"11" verses to see God's ever-expanding Love (Jonah)

On the 11th day of Christmas the prophet Jonah gives to us a mirror to look at ourselves and wrestle with the radically inclusive love of God. Jonah is an absolute classic prophetic text - we get this narrative story rather than a discourse between a prophet and people, or God and a prophet. Jonah follows a narrative arch and becomes a foil to many of the biases and prejudices that we, uh…I mean the ancient Israelites, have. Jonah embodies all of us, to some degree. He is particularly stubborn and vindictive when it comes to what he wants for those he dislikes and despises. Jonah is a story that should put the listener in a place of hesitation. Israel, at the time, had a really bad king. A king that Jonah prophesies favorably toward, but Amos does not. So we should all be suspicious of this Jonah character already. 

Jonah is called to the center of the Assyrian empire to bring to them the message of the Lord. Jonah, being a petty prophet, goes the opposite direction. This story is filled with action that should help us see that this myth is one that can be applied directly to our own lives. Conflict rises and we go the opposite way. I’m going to skip over the very famous detail of the fish that swallowed Jonah and vomited him out (yea we clean that detail up a bit for the kids version…)

Ultimately Jonah gets to Nineveh, prophecies that the city will be “overturned” (נֶהְפָּכֶת nephaket). Jonah wishes this to be the complete destruction of those he is prophesying against. But God sees this as the “turning around” of these people. Again we see a reflection of ourselves. We all have people we wish the downfall of. We hope their world gets overturned. But God? God sees a world in which they turn, change, grow. And the same is true of us. We, in our vindictive and petty approach to our enemies are like Nineveh and Jonah all at one. We need to turn around, change, grow, heal. 

Jonah ultimately runs away from his calling because he is mad. Mad? What about? He is mad that God is merciful and would find a way to forgive these people. Jonah reminds us that God’s love is beyond what we can hold. It is ever expanding, like the very cosmos we exist within. On this 11th day of Christmas, I ask you to reflect on Jonah chapter 4 verse 11 that says, 

And should I not be concerned about Nineveh,

that great city, in which there are more than a 

hundred and twenty thousand persons 

who do not know their right hand from their left 

and also many animals?” 

God’s love for the world includes us and our enemies. It includes the conservative fundamentalists that drive me to bang my head against a theological wall. It includes our LGBTQ+ siblings that my conservative siblings desire to dismiss as horrid. It includes the red hat wearing alt-right policy makers. It includes progressive socialists and anarchists. It’s so expansive that God tells Jonah it even includes the animals.  

Let us challenge the status quo of empire and seek to liberate all from the exiles we have made for ourselves and others.