Jonah 04 – The Price of Grace

But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. ² He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord, when I was still at home? That is what I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. ³ Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

⁴ But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?” (Read the rest of the chapter, here.)

A tale of a sibling spat

This chapter reminds me of a time when my youngest sister, Carmen, and I were fighting. I can’t remember about what, but I must have gotten the upper hand in the argument, because Carmen went to complain to our parents. I hovered outside the door to hear if she would malign me, and what they would say. I don’t remember what Mom said, but clearly Carmen didn’t like it and told her to shut up – something we never said to our parents. I waited for Papa to lower the boom. All he did was look up briefly and say tersely, “Don’t talk like that to your mother.” I was so angry! If it had been me or my brother, we would have been in so much trouble! But Carmen, the youngest, only got a brief verbal reprise. Not exactly the vengeance, if you will, I was hoping would be brought to my whining, obtrusive, clearly out-of-line-in-so-many-ways little sister.

To be clear, I love my sister dearly, but I was not her biggest fan at that moment. I was even more mad when I saw she didn’t get punished. I felt much like Jonah did, sitting in a snit up on that hill, acting all holier-than-thou while really doing nothing to improve anybody’s situation. I don’t know why Carmen didn’t get in trouble that day. No one does, actually. None of my other family members remember this incident. So all I can do is conjecture. It’s possible that Papa was just tired, though I doubt it because that sort of disrespectful language was never tolerated in any other instance. So perhaps she was having a hard day and Papa was cutting her some slack. Perhaps I was really in the wrong and had pushed Carmen to the limit in our argument leading up to this little story, and Papa knew it, and wasn’t going to hold it against either of us, because that’s what siblings do sometimes.

Whatever the reason, how much easier would it have been for my parents to come down hard on my sister, yelling and blustering and sending her to her room? And how much of their own frustration would be expended (because I now know just how much frustration you suffer as a parent) if they had then turned their anger towards me for goading my sister into such a state in the first place? They would have been justified in doing so: neither Carmen nor I were behaving very well in the above scenario.

God, the patient parent

It is easy to be angry. It is easy to shout at, to shut out, to punish. And in some cases, all those things are justified – needed, even. But it is so much harder to be patient, to be loving, to be forgiving. Let’s look at this chapter again: By all rights, Nineveh should be destroyed. We don’t get to learn much about what condemned Nineveh in the book of Jonah, but in Nahum (another book devoted to prophesy against Nineveh), we learn that the city “plots evil against the Lord,” that it is a “city of blood, full of lies,” and a place of “endless cruelty.” To sum up, they were bad, really bad. God sending Jonah to warn them is kind of like the divine equivalent of a parent saying “you shape up or so help me…God?” Perhaps that analogy falls apart a little, but you get the main thrust of it. Here’s the twist though: unlike most children (or at least, unlike my children), they listened. Nineveh showed repentance, and God showed mercy. The fact that God spares such a terrible people after one little act of repentance clearly rankles Jonah, who storms off in a huff to sit on a hill and see what will happen to the city, much like an older brother sick of the leeway given to a younger sibling.

God has every right to be angry at Jonah now. Jonah basically back-talks to God (complaining about God’s greatest virtues, compassion and love, in just the height of irony). Then he waits to see if God will change their mind and actually strike Nineveh down, like Jonah thinks should happen. Jonah clearly thinks he knows better than God, and is just waiting for God to get with the picture. The hubris of his thinking is just like that of a teenager, don’t you think? I, at least, remember being thirteen and just knowing that I knew better than my parents. Again, God would have every right to turn Xyr anger against Jonah. Instead, God turns this into a teaching moment with the vine. Yet again, with what must have been accompanied with a deep cosmic sigh, God is patient.

Patience is the price we must pay for Grace. Perhaps it is easier for God to be endlessly patient, tapping into endless grace, being the Almighty and all. For me, it is a daily struggle. How much easier would it be to meet harsh words with more of the same? To yell at the kids every time they make a mistake? To look out for nobody’s needs but my own? I would have the satisfaction of saying exactly what I want to say when I want to say it…but not much else. Eventually, that sort of behavior would push everyone away, and I’d be left with an empty life, devoid of love.

My NIV study notes on this chapter close out with an additional line of scripture from Ezekiel: ” ‘As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live.’ ” We see that in Jonah, as God saves literally everyone from beginning to end: the sailors and captain; Nineveh’s people, king, and even livestock; not to mention Jonah himself. Maybe not everybody is worthy of our grace (let alone God’s) as we see fit. But what we think doesn’t matter: God gives us all that grace anyway. And if God can spare a city so full of sin and hate and murder as Nineveh, can’t we spare a little more grace for our neighbor? I think it is our duty to try.

Hosea 13 – Showing Up When It’s Hard

⁵ I cared for you in the wilderness,
    in the land of burning heat. (Read the rest of the chapter here!)

 

Woo, God is angry here folx!  As we’ve come up against infanticide twice in a short while, I think it’s time we talk about it.  Unfortunately there’s no two ways around it: this is what happened in wars back then.  Examples abound in the Bible of women and children being killed – by both the “bad” and the “good” guys.

But before we conclude that God is a baby-killing monster and all turn atheist, let’s remember two things: first, that atrocities just as bad as the ones written here are still happening today, and that they are not sanctioned by God.  Though many people turn a blind eye, many others cry out in God’s name against these acts of war.  Second, a lot of this is evocative symbolism.  In other words, Hosea knew this imagery would get a strong response from his readers, and decided to use it.  Killing the children of Samaria also becomes a metaphor for its destruction: for without children there is no future, therefore Samaria itself is destroyed through their death.

Even with these explanations, it’s not a comfortable passage to sit with, especially the Sunday before Christmas.  I wish I had more for you, my friends, but all I have today is this reminder: sometimes our presence is required.  It sounds simple, but it can be one of the most difficult and important things we do:  Showing up, bearing witness, standing by, waiting upon.  Think of going to a funeral: it’s never fun, but it means so much to the loved ones that remain, and can provide a path to closure for ourselves as well.  Or visiting a sick bed: the ill know they are not forgotten and left alone in their suffering.  Or even, on a much more daily level, listening to someone vent their frustrations without trying to “fix” anything. (My husband now asks me from time to time “am I supposed to just be listening right now or did you want a suggestion?”)

By the simple-yet-difficult act of showing up, we create a space for healing, for growth.  Healing and growth isn’t always pretty or pleasant, but it is very necessary. The more that we can help whomever may need it, the less we will be like the wayward nations of Ephraim or Samaria described above. Judging by God’s wrath upon them – whether it was real or metaphorical – that is a good thing to be.

Matthew 10 – Jesus Brings a Sword

Jesus called his twelve disciples to him and gave them authority to drive out impure spirits and to heal every disease and sickness.

² These are the names of the twelve apostles: first, Simon (who is called Peter) and his brother Andrew; James son of Zebedee, and his brother John; ³ Philip and Bartholomew; Thomas and Matthew the tax collector; James son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus; ⁴ Simon the Zealot and Judas Iscariot, who betrayed him.

⁵ These twelve Jesus sent out with the following instructions: “Do not go among the Gentiles or enter any town of the Samaritans. ⁶ Go rather to the lost sheep of Israel. ⁷ As you go, proclaim this message: ‘The kingdom of heaven has come near.’ ⁸ Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse those who have leprosy,^[a] drive out demons. Freely you have received; freely give.

⁹ “Do not get any gold or silver or copper to take with you in your belts—¹⁰ no bag for the journey or extra shirt or sandals or a staff, for the worker is worth his keep. ¹¹ Whatever town or village you enter, search there for some worthy person and stay at their house until you leave.¹² As you enter the home, give it your greeting. ¹³ If the home is deserving, let your peace rest on it; if it is not, let your peace return to you. ¹⁴ If anyone will not welcome you or listen to your words, leave that home or town and shake the dust off your feet. ¹⁵ Truly I tell you, it will be more bearable for Sodom and Gomorrah on the day of judgment than for that town.

¹⁶ “I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. ¹⁷ Be on your guard; you will be handed over to the local councils and be flogged in the synagogues. ¹⁸ On my account you will be brought before governors and kings as witnesses to them and to the Gentiles. ¹⁹ But when they arrest you, do not worry about what to say or how to say it. At that time you will be given what to say, ²⁰ for it will not be you speaking, but the Spirit of your Father speaking through you.

²¹ “Brother will betray brother to death, and a father his child; children will rebel against their parents and have them put to death. ²² You will be hated by everyone because of me, but the one who stands firm to the end will be saved. ²³ When you are persecuted in one place, flee to another. Truly I tell you, you will not finish going through the towns of Israel before the Son of Man comes.

²⁴ “The student is not above the teacher, nor a servant above his master.²⁵ It is enough for students to be like their teachers, and servants like their masters. If the head of the house has been called Beelzebul, how much more the members of his household!

²⁶ “So do not be afraid of them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be disclosed, or hidden that will not be made known. ²⁷ What I tell you in the dark, speak in the daylight; what is whispered in your ear, proclaim from the roofs. ²⁸ Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell. ²⁹ Are not two sparrows sold for a penny? Yet not one of them will fall to the ground outside your Father’s care.³⁰ And even the very hairs of your head are all numbered. ³¹ So don’t be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.

³² “Whoever acknowledges me before others, I will also acknowledge before my Father in heaven. ³³ But whoever disowns me before others, I will disown before my Father in heaven.

³⁴ “Do not suppose that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I did not come to bring peace, but a sword. ³⁵ For I have come to turn

“‘a man against his father,
    a daughter against her mother,
a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law—
³⁶     a man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.’

³⁷ “Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. ³⁸ Whoever does not take up their cross and follow me is not worthy of me. ³⁹ Whoever finds their life will lose it, and whoever loses their life for my sake will find it.

⁴⁰ “Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. ⁴¹ Whoever welcomes a prophet as a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward, and whoever welcomes a righteous person as a righteous person will receive a righteous person’s reward. ⁴² And if anyone gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones who is my disciple, truly I tell you, that person will certainly not lose their reward.”

So my Biblical memory ends at v. 30 with that warm and fuzzy bit about meaning more to God than the sparrows, feeling all special because even the hairs on my head are numbered.  All this talk about bringing a sword? Fighting among families? I definitely forget reading that, ever.  Quite frankly, I don’t know what to do with it.

Part of me wonders if Jesus even actually said it.  Remember, the whole Bible is written by people.  It may have been divinely inspired, but it was recorded by decidedly fallible humans.  Matthew was a shrewd writer, and I don’t want to say he straight up fabricated a story, but it seems so off-message from the rest of what Jesus has said so far.  My main point of contention is I find the reference to the cross a little self-conscious.  True, crucifixion was a common form of execution back then, so the disciples would have been familiar with it, and Jesus’ words in v. 38 would have had meaning to them even before Jesus was crucified himself. But knowing that this Gospel was compiled after (well after, some say) Jesus’ death and resurrection makes me wonder if time colored Matthew’s memory of the event.

But then I wonder if I’m just being comfortable, and trying to fit Jesus into my own comfortable little box.  I like thinking of Jesus as a bringer of peace, a righter of wrongs. But it is true that father and son, daughter and mother, whole families do often turn against each other in the name of righteousness.  This passage immediately made me think of our own Civil War, and all the anecdotes I heard about two brothers fighting on different sides of the same battle, or young boys sneaking away from their Confederate families to fight in the Union army.  I wonder how many people back then thought that it must be the end of times, remembering Jesus’ words.  That that war was the sword Jesus promised to bring to Earth.

It’s a disconcerting passage, but upon reflection, I think it is still in keeping with Jesus’ teaching of love.  Whether Matthew embellished it or not doesn’t even really matter in the long run, because it is urging us to do the same thing: work to spread the good news.  Even if it means a break with your family, persecution, or even bodily harm unto the point of death, work to spread the good news of Jesus.  Of course this means the Gospel, and if anyone is made a believer in him through whatever work you do, that’s great!  But I’ll tell you my favorite saying when it comes to a lot of things, but especially when it comes to evangelizing:  A drowning man doesn’t need swim lessons, he needs a life-preserver.  In other words, I think Jesus would be most concerned that we are providing everyone with enough to eat, a safe place to live and work, and access to medical care. Only then, when they’ve stopped drowning in the trials this life brings, can we discuss loftier ideals.

That doesn’t sound like it should be so controversial, right?  But try enacting those policies in this country: We have escalating tensions – and death toll – at our Southern border as people are denied entry and even denied their own needed medications.  We still have over half a million people experiencing homelessness in this country every year, and those numbers are starting to creep back up again.  Flint, Michigan still doesn’t have clean water.  People effected by these headlines, and millions of others I haven’t mentioned, are just struggling to survive.

The best way to make an impact on these problems isn’t to preach about Jesus, but to be an instrument of Jesus, and act.  And perhaps that does mean fighting.  I still don’t think Jesus is advocating violence as a solution, but he did advocate for radical non-violent resistance. So fighting hard for what you think is right by protesting, sit-ins, or disrupting family dinner to vocally disagree with racist Uncle Jimmy may be just as Christian as serving in a soup kitchen or filling an Angel Tree wish list.  I just prefer to be on the safe side, and offer any who needs it “even a cold cup of water.”  In other words, we may never know who among us is Jesus’ disciple, so why deny anyone dignity and equality?  And if we have to be vocal to the point of strife in our support of said dignity an equality, then perhaps we ourselves will become the righteous sword of Jesus.