Puzzled by Grace

August 8, 2021 

Sometimes kids try to run away from home. Did you ever run away from home? I didn’t. But I did hide from the grownups and get in trouble!  

When I became a parent, that’s when I realized what it’s like when you can’t find your kids. Mine were good at disappearing. They would wander off. Once we went to a museum. My younger one often got lost in a store or museum. So, I thought, I will stick to this kid so close, there is no chance he will get lost. He didn’t get lost, I knew right where he was. But the older one got lost. I remember that feeling of panic. I couldn’t find him anywhere! What happened? Worst case scenarios went through my mind. So we go to a guard and tell him we lost our kid. He gets on the radio. Then he sends us to somewhere else, and after awhile here came our kid. I didn’t feel angry. I was just so relieved! I wanted to give him a big hug!  

Sometimes kids run away. It happens sometimes, a parent wants their kid to go one way. But they run in the opposite direction! They don’t just dig in their heels. They’re defiant and do the opposite! 

Today we’re going to talk about someone who ran away from God, and the lesson he couldn’t learn. He was puzzled by God’s grace. Grace is the unmerited favor of God. You can’t earn grace. You can’t do anything to deserve it. It’s not based on you. Grace comes from a God who loves you, regardless if you head for the hills and run away! 

Running away is what Jonah does. Jonah is a prophet. Do you know any prophets? Yes, you do. Parents are prophets. Prophets give people messages from God. They tell them what God wants them to do. Parents tell kids, “You know, you better do your homework.” A prophet doesn’t have much control over what happens after they deliver the message. Do people listen? At least the prophet put God’s word out there. 

Jonah was supposed to go give people a message from God. Only he was supposed to go to the people of Nineveh. The people of Nineveh were hated enemies of the people of Israel. Jonah decides, no way! I am not doing what God wants. The last people I will ever help is the Ninevites. They won’t listen to God! Or maybe they would turn to God. I don’t want that. I am NOT going to Nineveh! In fact, I am going in the opposite direction! 

When people run from God, they do so in the strangest way. Jonah decides to take a boat, a boat that will be on the sea for the longest possible time you can be on the sea. He takes a boat to Spain, which for him, was the end of the world, as far as he knew it! 

We’ve all done something like that. We’ve gone in the opposite direction sometimes. God wants me to apologize to my neighbor. No way! In fact, I’m going to stay as far away from my neighbor as possible. I will never speak to them again! 

Or God wants me to support the church or a charity? No, I’m not going to. In fact, I’m going to go on a spending spree, I don’t care how much I spend. 

Or God says through a prophet, say the prophet is your mom, who tells you your girlfriend or boyfriend isn’t right for you. You say, I’ll show God, and mom, we’ll get married! 

We’ve all run in the opposite direction that God is calling us. And that’s what Jonah did. He got on a boat. But can you outrun God? Jonah couldn’t. God caught up to Jonah and caused a terrible storm. The sailors tried everything they could, throwing cargo overboard, but nothing worked! The boat was about to break into pieces and everybody on board would drown. Jonah was sleeping below deck and the captain woke him up and asked him to start praying to His God. The sailors cast lots to figure out who was to blame for this storm, which they thought must be supernatural, because it was so big. The lot fell to Jonah, who came clean. He told them he was running away from the Lord, and he said they should throw him overboard to calm the storm. The sailors don’t want to. But the storm just gets worse. So, they throw Jonah into the sea. 

Now imagine this, they throw Jonah into the sea, and the storm stops. So, they can probably see Jonah, he’s doing his best to stay afloat, and the sea is calm. And they wonder, should we pick him up? And they think, naaahhh.  

Jonah prays to God, and God hears him and sends a big fish to swallow him. And he’s in the fish for three days. Jonah knows God is taking care of him. Then the fish spits him out on dry land. 

God didn’t pay Jonah back for disobeying and running away. God brought Jonah back. That’s grace. God could have let Jonah drown. But God is like a parent. Back when I lost my kid, I didn’t want to yell at my kid for wandering off. I just wanted to hug him. God doesn’t pay Jonah back; he brings him back. It’s a lesson on grace.  

Grace is a puzzle. Why is God so good to us? Why when we are willfully disobedient, why doesn’t God punish us? Because he loves us and always wants to bring us back. It can be hard to understand grace. But I’ll take it, won’t you? 

Jonah is glad for God’s grace, glad God saved HIM. He believes in God’s grace for himself. But he still doesn’t believe in God’s grace for the people of Nineveh. He wants them to pay for their sins. A second time, God sends Jonah to go preach to Nineveh. God wants him to tell them, “40 days and the city will be overthrown and destroyed.” Jonah goes, but he isn’t happy about it. 

The result of Jonah preaching to the Ninevites is that the king and the people believe God’s message! They declare a fast and mourn for their sins. They pray to God. And God forgives them. He doesn’t destroy them. 

Jonah complains to God. In Jonah 4:2 he says, “I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity.” 

Jonah complains about God’s grace: when it is extended to Jonah’s enemies. Jonah wanted judgement. God showed compassion. God didn’t want to pay back Nineveh for their evil. He just wanted them back!  

Jonah could never fully embrace God’s message of grace. 

But before we heap blame on Jonah, he’s not alone. Who are the Ninevites in your life? Who are the people to whom you have a hard time extending grace? Who do you secretly wish would get what you think they have coming to them? 

My homework for you is to think about how it feels to find a lost kid! Imagine you lose a kid, or they run away. How does it feel to find them? Think of the relief, the joy.  God doesn’t want to pay you back when you sin. He just wants you back. 

Grace is a puzzle! It’s amazing how good God is to us! It’s amazing how wonderful some of the people in our lives have been to us. We don’t know why they are so good to us, but we’ll take it! God loves us more than anybody! He gives us so much more grace. It truly is amazing! 

But grace is a puzzle because sometimes we really don’t want the grace we’ve received to go to someone else. Someday God may give you a task like Jonah had; go and extend grace in the direction of somebody you don’t like! Because God doesn’t want to pay people back, he just wants them back! And you might be the prophet he sends, to bring them back. Amen.