“Quarreling with God” (Jonah 4:6-11)

The Frog of the Well

There was a frog who lived in a well all his life. One day, a little bird landed on the curb. The frog asked: "Where you came from?" The bird answered: "I came from far away. I flew a distance of more than one hundred miles. Now I felt thirsty, so I flew down and looking for some water." The frog laughed and said: "You must be boasting, my friend. I know the sky is as big as the mouth of this well. How could you fly such a distance?" The bird said: "You are wrong, the sky is boundless!" The frog laughed again and said: "I'm sitting in this well all day long, and I can see the sky every time when I raise my head, I could not be mistaken." The bird smiled and said: "You'd better jump out of this well and have a look in person." Eugene Peterson said, “When sinners worship gods of their making, they drag the gods down to their level. When sinners worship a God of holiness, they are lifted to his level.”[1]

Jonah and the Frog
In today’s scripture Jonah is much like the frog sitting in a well. He had such a small idea of the world. He saw everything, interpreted everything through his cramped, confined experiences. So he had no idea what God was doing. He interpreted the large, gracious and righteous actions of God through his Jonah views, his Jonah desires. He worshipped a god of his own making. Jonah assumed that he knew exactly what God would do and what God should do – God should punish the wicked like the Ninevites and bless the righteous like the Israelites. But when the true God didn’t do it, Jonah was displeased. He was angry. The word anger occurs six times in this final chapter. He thought he had “righteous” anger. When God asked him, “Is it right for you to be angry?” Jonah answered, “Yes, angry enough to die!” (v. 9)

When Jonah arrived in Nineveh, all he saw was a city full of sinners destined by his prophecy for doom. But as for God, all he saw was a people who were hurting and weeping in the dark, yet to be saved. Jonah doesn’t see God’s grace and mercy. But God continues to save him, be patient with him, work with him. God sends a storm. God sends a fish. God sends a plant. God gives Jonah second chances and commissions him again and again. God reasons with him, debates with him, asks him questions.

God’s Compassion

If we summarize the Book of Jonah into one word, it would be “compassion” – the compassion of God. B. B. Warfield wrote a remarkable scholarly essay called “The Emotional Life of Our Lord.” In his essay Warfield considered every recorded instance in the gospels that described the emotions of Christ. He concluded that by far the most typical statement of Jesus’s emotional life was the phrase “he was moved with compassion,” a Greek phrase that literally means he was moved from the depths of his being.[2] Jesus was moved with compassion, and he touched and healed a leper (Matt 8:3). Jesus was moved with compassion, and he raised Lazarus (Jn 11:34-38). When Jesus saw a great crowd, he was moved with compassion, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them and heal their sick (Matt 14:14). Jesus was moved with compassion, and he fed the five thousand (Mark 6:30-44).

In today’s text God was moved with compassion toward the Ninevites. He felt their pain. He felt their sadness. He was weeping for them. And he was saying to Jonah, “You are my prophet, why don’t you have my compassion?” But here Jonah was quarreling with God, saying, “God, how can you relent from judging the wicked? How can you forgive and not punish sin?” That’s a very important question. But we need to remember God’s compassion is complex. God’s compassion is holy compassion. In other words, God’s compassion is both merciful and committed to punishing evil. God’s compassion is both endlessly loving and perfectly just. God showed his holy compassion in and through Jesus Christ His Son. On the cross when Jesus died for our sins, God showed he is perfectly just, because all sin was punished there. On the cross God showed he is perfectly loving, because he took it onto himself.

In this story God calls everyone and invites everyone: Jonah, the sailors, and the Ninevites. Eventually everyone calls on God. And everyone who calls on God is saved. Jonah calls on God in the belly of the fish, and he is saved from himself. The sailors call on God, and they are saved from the storm. The Ninevites call on God, and they are saved from destruction. The apostle Paul said, “God desires everyone to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (2 Tim 2:4, NRSV). The apostle Peter also said, “Don't forget this fact, dear friends: With the Lord a single day is like a thousand years, and a thousand years are like a single day. The Lord is not slow about his promise, as some people understand slowness, but is being patient with you. He does not want anyone to perish, but wants everyone to repent” (2 Peter 3:8-9, ISV). That’s the heart of God. That’s the compassion of God.

An Open-Ended Story

The Book of Jonah is an open-ended story. It ends with a question. God asks one final question to Jonah, “You had compassion on the plant. Should I not have compassion on Nineveh? Think about all I’ve shown you, Jonah, in the storm, in the belly of the fish, under the plant. Should I not love these people, and should you not join me?” Jonah is much like the older brother in the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15. Unlike the younger brother, who left home and squandered the father’s money, the older brother stayed home always and obeyed the father completely. But when his father had compassion on the younger son, accepted him, and threw a party for him, the older brother was displeased and angry with the father. At that point it became obvious that he, also, did not love his father. At the end of the story, the father said to him, “Son, everything I have is yours. This brother of yours was lost and now is found. Shouldn’t I celebrate and rejoice? Should you not join me?”

God invites Jonah to jump out of his confined well, the well of self-righteousness, and to see himself how wide, how long, how high, and how deep is the love of God, the compassion of God. God invites us to grow and to interpret everything through the lens of his compassion, not through our views and our desires. Then, what does it look like for Christian to live a life of compassion in our own time and place? Today we live in a deeply divided world. People ask implicitly and explicitly, “Which side are you on?” In the Bible we see Jesus radical in many ways, but he is neither conservative nor liberal. Jesus is outside the lines. Pastor Tim Keller rightly said, “The more we faithfully preach Jesus, the longer it takes people to figure out where we stand on politics.”[3] The political left and the political right both have good things to say, and by nature both ideologies have their problems and limitations as well. Historically, liberals have helped us to see the importance of human rights and social justice issues – racial, economic, environmental, criminal justice. Conservatives have also helped us to maintain historical continuity and traditional values, such as marriage and family, and religious freedom. So it’s possible to be a liberal and a good Christian. It’s possible to be a conservative and a good Christian. But always, our first loyalty must be Jesus and his Kingdom. “Seek first the kingdom of God…, and all these things will be added to you” (Matt 6:33). We Christians are called to jump out of our own “well” and to see people in the world with compassion and join God in his work. We are called to do no harm (to speak no evil of those on the other side). We are called to do good (to advocate for the poor, to take action for social justice, to honor those in authority, to love our neighbors and enemies, to pray for those who hate us). That’s what it means to live a life of compassion.

“I Asked the Lord That I Might Grow”

John Newton, the writer of the song “Amazing Grace,” had been raised in a Christian home, but he abandoned religion and became a slave trader, running hard from God. But during a great storm in the Atlantic, he prayed and began a new journey toward a faith. Like Jonah, he went to preach in the great city London. Like Jonah, God sent him a storm, a fish, a plant to help him to grow in character and to see through the eyes of compassion. John Newton shares his story in his remarkable hymn:

I asked the Lord that I might grow

in faith and love and every grace;

might more of his salvation know,

and seek more earnestly his face.

I hoped that in some favored hour

at once he’d answer my request,

and by his love’s constraining power

subdue my sins and give me rest.

Instead of this he made me feel

the hidden evils of my heart,

and let the angry powers of hell

assault my soul in every part.

Yea more, with his own hand he seemed

intent to aggravate my woe,

crossed all the fair designs I schemed,

humbled my heart, and laid me low.

"Lord, why is this?" I, trembling, cried;

"Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?"

"Tis in this way," the Lord replied,

"I answer prayer for grace and faith.

"These inward trials I employ

from self and pride to set thee free,

and break thy schemes of earthly joy

that thou may’st find thy all in me." Amen.

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[1] Eugene H. Peterson, Praying with the Psalms . HarperOne. Kindle Edition. Location 2296 of 4206

[2] See “The Emotional Life of Our Lord,” in B. B. Warfield Person and Work of Christ, ed. Samuel G. Craig (Philadelphia: The Presbyterian and Reformed Publishing Company, 1950), pp. 93–145. Quoted in Timothy Keller, The Prodigal Prophet (p. 243). Penguin Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

[3] Scott Sauls, Jesus Outside the Lines: A Way Forward for Those Who Are Tired of Taking Sides (Tyndale House Publishers, 2015), 4.