October 20, 2024
Are there people you don’t like? People that you can’t get far enough away from? People who, when something great happens to them, you get so mad! They don’t deserve it! We’re human beings and it seems human to feel that way.
Then Jesus says in Matthew 5:44 Love your enemies. Pray for those who persecute you. I think, but Jesus, they’re awful! They’re mean! They don’t deserve love! God, you’re just too nice!
Well, long before Jesus spoke about loving your enemies, God spoke to a guy named Jonah, telling him to go do something nice for thousands of people he hated!
You’ve probably heard of Jonah: Jonah and the big fish. This week we’ll have a float in the Halloween Parade with Jonah and the big fish! The fish is on the float and Jonah will walk. God is driving the four-wheeler that’s pulling the float! In Scripture, Jonah is a prophet. But he’s very different from the other prophets! Being a prophet is one of the hardest jobs! It’s not really to tell the future. A prophet’s job was to speak for God. He would tell the king, especially, and everyone else what God wants them to do. He’ll warn them what God will do if they disobey. Kings and the people didn’t want to hear what the prophets said. So sometimes prophets were sent to prison, thrown in a cistern, or received death threats! But through it all, they stayed true to their job and kept speaking for God to the people.
All the prophets faithfully served God, except Jonah. In Jonah 1:1 God tells Jonah, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” Jonah hated the city of Ninevah. He didn’t want to tell them to turn to God. When God called holy people in the Bible to obey, they sometimes made excuses. Moses said, But I’m not a good speaker. Choose someone else. Jeremiah said, But I’m just a kid, I can’t be a prophet! But God convinced them to do what he asked.
When God called Jonah, he didn’t give an excuse! God told him to go to Ninevah, and Jonah didn’t say anything! He just ran away as fast as he could! Then he boarded a ship. Do you think a person can outrun God? No, you can’t! God sent a violent storm. The sailors on the ship were terrified. The captain of the boat went to Jonah asking him to pray to his God. The sailors believed the gods caused storms at sea. They believed in prayer! The sailors asked Jonah what he had done to make his God angry. Jonah said he was running away from the Lord. He told them about God, and said they should throw him overboard if they wanted the storm to stop. The men don’t want to throw him into the sea. But the storm wouldn’t stop. They prayed to God not to kill them for throwing Jonah overboard. Then they threw him into the sea. Immediately the storm stopped. Even these sailors came to faith in God! They worshipped God and made a sacrifice and vows to Him.
God didn’t let Jonah drown in the sea. God sent a BIG fish who swallowed Jonah, and three days later, spat him out on dry land.
Then God again told Jonah, “Go to the great city of Nineveh and proclaim to it the message I give you.” (Jonah 3:2) This time, Jonah went.
The city of Ninevah was very big, 120,000 people lived in it! Back then it was one of the biggest cities ever! It took three days to walk through the city, that was how big it was. Jonah walked in the city the first day, telling everyone he met, “Forty more days and Nineveh will be overthrown.” Here’s what’s incredible. People instantly believed they had done wrong and needed to turn to God. They stopped eating. They put on scratchy sackcloth to show they were sorry for sinning. Word spread quickly! That first day the king heard, and he told the whole city to stop eating and drinking, even their animals should not eat or drink, and put on sackcloth. He said they should call upon the Lord.
Jonah was incredibly successful in preaching to Ninevah. 120,000 repented for their sins and turned to God!
And Ninevah was a sinful place! If you go to the British Museum in London, you can see carved into ancient walls, images of Judeans, Hebrews, being impaled by the Assyrian army in Ninevah, and images of Hebrew heads cut off and stacked up. Ninevah had a lot to be sorry for.
But they turned to God! Jonah is more successful at turning people to God than any other prophet in the Bible!
God was impressed by the Ninevites! Jonah 3:10 says, “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 was unhappy that God decided not to destroy the city. Jonah didn’t care about the people. And he wasn’t impressed by his success as a prophet. He was just angry.
He told God, this is why I didn’t want to go to Ninevah. Because you’re merciful and compassionate. God’s mercy and love is so great! It’s a mystery, how does God love us when we don’t deserve it? Jonah can’t take God’s mercy. He says to God, Now, just kill me. Jonah is angry at God.
Jonah wants God to destroy all the 120,000 people and animals in Ninevah. I don’t want anyone to die, but I can relate to being angry when I feel like someone’s done me wrong. I don’t want to be nice. I can see where Jonah’s coming from.
I think when people think of Jonah, they think he’s just stubborn. No, he had very good reason to hate the Ninevites! They were brutal!
But Jesus loved and forgave his enemies. God’s mercy is amazing, and Jesus’ mercy is too. He taught his followers, that includes us, in our gospel, Luke 6:27“But to you who are listening I say: Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you.” So don’t just ignore your enemies, avoid them, or run away from them. Jesus says, do good to those who hate you. Then he says, 28 bless those who curse you, pray for those who mistreat you. Pray for the people you hate. Don’t do something to them. Do something for them.
Jesus says life isn’t an even exchange. You don’t measure the good someone does to you, and only do the same amount back. Jesus instead tells us to go the extra mile. Love your enemies, do good to them expecting nothing in return. Your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High. Be merciful as your Father is merciful. When you do something for your enemy, you become like your Father.
The book of Jonah is more than a silly big fish story. It’s one of the most important books in the Old Testament. Because it calls each of us to love more than we want to, to show more mercy when we have good reason not to. It calls us to be like our Father in heaven!
My challenge for you this week is to think of someone you are not happy with, someone you don’t like. And to pray for them. Pray for God to bless them!
Jonah was an unlikely prophet who resisted showing love to his enemies. He would rather die. God kept after him and persisted in telling him to show mercy the Ninevites didn’t deserve. Jonah’s a lot more like me, and maybe a lot more like you than we want to admit! But the good news is, we have a God who forgives us, loves us, and is so merciful that it is hard to comprehend. We have received a gift from God we can’t repay. And all God asks, is that we find a way to show mercy and love, and be a little like him. Amen.
Maureen Duffy-Guy's blog 