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By Pastor Brian Bestian
Have you ever not been “on the same page” with someone? A new res-ident was walking down a street and noticed a man struggling with a large refrigerator at the doorway of his house. When the newcomer volunteered to help, the homeowner was overjoyed, and the two men to-gether began to work and struggle with the bulky appliance. After several minutes of fruitless effort, the two men stopped and just stared at each other in frustration. They looked as if they were on the verge of total ex-haustion. Finally, when they had caught their breath, the first man said to the homeowner, “We’ll never get this refrigerator in the house!” To which the homeowner replied, “In the house? I’m trying to move it out of here!”
Often it’s just a communication breakdown. The truth is we only get things done when we’re in agreement. We need to be either going in or going out. We have to be on the same page.
Jonah found out that he was on a different page than God. Jonah hated the Assyrians, and they were easy to hate. If you were to wrap up in one package Nazi Germany, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and North Korea at their worst, you would start to get a feel for the nation of Assyria. The Assy-rians were arrogant, cruel conquerors, and Jonah despised them. Telling Jonah that he was to preach to the Assyrians was like asking a man whose family had been brutally murdered by terrorists to offer those terrorists a smile and complete forgiveness.
Forgiveness? Nothing would have pleased Jonah more than to see that whole bunch of Assyrians wiped off the face of the earth. The Assyrians may have mattered to God, but they certainly didn’t matter to Jonah.
The Assyrians were a cruel and heartless people. They gloated over their victim’s suffering and enjoyed every atrocity. They would hold their victims down, reach into their mouths, and pull out their tongues. They would skin their victims alive. They would lift their victims up into the air and impale them on sharp wooden spikes. They would build pyramids of human skulls outside of a conquered city. Their brutality was well-known throughout the ancient world.
And frankly, Jonah hated them! It’s not hard to see why! Jonah didn’t want them blessed. The Assyrians could be condemned to the far re-cesses of hell—forever—as far as Jonah was concerned. He had no de-sire to see these people repent and turn from their sin. He wanted them to receive the harsh judgment that they so richly deserved. He wanted to see them burn!
Jonah’s sin or “evil” was an unforgiving heart. It enrages Jonah that God’s wrath against Nineveh has subsided. This is more than ironic, for God had saved Jonah from destruction in the raging sea. As a result, the Gentile sailors rejoiced and worshiped God. Now, when the raging sea of God’s anger is silenced with God’s forgiving grace, Jonah becomes enraged at God. How dare God do such a thing—forgive the undeserving!
And yet, by calling God’s forgiveness “a great evil” (which Jonah does in chapter four, verse one), Jonah is himself swallowed up—for the second time!—by evil. His wickedness is his ungracious heart.
Jonah and the LORD were on a completely different page. One was con-demning; the other was forgiving. One was kindhearted; the other was hardhearted. Out of pure grace and mercy, the LORD responds to the bad news of evil with the good news of the gospel. “The people of Nineveh believed God . . .When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed His mind about the calamity that He had said He would bring upon them; and He did not do it.” (Jonah 3:5, 10)
It is a beautiful thing to see—God and His people on the same page. Da-vid once wrote that God would lead His people “in paths of righteousness for His name’s sake.” This is the healthy relationship God desires for Him-self and all His children. This is what God wants for us—to be on the same page with Him.
But Jonah doesn’t want God to be like this. Well, that’s not exactly true. Jonah wants God to be gracious and merciful and loving to him and the people Jonah cares about! But he doesn’t want God to love the Ninevites. He wants the people in Nineveh—those terrible, pagan enemies of Israel—to get it in the neck!
It’s an old story. One that Jesus couldn’t help but relate as well. Do you remember His “Parable of the Vineyard”? “The vineyard owner replied, ‘Friend, I am doing you no wrong; did you not agree with me for the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go; I choose to give to this last the same as I give to you. Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?’ So the last will be first, and the first will be last” (Matthew 20:13-16).
Jesus shared this parable—a new story—about envy and grace. But it wasn’t new at all. Jonah was just as envious as these jealous vineyard workers. The vineyard workers who were in the vineyard longest felt that they deserved more pay. They were just like Jonah. Same old story!
Is this story so old and ingrained that we are guilty of it, too? Do we ever let our standing as faithful children of God stand in the way of God’s grace towards others? Are there moments when we act self-righteously or frown upon God’s mercy?
I must confess that there are times when I feel for old Jonah. I’m so very happy that God is merciful and gracious to me. I am eternally blessed that the Lord has undying love for my family and friends. But there are some folks who come to mind now and then that I wonder about. There might even be one or two—I can’t figure out what God could possibly love about them. And then I’m reminded of a central principle of our faith: “God so loved the world”—Israelites, Edomites, Moabites, Amalakites, Jebusites, and yes, even Ninevites!
The movie, “Forrest Gump,” has a classic one liner where Forrest says, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re going to get.” But there is another famous line worth noting. This particular scene has one of the central characters, Jenny, returning to her old home after her father had died. The old farm house is dilapidated and abandoned. As she reflects on the sexual abuse that she endured as a child from her father, Jenny is overcome by rage and begins throwing rocks furiously at the house. Jenny finally falls to the ground in exhaustion, and this scene closes with Forrest Gump saying, “Sometimes there just aren’t enough rocks.” There will never be enough rocks, because revenge doesn’t work!
In an interview with the magazine Business 2.0, Peter Drucker tells the story of his father’s friend, Eugene Meyer, who served as chairman of the Federal Reserve Board under President Herbert Hoover. Meyer explained how the Great Depression began as a mild recession in Europe. It could have been kept in check by simply stopping a run on the banks by printing excess currency. Meyer went to President Hoover with his plan after the 1932 election. But Hoover said that as a lame-duck president he couldn’t act without Franklin D. Roosevelt’s approval. Meyer went to FDR and re-ceived a cold response. “This is Hoover’s watch,” Roosevelt said. Hoover and Roosevelt never met in those months because they deeply disliked each other. Their antipathy for each other propelled our country into its greatest financial crisis.
Consider for a moment who was all in attendance at the Last Supper? Included among those disciples was Matthew, a tax collector, and Simon, a zealot. And don’t forget—impetuous Peter who would deny Jesus within a few short hours. Were they on the same page as Jesus? I don’t think so. And then there was Judas Iscariot. Judas and Jesus were certainly not on the same page! But just as God continued to love Jonah with his vindictive heart, so in Christ He continued to love not only Judas, but all of His disciples, none of whom was on the same page as the Savior.
In fact, all people are on the same page, the page of the Bible in Romans 3:23 that says, “All have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” None of us deserves God’s grace or His forgiveness. But Christ’s invitation, we will step up to the Lord's Table today to eat and drink again—for one of us, it’s the first time.
If you’re like me, you’ll come with a lot of baggage: things you’ve done wrong, ill-conceived thoughts, and words you’re not so proud. The bottom line is that we’ll come with a life, like Jonah’s, that’s in need of forgiveness. That’s why the body and blood of Christ are such wonderful gifts. The bread and wine look so simple. Yet in this humble wrapping comes some-thing more precious than all the riches of the world—the price He paid to make us His own. Wrapped up in Christ’s body and blood are the humilia-tion of Bethlehem and Nazareth, the suffering of Gethsemane and Golgo-tha, the pain, shame, death, and torments of hell that Jesus suffered in our place. Jesus’ sacrifice for sin lies before us. He gives it to us. We can touch it and taste it and see it.
And so we put away our grudges and thoughts of revenge, and come to this sacred meal that the LORD has prepared for us. And here, in the real presence of Jesus—in, with, and under the bread and wine—we not only survive our grudges, but we overcome them in the power of His broken body and shed blood! Here in this holy meal, God restores us and places us back onto the same page with Him.
In Christ’s merciful name, we pray. Amen.
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