The Missionary God
For Meditation
One of the difficulties of preaching on Jonah is that he makes an easy target. After all, who gets angry at God’s compassion and mercy for others? Even a child knows that when God asks if you have the right to be angry, the answer is always NO! Who in their right mind loves a plant more than the lives of 120,000 people?
But if we are honest, I think we find ourselves in a similar situation. As broader America culture rapidly changes, the line between “us” and “them” is growing not shrinking. What was once a generally “Christianized” society is increasingly becoming secular and pluralistic. We complain about causes like rapid technological change, the erosion of traditional morals and families, violence and sexualization of the media, the deterioration of community or an increasingly hostile political and social climate. But the reality is that we are as divided as we have ever been. And that divide has not been good for us in the Church.
It might surprise you to know that most people outside the Church believe the average Christian is a lot like Jonah. The book UnChristian is a groundbreaking book about the perception of Christianity amongst 16-29-year-olds who identify as “outside of the Christian faith”. When asked to rank the attributes that most describe Christianity, do you know which attribute ranked #1 on the list?
Anti-homosexual.
Let that sink in. The most defining characteristic of Christians to those outside of Christianity was not Jesus. It was not the Church. It was not pro-marriage, or even pro-life. It was anti-homosexual. Like Jonah, we have become famous for what we oppose, rather than who we are for.” We are the angry prophets, sitting on the hillside, waiting for judgment to crush those sinners out there who are far from God and his ways.
How should we as Christians respond to this? We need to recover our identity as God’s missionary people. This is the very reason the book of Jonah was written for Israel, and the Church.
Just as Christians in the first three centuries of the church saw themselves as living as missionaries in a hostile culture, now is the time for our church to re-discover its calling as a missional community. This was always God’s design for his church. Jesus said, “As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you” (John 20:21). In other words, just as the Father sent Jesus to carry out his redemptive mission for the earth, so now Jesus sends us out to be witnesses of what he has done. We are Jesus’ “sent people,” called to bear witness to Jesus and his Kingdom through our speech, our words, our community, and our way of life. According to Jesus, mission is the church’s most basic identity.
This Sunday we’ll explore God’s identity as the missionary God and our identity as his missionary people. In preparation for worship this week, spend some time meditating on Jonah's action in this final chapter. Then spend some time meditating on your own life. Take 10-15 minutes to pursue the following questions with the Lord:
In what ways if your life as a follower of Jesus telling a different story than Jonah’s life?
How do you resist your own “sentness”? What scares you about
Does your heart truly break for that which breaks the heart of God?
Jonah 3:10-4:11
10 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.
Jonah’s Anger at the Lord’s Compassion
4 But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. 2 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. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”
4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”
5 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. 6 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. 8 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.”
9 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.”
10 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. 11 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?”