The Episcopal Diocese of Tennessee



Proper 20, Year A (BCP), September 21, 2008, St. Andrew’s Church Nashville

“And the LORD said, "Is it right for you to be angry?” (Jon. 4:4).

Poor Jonah! God commands him to go to the great pagan city of Nineveh, to proclaim God’s judgment and the city’s destruction, and Jonah runs in the opposite direction in order to escape from the task. God stops him short and gets him back on track (that’s where the great fish comes in), and so we pick up where our first reading starts. The people of Nineveh repent and God spares them from destruction, and this is the source of Jonah’s anger. He knew, back when he was called, that God was going to let these pagan people off the hook; it’s morally offensive to Jonah that they should get off so lightly. “I knew it!”, he says to God; “I knew you were going to spare them! That’s why I didn’t want to go in the first place.” Jonah has a mighty case of righteous indignation; he’s angry and we don’t have to look far to see where the buck stops. God’s mercy makes no sense to Jonah, and in anger he lies down to die.

As absurd as it seems to say it, Jonah is angry because God has failed to measure up to Jonah’s own ideas of what is meet and right. In his moral calculation, God has let Jonah down. He’s been too forgiving, too merciful, too generous. What happened to the God who destroys the unrighteous, the God who keeps count and balances the books? Nineveh is a city that has conquered the world, and wreaked untold suffering in the process. Is there no justice? It’s not just that God has failed to measure up to Jonah’s ideas of what’s right, but failed to measure up to fairly common human ideas of justice: the rendering to each of what is his due. God has been found wanting, on the global scale of justice, and Jonah is offended.

The joke’s on Jonah, of course, as God finds a subtle way, through the ministry of the worm, to remind him of his common regard for both Jonah and the people of Nineveh. Without ever pointing it out, God calls to mind Jonah’s own failure to respond and his return to the right way; his own disobedience and repentance. God really is too merciful, too forgiving, too generous: not just to the Ninevites but to Jonah as well. Self-righteousness is a pretty good definition of what ailed Jonah. Or, to put it another way, God is more merciful, more forgiving, more generous, than human beings are likely to be.

Generosity is God’s mode of operation in the world. Thank God we are not required to balance the account that is against us! When we look at the Cross we see God’s justice, but even more God’s love. If there is a rendering of accounts at the crucifixion, then it conforms to no moral calculus that we know, since the one who bears the price of redemption is Jesus Christ himself. Our human sensibilities stand, like Jonah, outraged, at the foot of the Crucified One. But we are not right to be angry. The Cross is in fact the great sign of God’s generosity and love toward us.

Part of Jesus’ invitation to us to take up our cross and follow him is the invitation to exercise generosity ourselves. God is more merciful, more forgiving, more generous than we are likely to be, but we need to be stretched by the example of Christ. We twist ourselves around when we try to balance things out ourselves, according to our own ideas of justice, but that’s a stretch in the wrong direction. We keep losing sight of where we stand in relationship with God. Forgiveness, mercy, generosity, are the only remedy for what ails us. God has been generous to us! Christ has stretched out his arms upon the Cross, the sign of generous and costly welcome, and we need to be stretched in the same way. Our example is Jesus Christ himself, who from the Cross shows us the way of life and peace.

- The Rt Rev’d John Bauerschmidt, Bishop of Tennessee

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