When God is Too Good - A Sermon based on Jonah 3.10-4.11 and Matthew 20. 1-16. preached at First Presbyterian Church, Clark Summit, PA on Sunday, September 24, 2023
During a TED Radio Hour talk, Dr. Frans de Waal, a psychologist and primatologist showed clips of several experiments demonstrating that animals are capable of empathy, cooperation, and fairness. In one, a pair of monkeys sat in side-by-side cages. Their task was to hand a scientist a rock in order to receive a treat. Monkey #1 hands over its rock and receives a cucumber. Monkey #2 gives its rock and receives a much preferred grape. Anticipating a better treat, monkey #1 hands over another rock but receives another cucumber. It promptly throws it out of the cage and violently shakes the door in protest. It was grumbling for a grape![i] Whether we’re talking about being handed one denarii after working all day in a vineyard, or receiving a cucumber in exchange for a rock, fairness is a big deal!
That
slighted monkey and the workers at the back of the line in the parable have
some-thing in common with the older brother in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.
They share outrage at what they perceive to be unfairness, a condition that
leads to resentment.
Noting
“how easily we can relate to the grumbling of the laborers who assumed…they
would be paid more,” one observer points out that “such dangerous assumptions
can pop up in our closest relationships, our work settings, our congregations,
and our national thinking.”[ii]
“There is a saying,” she adds, ‘Assumptions are planned resentments,’ warning,
“Whenever we assume anything, we set ourselves up for possible disappointment
or even worse, we set the other person up as the object of object of our
disappointment, anger or resentment.”[iii]
The
assumption of the grumbling laborers is made possible by the added unfairness
of making those who worked the longest wait the longest to receive their wages.
The scene calls to mind not only the assumptions we make based on seniority,
but also our inability to appreciate the blessings that have come our way.
In
our Call to Worship today we have already spoken words that pop up in scripture
no less than ten times. Most of the
time, they let us know God will not be as hard on us as we deserve. One version of this phrase appears in the
Book of Joel. Surprisingly, Joel’s
creedal words show up in the Book of Jonah on the lips of the king of Nineveh
when he responds to the reluctant prophet’s call for repentance. Quoting Joel,
the king decreed:
That
was the problem as far as Jonah was concerned: God is good and gracious and
merciful. That too, was the rub that chafed at the workers in the vineyard who
had been at it since sun up when at sundown the last were paid first and
treated as equals.
It
is one thing for God to be gracious and merciful to me. It is another if God is merciful and gracious
to somebody else. When I have given God a reason to be angry, that slowness is greatly
appre-ciated; when someone else does something worthy of divine wrath the delay
is unbearable. When I am the undeserved beneficiary of God’s steadfast,
covenantal love, it is cause for celebration.
When some-one else is the recipient of amazing grace, the sound is not
always so sweet!
Just
ask the laborers in the vineyard…or Jonah. But here is the kicker: both the
full day laborers, and Jonah himself, in their indignation over God’s goodness,
fail to recognize, appreciate, or express gratitude for having been recipients
of the same benevolence they grouse about.
All of the laborers, from the first to the last, had received the means
to purchase their “daily bread.” Jonah
had been saved from drowning. He was heard when he uttered a cry for help, and
given a second chance to do what God called him to do.
How very human of them not to notice!
How very gracious of God to persist in loving them anyway!
How very challenging to us as we continue to learn to recognize, celebrate, and share the blessings bestowed on us and others by the One who is gracious
and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love.
From beginning
to end, the story of Jonah is told with wit and humor. The cast of char-acters
defy stereotypes: There’s a prophet who says “hell no, I won’t go.” There are seasoned, salty sailors, who hit
their knees to pray in the face of a storm while the man of God sleeps below
deck. The residents of a foreign city listen to the half-hearted proclamation
of an alien who shows up in their streets pro-claiming impending doom. There’s a
king who takes note of what his people are doing and follows their lead and
then leads their following by humbling himself before the Lord. There are even
creatures put to work by God: a fish that swallows and spits-up on command; a
plant that sprouts up overnight; a worm whose hunger contributes to the lesson
God is trying to teach.
Last,
but not least, we are drawn into the picture as those who are asked along with
Jonah the questions God put to him. “Is
it right for you to be angry?” and “Should I not be concerned about Nineveh?”
Add
the two questions Jesus poses on the lips of the vineyard owner in the parable: “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to
me? Or are you envious because I am
generous?”[vi]
Put all those questions together and a larger question looms: “Are we, or are we not, willing to let God be God?” The Book of Jonah ends without the final question being answered by the sad, sun-burned servant of God. The parable of the workers also leaves the questions about letting God do God as God pleases, unanswered.
Most
people are familiar with the first part of the Jonah story which we didn’t read
today. Here is how Frederick Buechner summarized it:
“Within
a few minutes of swallowing the prophet Jo-nah, the whale suffered a severe
attack of acid indigestion and it’s not hard to see why. Jonah had a disposition that was enough to
curdle milk.”
Buechner continues: “When God ordered him to go to Nineveh and tell them there to shape up and get saved, the expression on Jonah’s face was that of a man who had just gotten a whiff of septic-tank trouble. In the first place, the Ninevites were foreigners… In the second place… nothing would have pleased him more than to see them get what they had coming to them.”[vii]
You
know the next part. Instead of heading to Nineveh, Jonah books passage on the
Medi-terranean Cruise Line, and while the others waved good-bye from the rail,
he went down below deck and took a nap.
Soon a storm sent by God descends. It’s a category seven storm. Normally
brave sailors cry out to the various gods they worship. The captain, having done a headcount realizes
that Jonah is missing. He goes below, finds him sleeping and urges him to get
upstairs and send an S-O-S to God.
The
sailors resort to superstition casting lots to reveal which of them is
responsible for the weather’s fury.
Jonah is singled out. After he
explains who he is, where he is supposed to be and what he was told to do, the
others are really scared. But when he suggests throwing him over-board, they
refuse because they, more than he, now fear the God who “made the sea and the
dry land.”
Despite
their reluctance and their double efforts to row the boat ashore where they
hoped to sing “alleluia!”—the storm grew worse.
Finally, after praying, asking Jonah’s God not to hold his impend-ing
death against them, they toss him over
the rail. The storm ceased. The sailors took notice, offered a sacrifice to
Jonah’s God. Even when he wasn’t trying to, Jonah was re-sponsible for turning
hearts to God.
Meanwhile,
Jonah, “sinking deep in sin far from the peaceful shore,”[viii]
gets swallowed by a large fish, who put up with its pesky passenger for three
days before spewing him onto the beach. In belly of the beast, Jonah, had
plenty of time to reconsider how he might respond, should God be foolish enough
to ask again that he go to Nineveh and urge them to turn from their evil ways.
Jonah
is given a second chance. This time
he heads in the right direction. Nineveh
is a big city, three days walk across.
Jonah slowly goes a third of the way, and makes one unenthusiastic
declaration: “Forty days more, and Nineveh will be over-thrown.”
The
people of Nineveh heard what he had to say.
They took him seriously. They proclaimed a fast, and everyone, the
movers and shakers and the everyday people, put on garments of mourning.
James
Limburg spotlights how remarkable this grass roots groundswell of repentance
was. Not only did they believe God, announce a fast, and humble themselves before
God, they “did something to clean up the terrorism and violence in their
city. This was not the action of just a
few, but involved everyone, including the animals!”[ix]
Noting how the king follows the lead of his people, he said: “The king’s behavior is exemplary. He
humbles himself by divesting himself of his symbols of author-ity… and by
putting on sackcloth and sitting in ashes. He calls for an all-inclusive fast
extending even to the animals and admonishes all to turn from their evil and
violent ways.”[x]
Limburg
goes on to describe how “the king realizes that conducting a fast does not guarantee
that the Lord will act favorably.”[xi]
All he can do is rely on a quote from the prophet, Joel, and ask, “Who knows?”
hoping God will relent and change his mind. (3.9) “…The king did not pre-sume to control
God. His is no mechanistic religion,
expecting that repentance automatically guarantees rescue. The king is humble before God and concerned
for his people.”[xii]
That leads me to
add this: Like the captain of the ship earlier, Nineveh’s king shows himself to
be a worthy shepherd of the flock entrusted to his care. Wouldn’t it be nice if
leaders in our time did the same!
Seeing
the Ninevites respond in appropriate ways pleased God. Jonah, however, was
ticked off. He let loose a barrage aimed directly at God, explaining why he
took that boat ride the first time he was sent to Nineveh. Three nights in the belly of the fish may
have convinced Jonah to do as he was told, but that did not mean he agreed with
the mission.
In one of the greatest “I told you so” tirades of all time, Jonah fires off a Tweet to God: “Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” (4.2-5)
God
sends a short and sweet response containing a simple question for Jonah to
contem-plate: “Is it right for you to be angry?”
After
all, Jonah was the beneficiary of God’s grace and mercy. One of the very human
things about Jonah is the way his stubborn insistence that the Ninevites get
what was coming to them blinds him to the ways God had not punished him for his
failure to do what God asked.
Todd
Hobbie counts up all that Jonah seems to have missed. He writes: “It never seemed to cross Jonah’s
mind that, though he had directly disobeyed God’s command, God had pursued him
with persistent love. At least the
Ninevites had ignorance of God as an excuse. Unlike Jonah, they repented, as
soon as the message he brought from God was clear.
“It
never seemed to cross Jonah’s mind that if God were unforgiving, God would have
let him drown in the storm. It never
seemed to cross his mind that the pagans on the ship, in their attempts to save
him from harm at all costs, were much more like God than he was.”
Finally,
Hobbie concludes: “It never seemed to cross Jonah’s mind that even the fish was
more obedient to God than he was. At least the fish, when commanded by God to vomit
up Jonah, did what it was told.”[xiii]
“Is
it right for you to be angry?” God asked Jonah. The prophet persisted in
thinking he was right. Phyllis Trible
notes that “The divine questions put to Jonah asks about the value or benefit
of anger…The text does not engage in ‘should’ talk. Jonah is not told that he should
be or should not be angry. Instead, he is invited to reflect on the meaning or
value of anger.”[xiv]
Tribble adds: “A reader may hear in the divine questions the implied answer that anger is not good for Jonah, but the answer does not forbid Jonah to be angry. The responsibility for the emotion and its consequences resides with Jonah. When he defiantly holds fast to anger, insisting it is good for him ‘unto death,’ he mouths profound truth. Anger leads to destruction. If it is repressed or suppressed, it ‘burns’ the one who contains it; if it is expressed, it ‘burns those to whom it is directed. Although anger is an inevitable part of the human condition, the divine questioning offers the opportunity to work it through and to work through it.”[xv]
The
final scene of the Book of Jonah lifts up that opportunity for Jonah to do that
work. Like a petulant child he stormed off when God asked about his anger. With
the sudden appearance of a Castor Oil plant to offer him shade which pleases
him no end…and the plant’s just as sudden demise thanks to a very hungry worm,
God reveals the volatility of both joy and anger. God used what Jonah feels to help him
understand what God felt about the people of Nineveh and all their animals.
Whether
Jonah got it or not is never revealed. Whether we get it or not is what
matters. When God appears to be too
good, forgiving those we deem unforgiveable or disbursing blessings to those
we don’t think have earned them, we have the same choice: fan the flames of our
anger, or celebrate God’s grace and mercy to us and to all.
[i] www.npr.org/2014/08/15/338936897/do-animals-have-morals
[ii] Charlotte Dudley Cleghorn, Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), p. 94
[iii] ibid.
[iv] Joel 2. 13
[v] Psalm 100. 5
[vi] Mt. 20. 15-16
[vii] Frederick Buechner, Beyond Words, Daily Readings in the ABC’s of Faith, (New York, HarperOne, 2004) p. 196-7
[viii] James Rowe, Howard E. Smith, Hymn: “Love Lifted Me,” verse 1
[ix] James Limburg, Hosea-Micah – Interpretation – A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching, (Atlanta, GA: John Knox Press, 1988), p. 151
[x] ibid., p. 150
[xi] ibid.
[xii] ibid., p. 151-2
[xiii] Todd M. Hobbie,. Feasting on the Word, Year A, Vol. 4, (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), p 76
[xiv] Phyllis Trible, The New Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. VII, (Nashville, TN: Abingdon Press, 1996), p. 524
[xv] ibid.
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