Preached at Canadochly Lutheran Church on Sunday, September 21, 2014
Scripture text: Jonah 3:10-4:11
It’s no secret to anyone that we live in troubling times. Despite massive gains in the stock market, many if not most Americans are experiencing less economic security than at any time in the past several generations. An Ebola epidemic threatens West Africa, and even here in this country the idiocy of the anti-vax movement has allowed long-dead diseases like measles and whooping cough to surge anew. Our politicians cannot agree on event the most elementary parts of governance. Climate change threatens the very existence of our civilization. It’s all rather frightening.
But perhaps, most troubling of all in these times is just how quick we humans are to see violence as a response to the troubles we face. ISIS brutally murders pretty much any Westerner they can get their hands on, while we gear up for yet more military action in a portion of the world many Americans are tired of hearing about on the nightly news. A study this week revealed that on average the LAPD has killed one civilian each week for the past 14 years, nearly all of which are black males (And we wonder why Ferguson, MO exploded into protest a few weeks ago.) Anita Sarkeesian and other feminists, as I’ve mentioned before, find themselves under constant threat of rape and murder by people who disagree with their critique of our society. One congressional candidate suggested this week we should go to war with Mexico over the immigrant problem. Constant violence, either actual or threatened, and so much of it fueled by hate and fear of those who are different from us.
These are disturbing trends. It sometimes feels like the very fabric of our society is on the verge of unraveling and maybe it is. I am often reminded when I discuss these sorts of issues of a quote I read in a book some years ago. Robert Howard was the pulp author in the 1930s who created the character of Conan the Barbarian and in one of those Conan stories, he had this to say about the nature of humankind: “Barbarianism is the natural state of mankind. Civilization is unnatural. It is the whim of circumstance. And barbarianism must ultimately triumph.” If the news we see each day is any indication, we may be dangerously close to his fiction becoming our fact.
Fear, hate, violence, these are emotions of the barbarian. And, let’s be honest, those barbaric emotions are within each one of us. I’ll admit I’ve had my moments when I responded in fear to someone different than me. Moments when my rage at my wounded pride has nearly exploded into violence. Moments when I have hated those who have wronged me. We all have them. We all struggle against them. Or perhaps not. Perhaps the problem is that we’re not struggling against them like we should. Perhaps, for too many of us in our world today, we’re giving them free reign.
Of course, we feel justified in these feelings. We’re the wounded party. We’re the good guys and they’re the villains. But life is never that simple. People do not choose evil for its own sake; they choose it because they confuse it for good. And are we not making that very mistake here?
We would not be the first to let hate, anger, or fear to blind us to the truth about our world and about the people around us. These are lessons that are central to one Old Testament book in particular, the book of Jonah.
Jonah is a parable about hate. Many of us who are familiar with the story don’t realize that. We think it’s a miracle story about a man who got swallowed up by a large sea creature and miraculously survived.
Or we think it a moral lesson: better do what God says or something will eat you. But the book really isn’t about either of those things. It’s about Jonah and the foolishness of his hate and, by extension, the foolishness of all our hate.
Jonah is told to go prophesy to the city of Nineveh, which at that point in history was the capital of the Assyrian Empire, the sworn enemy of Israel. They were the villains, the black hats, the enemy.
Jonah wants nothing to do with this calling. He’s afraid, but he’s not afraid of what you might think. He’s not thinking that they’re going to kill him or something like that. No, he’s afraid that God is going to forgive them. That’s the worst thing that could happen. This cannot be. Far better to let them be ignorant of God’s will. Far better to force God’s hand to smite those monsters. Let them burn! They deserve it. Kill them all.
So he flees to the far side of the world. Of course, he doesn’t make it. He has that unfortunate run-in with some manner of sea creature and gets turned back around. Realizing God isn’t going to give him a choice in this, he goes and he delivers his prophecy. And then, he sees his worst-case scenario unfold before. The Ninevites repent and God forgives.
Our first lesson today is Jonah’s response to God’s mercy and it can be summed up quite simple as a “temper tantrum.” He’s ticked off that God relented from punishing these vile people. He’s infuriated that nobody’s going to die, that there will be no fire and brimstone today. God comes to him and says quite simply “Don’t you get it? Open your eyes and see what I see. There are 120,000 people in this city. My people. People that I have created. People that I have fashioned in my image. People that I love. Why can’t you see that?”
Why can’t we indeed?
We live in a sinful world. But often times the sin that drives things closer to the brink is not the sin of others, not the sin of our enemies real or perceived. It’s our own. Jonah would have done anything to see Nineveh destroyed and what he doesn’t realize is that singular obsession makes him a far worse monster than any Ninevite. When our impulse in any encounter with those who are different from us is violence or hate, we don’t just stoop down to the level of our enemies, we make ourselves worse that they could ever hope to be.
Today is the International Day of Peace and later this morning we will gather outside to pray for that peace. But there’s a better prayer than the one we’ll speak together outside. It’s the prayer of surrender, the prayer where we let go of our hate, anger, and fear at others. It’s the prayer where we ask God to open our eyes to see the people of the world the way he does. Not as good guys and bad guys. Not as heroes and villains. But each one of us imago dei, fearfully and wonderfully made in the image of God himself. To look upon others as Christ looked from the cross, not with hate, but seeing each one, even those that killed him, as worth dying for. If we do that, and if we show the world how to do that, we will have peace. Amen.
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