Jonah's Fireworks & God's Grace

I have long been puzzled by the fourth chapter of Jonah. The story could have have come to such a tidy ending after chapter three—Jonah ran, returned, preached, and the people of Nineveh repented. The end. But no, the writer surprises us with one more chapter about Jonah’s angry fireworks, God’s boundless grace, a curious parable about vine & worm, and a final compelling question.

So, what are we to make of this fourth chapter of Jonah’s journey? 

Is it a lesson in anger management?

A portrait of God's restorative—not retaliatory—justice?

An invitation to remain in conversation even when we fiercely disagree?

A warning against placing national loyalty above divine calling?

Or perhaps it is all of the above.

Even amidst Jonah's anger, he is able to name what I like to call the “big five” divine attributes – gracious, merciful, slow to anger, quick to forgive and abounding in steadfast love (Jonah 4: 2). And yet, he simply cannot accept that these attributes might extend beyond the boundaries of his “own people.” His fixation on loathing his enemy has eclipsed his call to love them. So much so that he says he would rather die than witness God's mercy offered to his enemies.

Jonah, it seems, has fallen into what Timothy Keller calls “toxic nationalism:”

“When loyalty to [Jonah’s] people and loyalty to the Word of God seemed to be in conflict, he chose to support his nation over taking God’s love and message to a new society.” (Rediscovering Jonah, Penguin Books, 2020, pp. 5, 51)

I can’t help but wonder—are we falling into the same trap? Are we choosing allegiance to nation over allegiance to love? We are not called to love our “own people” first and others later. There is no hierarchy of sacred love.  We are called to the spectacularly countercultural notion that we are to love everyone - even those with whom we fiercely disagree.

And yet, in today’s polarized culture, it has become commonplace to speak of those with whom we disagree in the most unloving, ungracious, dehumanizing ways - calling them monsters, animals, scum, or worse. It appears that our fixation on loathing the enemy has all too often eclipsed our call to love them.

What if; however, we learned from Jonah’s fourth-chapter foibles?

What if we trusted that God’s “big five” applied not only to our "own people" but to everyone?

Every. Single. One. Of. Us.

What if...

As we in the United States celebrate our beautiful country this Fourth of July, Jonah’s story offers us an unexpected invitation: to set aside the growing trend toward toxic nationalism, and instead lean into the divine call to love as God loves—with grace, mercy, patience, forgiveness, and steadfast love. That is a calling to which I would gladly pledge my allegiance.