The New Testament reading today is another one of those clever juxtapositions between God and man. God tells Jonah to walk through the sinful city of Nineveh and announce the coming of God's destructive justice. The city goes into mourning and God, impressed with their sincere contrition, decides not to destroy them. There are countless interpretations. The mercy of God is the obvious one. Many are confused by God's mercy, as if He were inconstant. It certainly is not a great biblical moment for predestination.
But the story of Jonah is bigger. And harrowing. This episode, where he hears God's words about Nineveh, is not his first one. He flees the first one, hides, takes a ship to flee the country, is lost at sea, is swallowed by "a large fish", stays in the fish's stomach for three days and is vomited up on dry land before he submits to the will of God. Then God relents and Jonah fells he has been betrayed by God, that God's word will now be slighted and that Jonas has looked like an idiot in front of the people of Nineveh. God then shelters him with ivy, then destroys the ivy and exposes Jonas to the sun, all of which makes Jonas angrier.
"Thou art grieved for the ivy, for which thou hast not laboured, nor made to grow..." God says to him. Not only is God merciful but His decisions are beyond our ken and stand alone, outside our understanding and, importantly, our judgment. And, regardless of our assessment, He will have mercy on a people "that know not how to distinguish between their right hand and their left". Oh, and by the way, "many beasts."
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