on the
beach and Jonah walks to Nineveh and does a street-preaching tour with a one-line
sermon that he repeats over and over again - Forty days and Nineveh will be destroyed!
And - Jonah is a success! The whole city repents, from the street-sweepers to the King
himself. They are cut to the heart, they repent the best they know how - they fast, they and the animals too, put on sackcloth. And its not because of Jonahs amazing preaching
g- its because the Spirit of God falls on the people and they wake up to, and repent of,
their evil. And the whole city is saved! A whole city!
But Jonah - well, his repentance cools. And so Jonah settles down outside the city, and
counts down those forty days and waiting for fire to rain down from heaven and vaporize
the city in a God-created mushroom cloud.
And with this, everything gets turned upside down. The rotten people of Nineveh repent,
and are saved; Jonah, who had repented when he was inside the fish, slides right back into
his rebellion against God and his hatred for the Ninevehites.
There is an old movie starring Burt Reynolds - you younger people can look up
who he was later - in which Burt thinks he has a fatal illness. So he does all kinds
of things to try to hasten his death. One time he swam out into the ocean as far as
he could, hoping he would drown. As he went down into the water for the third
time, he decided that he really wanted to live so he began swimming back to
shore. But he was exhausted and doesnt think he can make it so he prays, Oh
God, get me out of this and Ill give you 90 percent of everything Ive got. As he
gets closer to the shore he says, O God, get me out of this and Ill give you 60
percent of all Ive got. As he comes within sight of the shore he says, 30
percent. And when his feet touch the bottom he says, Ill help out when I can.
And when he crawls up on the beach he says to God, Youre the one who got me
into this in the first place.
Thats Jonah - pouting and mad at God for getting him into this, mad at God because his
mission succeeded and the Ninevehites repented!
In the NIV, it says that Jonah thought this was very wrong; in the NRSV it says he was
displeased - both are too weak - the Hebrew means he was outraged at this.
Heres Jonahs problem. He hates the Ninevehites. Every Israelite of his time did. They
were the evil empire of the day. They were cruel beyond belief. Their speciality was
invading with enormous armies then raping, pillaging, burning. They deported the
conquered population - when they conquered a city, they would line up the leading
citizens, plunge a fishhook into their chests, tie a line to the hooks and then march them
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for hundreds of miles into captivity.

And Jonah is willing to be an agent of their damnation, but not of their salvation. Jonah
has received mercy from God, but he wants none of it extended towards the Ninevehites.
I am more like Jonah than I want to admit
Doing this sermon series has really messed with me; something about this book at this
time and place has spoken to me.
Jonah is a comic character, hes ridiculous - running from God, pouting when the people
he hates are forgiven rather than destroyed. Rooting for the destruction of other people?
Rooting against them forgiveness and salvation? Who does that?
Me.
Some years ago I suffered a deeply wounding betrayal by one of my closest friends. And
that betrayal is still something of an open wound. This was a man I shared everything
with, this was a man I trusted completely, this was a man I leaned on when I was hurting.
And he turned on me, completely, viscously, and tried to destroy my ministry.
What do I want for him? I know what Jesus said about loving your enemies and praying
for those who persecute you. So, some days I pray for repentance and reconciliation...but
some days I fantasize about him getting punished, about him suffering, about him getting
some payback. I try to repent of that myself, but there it is.
When Jonah is pouting God puts on kind of a childrens sermon for him - on object
lesson - with the plant that grows and shades him and then dies and God says you cared
for that little plant, shouldnt I care for that whole city of people who dont know their
right from their left? Shouldnt God care for the friend who betrayed me? Yeeesss...but
sometimes I want God to slip in some payback, too.
Right now half of you may be thinking our pastor isnt very spiritual...but the other half of
you who have suffered a betrayal know exactly what Im talking about. This mercy of
God stuff - its great for me - but we arent thrilled when its extended to our enemies.
Back to the last scene in Jonah. The pouting prophet is sitting outside the city and the
Middle Eastern sun is scorching so God provides the plant to give him shade - hes sitting
in the shade and he loves it but then God sends a worm to kill the plant and Jonah is now
deprived of that little nugget of Gods favor and hes really mad now, mad enough to die
he tells God - they have a conversation and God says you are concerned about that little
plant and the little comfort it gave you...shouldnt I be concerned about that great city,
120,000 people who dont know their right from their left?
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And thats how the book ends. We dont know how Jonah answers - if he gets right with
God by getting with Gods program of mercy and forgiveness - or if he turns away from
God forever. And thats a literary device to get us to put ourselves in Jonahs place and
ask the same question of ourselves.
Us and the city outside our walls
Now, there may be some of us who want payback for a personal enemy - but for a whole
group of people? I dont think a single one of us is hoping for the destruction of the
people in our city, the people around us. Our attitude is certainly not hatred...but maybe,
maybe, it is indifference.
I mean...do we care that outside the walls of this church, in Franklin County, there are
thousands of lost, hurting, suffering people who dont know their right from their left?
Thats not a judgment, thats not looking down on people, thats reality and we know its
reality because most of us have been there and we know we are saved only by grace.
I wonder...I wonder...if were something like Jonah who was enjoying the shade of the
plant God provided. We here have received Gods forgiving, healing grace through Jesus
Christ, we here are sitting in comfortable seats in an air-conditioned building and weve
got a great band down here and an amazing organ upstairs, Tiffany windows to look at,
then afterwards coffee and Presbyterian carrots.
Jonah was a spectator, watching for God to do something awful to the city of Nineveh.
We have a different kind of spectator issue.
I think its indisputable that what we have in the American church is spectator
Christianity. Its there in mainline churches and megachurches and small country
churches and great big downtown city churches. Where most of the churchs
resources are focused on putting on a worship show for people who are spectators,
religious consumers who come for the music, be it traditional or contemporary,
who come for a sermon, hoping to get something out of it and who sometimes
grudgingly drop some money in the plate like its the cost of admission.
But its not working, not really. Virtually all the churches that are growing, are
growing mostly because they are stealing members from other churches. Not by
bringing in new people and helping them consent to the love of God in Christ.
And theyre able to do it because they are putting on a better show than the other
churches.
Yes, were sitting pretty in the shade - and outside are all these people God loves, people
for whom Christ died.

Example of Vineyard Church

Sometimes, though, you see a church that gets it.
Like one church in Ohio. This church called off its Christmas eve services. You
heard that right - called them off. The leadership of the church decided they were
going to do something else. So on Christmas eve they gathered and sang a couple
of Christmas carols and then headed out into the community to minister to folks
who had to work on Christmas eve by serving them Krispy Kreme donuts. They
bought eight thousand donuts, and after singing headed out.
One group went to a Waffle House. Everyone inside looked unhappy - the people
working there were unhappy because they wanted to be home with their families;
the people eating there were unhappy because they were sufficiently estranged
from their families that they were eating waffles alone on the most family-focused
night of the year.
The church group obviously had its work cut out for it. Some folks went to the
manager and offered to take over the dishwashing duties for a couple of hours.
The manager said, Well, no one has ever volunteered to do that. The boss isnt
going to come in tonight....sure!
Some other folks from the church put some Diana Ross tunes on the jukebox and
began to dance. They asked folks sitting at the tables eating waffles and eggs to
dance with them. Most were reluctant. Im no good! Neither are we, said the
dancers, were just having some fun.
Before long almost the entire restaurant was dancing. The party went on for two
hours. And some lonely folks who would have spent Christmas eve alone were
touched by the love of Christ.2
Example of Diaper Depot
And I think were beginning to get it. Im beginning to get it.
The Diaper Depot ministry - what a wild idea. Pretty simple, actually. Diapers
are expensive. Lots of families are struggling to make ends meet and cant afford
diapers. They cant use cloth because they dont have washing machines, and
daycares require you to provide your own disposable diapers.
Its wonderful to provide tangible help to struggling people...but its even better being
able to begin to build relationships with the people were helping. Its a God thing, its a
beautiful thing...and its wonderful that we had too many volunteers turn out 5

Opportunity and Threat

Thats a model of moving from spectator to servant, of moving from the comfort of the
shade into the sun where people are hurting. And ministry with that kind of heart, that
kind of desire to meet people where they are and let Christ love them through is, is where
the future of this church lies.
Its time for all of us to care, really care, about the people of our city. Its time for us, all
of us, to move from spectator to servant - and move towards people who are lost, hurting,
and maybe even people we dont want to be near.
Closing
And when it happens - its beautiful. It smells like gospel.
About a week ago, an African-American state trooper in Columbia, South Carolina saw a
man in distress. It was stinking hot and the man collapsed on the front steps of the State
House. The trooper, Leroy Smith, motioned for another officer to help (another AfricanAmerican) and they got the man to his feet and gently walked him into the airconditioned State House to recover from the heat.
So what? Well, the man they helped was wearing a swastika t-shirt and was there as part
of a white supremacist rally protesting the removal of the Confederate flag from the state
house grounds. And this man was part of a group called the National Socialist
Movement, a neo-Nazi organization that, according to its website, believes: Only those
of pure White blood, whatever their creed, may be members of the nation. Noncitizens
may live in America only as guests and must be subject to laws for aliens. Accordingly,
no Jew or homosexual may be a member of the nation.
A picture of Trooper Smith aiding the white supremacist popped up on Twitter and went
viral, people were amazed by it. When asked why he thought there was so much reaction
to the picture, Trooper Smith said, I think thats the greatest thing in the world love,
and thats why so many people were moved by it.
Trooper Smith didnt see an enemy that day - he saw a fellow human being. And so he
walked the man into the air-conditioned State House, led him to a green-upholstered
couch, and left him there to cool down.3
I want to be more like that. I hope our church, can be more like that. Amen.
Endnotes
1. http://www.historynet.com/war-watchers-at-bull-run-during-americas-civil-war.htm
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2. Steve Sjorgen, Seeing Beyond Church Walls, p. 2-3.

3. Dan Barry, Black South Carolina Trooper Explains Why He Helped a White Supremacist, in
The New York Times, July 25, 2015.