Jump Start # 2127

Jonah 4:4 “The Lord said, “Do you have good reason to be angry?”

We continue looking at lessons from the book of Jonah. In the final chapter, there are two expressions that are repeated. God says two of them and Jonah says two of them. Twice Jonah says, “death is better to me than life.”

Those are not the words of a suicidal person. Jonah never tries to kill himself. He is angry, upset and disappointed with the way things have turned out. He doesn’t want to see anymore. God caused a plant to grow to shade Jonah and he became extremely happy. Then God caused the plant to whither and die the next day. The hot, scorching sun beat down on Jonah. He became faint. This is when he begs God to take his life.

The other repeated expression is from God. Twice God asks Jonah, as our verse states, “Do you have good reason to be angry?” God was trying to get Jonah to learn a lesson. Jonah cared more for that plant, which he did nothing for except enjoy it, than the citizens of Nineveh. God had compassion for Nineveh, souls that were created in His image, by Him, and who turned their hearts to Him because of His message that was delivered by His prophet. God’s fingerprints were all over the Nineveh story. In comparison, Jonah didn’t do a thing for that plant. God had a right to care for Nineveh.

Do you have a right to be angry? That’s a good question for our times. Anger seems to abound. The music these days is dark and angry. The climate in politics today is angry. It seems that so many are just on the edge. If you drive too slow, in the wrong lane, or too close to another, you’ll probably set someone off and you’ll get an earful of car horns.

Anger can be like a volcano. A person might explode at anytime. Shouting in the homes. Slamming doors. Hurt feelings. Anger on the highway. Anger at work. “Going Postal” is an expression that came from an angry employee years ago at a post office. He came with a gun and shot people. That scenario has sadly been repeated with school shootings, mall shootings and movie theatre shootings. These are not happy people who do this. They are angry, upset and mentally unbalanced. They become unglued and anything happens.

Paul addressed anger in the Ephesian letter. There he ties anger in with sin and giving the devil an open door to our hearts. When angry, a person runs on passion and not thoughts. He says things that he later regrets. He often does things that later he realizes were over the top and out of place. A person can apologize and they should, but people will remember. Kids will remember. And, people tend to take a step back because they don’t want to witness another explosion again.

To answer the Lord’s repeated question, “Do you have a reason to be angry?” We think we do. Something happened that was unfair, not right, and messed with our lives. We get angry watching a ballgame when our team makes a simple mistake. I’m always amazed that professional football teams get a penalty for having too many players on the field. That’s a high school mistake.

Like Jonah, we get angry when there is discomfort in our lives. For Jonah, a shade tree died. Now he had to sit in the hot sun. I never have understood why he was just sitting there watching. His job was done. Go home. Now, take that boat ride to Tarshish. But he sat there in the hot sun watching. The more the temperature rose, the hotter Jonah’s attitude became. Just let me die, was all that was going through his head. “Woe is me,” can be the song that plays in the background of the angry prophet.

Some anger is justified. You become a victim of crime. A loved one is hurt intentionally by another person. Your child is bullied to tears. You are mocked and made fun of. The Lord’s word is abused and misused. The Lord was angry with the unfair profit that was taking place in the Temple. He turned their tables over and drove them out. Anger, when directed in the right way can lead to positive changes. Part of the movement that led to the forming of this independent country was anger over being taxed without having a voice. Taxation without representation, led some to toss boxes of tea into the Boston harbor.

But for Jonah, he had no real reason to be angry. A pouting prophet, a preacher with an attitude, not only makes a pitiful example, but it shows that his heart had no room for forgiving people who were different than he was. This wasn’t about plants, it was really about Nineveh. He never wanted to go there. He never wanted to preach to them. And, he certainly never wanted them to be forgiven by God. The Lord saw this. Misdirected anger. Over-reacting. Going past Jerusalem. Those were the steps of Jonah. And, it can be ours as well.

Someone decides to be baptized on a Sunday morning. It take time to baptize a person. This means that we are not getting out at our regular time. Rather than rejoicing, some are mad. Mad because they have to wait. Mad because they may now have to stand in line and wait for a table at the restaurant. Mad because of their discomfort. Sounds a bit like Jonah.

A song leader decides to sing a few extra songs one Sunday. It’s more than what is normally sung. That means we get out a bit later than normal. Someone gets mad. Sounds a bit like Jonah.

The preacher has a longer lesson than normal. People look at their watches. They sigh. They are finished before the preacher is. Some get mad. Sounds a bit like Jonah.

And, I’ve noticed, when folks leave mad, they shoot tiny darts in the form of comments that are just loud enough to be heard and just pointed enough to hurt. Spending more time worshipping God than we normally do is seen as violation of some commandment. We can’t worship God that long, is what their anger is saying. My time is more important than what we are doing in here. I want to go home and watch TV is higher on my list of priorities than praising God. And in the background, I wonder if the Lord is saying, “Do you have a reason to be angry?”

The problem of Jonah was Jonah. The problem we face is ourselves. Maybe God has caused a plant in your life to die. Maybe there has been some inconvenience, discomfort and unpleasant things in your life to get you to see what really matters. I wonder if poor Jonah ever learned the lesson God was trying to teach him.

I wonder if you and I will ever get the same lesson?

Roger

Jump Start # 2126

Jonah 4:2 “He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘Please Lord, was not this what I said while I was still in my own country? Therefore in order to forestall this I fled to Tarshish, for I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abundant in lovingkindness, and one who relents concerning calamity.”

Once more, we look at lessons from Jonah. Our verse today contains a prayer of Jonah. It’s his second prayer. The first prayer, from the belly of the great fish, was offered in fear. Now, out of that trouble, on dry land, mission completed, Jonah prays in anger. He is so upset that he wants God to take his life. He’s seen enough.

Consider some thoughts from our verse today:

Praying in anger. This is what Jonah did. Prayer is talking to God and when life throws all kinds of things at us, we will have various emotions. I can understand praying to God when scared, confused or unsure. But we must be careful about praying angry. God was doing what Jonah didn’t want. God was going to forgive Nineveh because they repented at the preaching of Jonah.

Mad at God can happen because things do not go as we want them to. Prayers are not answered the way we wanted them to be. Doors of opportunity closed before we could take advantage of them. A loved one dies. A job is offered to someone else. A prodigal won’t come home. A broken friendship won’t be healed. Our hearts are broken and our emotions are angry. We feel God could have done things differently. He didn’t. He feel God could have helped us out, but it seems He didn’t. And, in anger we lash out at God. Some blame God. Some just want to get things off their chest and they unload on God.

It seems that we can easily cross some lines here that can bring disrespect towards God and can view and treat God as one of us. He is not. He is always God. His ways, we remember Isaiah saying, are higher than our ways. Telling God off, isn’t something that is good for our faith nor our relationship with Him. God doesn’t work for us. He is not our servant.

Second, Jonah claimed that he knew God. His prayer includes, “I knew that You are a gracious and compassionate God…” If you knew God is this way, then why are you angry? God is acting just as you expected. This is His way. He is loving and merciful.

Jonah appears to believe that God belongs to Israel and exclusively to Israel alone. There is no room for compassion in Jonah’s heart for Nineveh. His dream and wish would be for God to wipe Nineveh off the map. Now, that would put a smile on Jonah’s face. Destroy them, not forgive them. His actions indicate that he really did not know God.

Now, this brings us to how well do we know God? The God of the Scriptures is the true and accurate picture of God. So often, we can hold on to a concept of God that cannot be supported by Scripture. We want God to be a certain way. We just know that God is this way, when there is nothing to base that upon. This is seen everyday at funerals. Jesus said, unless you believe that I am, you will die in your sins. He said, unless you repent you will perish. But everyday, across this land, families are convinced that their departed loved one is smiling from Heaven. They just know God has them. They say this knowing that the departed never had a spiritual thought in his head for decades. He never worshipped. He never read God’s word. And, any time he said God’s name, it wasn’t in a prayer, but a blasphemous comment abusing God’s name. But try to point these things out and you will unleash a holy war and have the fight of your life on hand. I know dad is in Heaven, they declare. God needs him and God wants him.

How well do we know God?

Yet, another thought springs from this prayer of Jonah. Here, the prophet of God, a preacher, stood opposite of the very nature of God. Jonah was God’s spokesman, but Jonah wasn’t like God. God was kind. Jonah was finished with Nineveh. God was willing to forgive and offer a second chance to those foreign people. Jonah felt like he should never have preached to them.

And herein, lies a great concern. The people of God, even the preachers of God’s word, can act and behave so differently than God does. Jonah was given a second chance. The Lord could have left Jonah inside that giant fish. God could have allowed Jonah to be digested and that would have been it for the prophet. But He didn’t. He gave Jonah a second chance. Yet, Jonah could not give Nineveh a second chance. Years later, Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son, brings us to the older brother who remains outside the house and unwilling to grant his reckless brother a second chance.

How many times do you think God has forgiven you in your life? How many times? A hundred? A thousand? A million? Nearly every prayer asks God for our forgiveness. Yet, there is that person who gossiped about us. We are ready to declare, “off with their head.” God can forgive, but we won’t. God is compassionate and His children can be judgmental. God can offer second chances and His children want to close the door on people. God loves and His children hate. It has baffled me through the years how the very people can sing, “Oh, how I love Jesus,” but their comments afterwards and during a Bible class sound so insensitive, cruel and hurtful. The people of God can act so unlike the God that they follow.

Someone messes up and makes some sinful and wrong choices, and the first words out of some mouths are, “Withdraw from them.” Why are we so quick with that? We pull that expression out like an old Western six shooter. We fire at will and hope the problem goes away. The father in Luke 15 rushed out to greet the prodigal. Many of us would be waiting in the doorway, watching him crawl. The father ordered sandals, ring, robe and a feast. Many of us would order an explanation. We want to know why we were put through all this mess. We’d be more concerned about ourselves than the sinner who wanted to be right.

And, then there’s all the whispers that take place when a person goes “forward” in church. What did they do, is on everyone’s mind. Did they confess all? Was that enough? Or, the trials that can take place in our hearts. Guilty and ready to execute, never realizing that Heaven is rejoicing because a sinner has come home. Like Jonah, you and I can be so unlike our God.

The world sees God through us. Our harsh comments. Our negative responses. Our critical complaining. Our judgmental spirit. And, is it any wonder that friends and family stay outside the church doors. If God is like us, they want no part of that. If the church is like us, who wants to have to run through that horror chamber each week. Eyes staring at you. People whispering. Some turning away. The church may not even be close to any of that, but if we are, that’s their assumption about the church.

Can you imagine going to a church full of Jonah’s? Can you imagine basing your concept of God from Jonah’s attitude?

The great writer Philip Yancey tells the sordid story in one of his books about a young mother, so strung out on drugs that she prostituted her young daughter to afford drug money. She was ashamed and broken. She had broken so many laws. In trying to help her, Yancey suggested that she go to church services. Shockingly, she replied, “Church? Why would I ever go to church, they will just make me feel worse.” That line has always stayed with me. Instead of finding help, hope and comfort among people who have tasted forgiveness, she feared judgmental spirits and shunning because of the mistakes she had made. The church will only make be feel worse.

We must be like God. More than just holy, as Peter declares. More than just worshipping as Paul instructed. We need to forgive, love and accept as God does. The Pharisee crowd to which Jesus told the prodigal story to, were upset because Jesus was eating with sinners. They were too good for such things. Even when Jesus was anointed at Simon’s house by a sinful woman’s tears, Simon was bothered because of who she was. He was judging and never saw a heart that loved the Lord.

We become like God when we fill our hearts with His word and treat people as He would. If Jonah really knew God, then you’d think Jonah ought to find some room in his heart for Nineveh.

Are you like your Heavenly Father? The children of God need to act like God.

Roger

Jump Start # 2125

Jonah 1:3 “But Jonah rose up to flee to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord. So he went down to Joppa, found a ship which was going to Tarshish, paid the fare and went down into it to go to Tarshish from the presence of the Lord.”

In our Jump Start yesterday, we saw the pagans were praying to their gods while Jonah was sleeping. A great storm caused the sailors to fear for their lives. The pagans were doing what Jonah should have been doing.

There is another powerful scene in these opening verses of Jonah. Given the commission by God to go to the Assyrian capital of Nineveh and preach, Jonah, instead went down to the docks to find a boat that would take him to Tarshish, which is the opposite direction, near Spain. We are not told what was running through Jonah’s mind, other than he just didn’t want to see a foreign nation receive the blessings of God’s forgiveness. The Assyrians were not God’s people. They were not of Abraham, nor did they have the law of Moses. Jonah didn’t agree with God. Jonah wasn’t going to do it. You can’t make me, must have run through Jonah’s mind.

Maybe Jonah thought if he got to Tarshish, it just wouldn’t be practical for God to send him. Maybe God would pick another prophet and Jonah would be off the hook. Maybe, Jonah thought that God wouldn’t find him. He certainly wouldn’t expect the prophet to be over there. Whatever the reason, Jonah disobeyed God and went the other way.

Now, some obvious and practical lessons:

First, when a person wants to disobey God, Satan will always have a boat waiting for you to go the other way. Imagine Jonah went to the docks and every boat was heading toward Nineveh. That wasn’t the case. Imagine Jonah went to the docks, but he didn’t have enough money to go to Tarshish. There was a boat waiting and Jonah just happened to have the right amount. But there was another trip that Jonah took before he boarded the boat to Tarshish. He had left God in his mind and his heart. Like the prodigal in Luke 15, the boy was in the far country long before he ever approached his father about the inheritance. Jonah that thought this out. He had made up his mind that he was not going to do what God said. His thoughts turned to planning his escape.

Often our sins work the same way. Long before we actually commit a sinful act, our hearts and our minds have planned things out. Impulsive sin happens, such as anger, saying offensive words, even violence. Crimes of passion are different than premediated crimes. Jonah thought this out. He had to take money with him for the trip. He planned all of this.

Satan will do this for you. If you want to leave your marriage, Satan will put someone in your life to have a sexual affair with. He will build the reasons, fill your mind with excuses to justify it and even have an opportunity for you to carry out your lustful thoughts.

If you want to steal from your company, Satan will open doors of opportunity for you. He make it possible for you to do this. He’ll give you the moment when you actually do this. He’ll fill your head with reasons why this makes sense.

If you want to leave the people of God and worship with a modern church that doesn’t follow the Bible very closely. It may be edgy, hip and really exciting. You’ll find a place like that, if you are looking. There will be a reason for you to go. You’ll blame the boring and lifeless church you have been a part of. You’ll be convinced that there is very little difference between the two. All the time, you are sailing away from God and heading toward Tarshish.

There is always a boat waiting for you, if you want to leave God.

Second, even though Jonah was getting farther and farther away, God did not change what He expected of Jonah. Jonah was the prophet of God’s choice to go and he would go. There are times when we may want to walk away from our responsibilities but we can’t. Once you’ve said, “I do,” you don’t change that. You don’t say, “I’m tired of being married, I want to be single again.” Once that little baby comes into your life, you can’t say, “I’m tired of being a parent, I don’t want kids any more.” You may not want the obligations that come with being a church member, such as fellowship, attending worship, helping others. You may not want all the comes with being a Christian any more. I don’t want to be holy. I don’t want to do what God wants me to do. There may come a time when jumping on that boat heading the other way seems so appealing. Just me and myself. No more headaches. No more responsibilities. No more answering to other people. I get to do just what I want. That may sound exciting and it may be the foundation of several movies, but the story of Jonah reminds us that God didn’t let Jonah off the hook. He was the choice to go to Nineveh and God expected that to happen. A great storm. A great fish. Three days in the belly of that fish. And, a second chance to get it right all reminds us that we have things that God expects of us.

Dropping the kids off at the church building on Sunday morning, while you go back to bed doesn’t get you off the hook of what God expects from a parent. It isn’t the church, the school or society that is to raise your children. It’s you. You may get tired. You may not want to be a parent any longer. However, this is where you are and this is what God expects of you.

Thirdly, some folks pour so much effort into finding that boat heading the other way, if they had just stuck with what God said, things would have been much easier in their lives. I remember all the trouble some went through in college to cheat on tests. One guy somehow gutted his watch, wrote the answers to what he thought was on the test in tiny strips of paper and put them in his watch. As he wound the watch, his answers would appear. If the guy had only poured that much time into studying, none of that would have been necessary. Another guy, wrote the answers on his arms, legs and fingers. Again, that took a lot of effort to do all of that. Just study for the test. Revenge is like that. Someone hurts you and you stay awake at night thinking of how you can get back at that person. Just forgive them as God wants you to. Proverbs reminds us that the wicked plans evil. This is nothing more that looking for a boat to take us away from what God wants us to do. Just do what God says.

Finally, God knew all of this. It was God who tells us this story, not Jonah. Jonah thought he was fleeing God. He never did. God was aware every step of the way. So, He is with us. There is no getting around God. There is no fleeing from God. Most times, the person who runs from responsibilities, finds their life messier than they ever thought. For Jonah, it was being inside the belly of a fish. I can only imagine what that smelled like and how dark that was. For the prodigal, it was wanting to eat what the pigs were eating. Neither ever saw that picture when they were leaving. It was grand dreams of a great time. That went away quickly. Misery, guilt and shame is what follows when we flee God. We need to see that God’s way is more than just right, it works. Both Jonah and the prodigal had too much of self in them. They wanted to do what they wanted to do. Like those run-a-ways, we can do exactly the same. We start saying, “I don’t want to…” or, “I never get to do what I want to do.” We sing, “Woe is me.” Me. Me. Me. That’s the first thought that leads to searching for a boat that is going the other way. Discipleship is denying self. It’s seeking first the kingdom of God. It’s putting the interest of others before you. When we get thinking too much about our self, our feelings, our way, we’ll soon be on a boat heading toward Tarshish. God will take care of you. Just do what the Lord says.

Maybe it’s time to get off the boat and get back to what God wants you to do.

Roger

Jump Start # 2124

Jonah 1:6 “How is it that you are sleeping? Get up, call on your god. Perhaps your god will be concerned about us so that we will not perish.”

Our verse today comes from the great book of Jonah. We all have heard and fallen in love with this story. It’s much more than something to tell the little ones about in Bible class. This is a book of prophecy, one of God’s books. A great storm, caused by God, led to Jonah being tossed overboard. He’s swallowed by a great fish and is in the belly of the fish for three days. Spit up on dry land, Jonah goes and fulfills his mission, preaching to Nineveh. The book ends with Jonah pouting over the cities repentance and illustrating that he was more concerned about a plant that gave him comfort than the salvation of thousands of people. Jonah is really about Jonah. It’s a preacher with a problem, an attitude. We aren’t told if he ever got his mind straightened out.

Early in the narrative, where our verse is found, a great storm has taken the pagan sailors by surprise. They fear the worse. They toss the cargo. They pray to their gods. The captain goes below to awaken Jonah and compels him to pray as well.

That one thought, that simple statement, uncovers a huge thought for us today. Often, people of the world are doing things better than we are. They can appear to be more Christian than the Christians. Here, they are praying and Jonah is sleeping. It’s easy to point fingers and talk about all the things wrong with pagans. They worship incorrectly. They worship the wrong god. They include idolatry. They have no foundation or written word to support their beliefs. They have no evidence that their god is real. Yet, there they are praying and there Jonah is sleeping.

Consider that same concept today.

Care and benevolence. Christians can be stingy at times. We find reasons not to help others. And, often, those who are not Christians run circles around us when it comes to helping out and compassion. I’m not talking about what comes from the church’s treasury, but what comes out of our own wallets. Jonah was sleeping and the pagans were praying. Interesting.

Enthusiasm. Contemporary worship services look more like rock concerts than a worship hour. Loud music. Fog machines. Multiple people on stage at the same time. And the audience, on their feet, jumping up and down, clapping their hands. Many are caught up in the artificial mood created by all these external things. Yet, from a distance, it really seems that that crowd is excited about what is going on. And, in our worship, yawns, bored, sleeping, lifeless singing. Not all the time, but it is there some of the time. Passionate. Glad to be there, rather than, have to be there. The pagans were busy tossing cargo overboard and Jonah was sleeping.

Preaching. It seems that some sermons can be more information driven than persuasion driven. There must be a basis and a reason for the persuasion, but sermons aren’t supposed to be college lectures. It is interesting, in the very first Gospel sermon, Acts 2, in the midst of Peter’s words, the crowd shouts out, “What shall we do?” Peter heard that. That prompted Peter to answer that question. He deviated from his script, we might say. The sermon connected to the audience. It stirred them and persuaded them. I wonder if our sermons do that today. We fill the head with facts, but do we put a fire in the heart for change. People leave knowing more, but will they become better. Will there be any change? Will they grow closer to the Lord? Will they want to walk in righteousness more than they were? Does anyone today feel so moved that he would shout out a question, right in the middle of a sermon?

While we may have the truth, it does not mean that we cannot look around and learn from others. It does not mean that we are doing everything better than all the rest. We can learn from the world. The pagans were doing things that Jonah should have been doing. Being a man of God, a prophet at that, we’d think that he ought to be the first to pray. He ought to lead the others to pray. He ought to be in the forefront with faith and courage. Instead, he’s down below sleeping.

It’s easy to point fingers and judge the pagans of our times. Messed up. Terrible values. Not following God. But in some ways, they can be in the forefront of things when it ought to be us. They can be more forgiving when we are ready to drop the axe in judgment. They can come and sit with a family at the hospital while we are too busy to do that. They can be the first to open their wallets, bring some food, offer a shoulder to cry on. There are just times when the world seems to be doing things that we ought to be doing. This ought to shame us a bit and motivate us to get back to what really matters.

I find that often our intentions are good, it’s just the doing part. The problem with intentions is that no one else knows what you intended. For instance, we intend to have that new family at church over for a meal. Before you know it, that new family has been there four years and they really aren’t new anymore. We just were busy. We intended to drop a card to one of the college students to encourage them. The next thing we know, the school year is over and they are back home. We intended to take some food to a family that had a death. But, now months have passed by and the need is gone. That’s the problem with intentions. Most of us have them and while we are wanting to do what is good and noble, we look around and our friends, many who are in the world, are doing the very things that we planned to do. They are shinning and we are stuck in the bottom of the boat.

The problem with all of this is that when there are needs and opportunities and we remain in the bottom of the boat, and the pagans on top of the boat are doing what we ought to, it makes some wonder. Some feel closer and more helped by the world than the church family. For some, that’s all it takes and they will gravitate to the world. Why not? It seems that the world cares for them more than the church does. Sleeping in the boat brings consequences that are not pleasant and questions that are uncomfortable to answer. Why were you not there? Why did no one come from the church? Folks notice. They remember. The pagans prayed and Jonah slept.

Paul told the Galatians, “while we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, and especially to those who are of the household of the faith.” Opportunities don’t hang around. They are the expiration dates on a gallon of milk. You best use it in that time, or it goes bad. Opportunities do not wait until your days off from work. They come when you are busy. They come when you have other projects going on. They come when the ballgames on. They come when you are tired. This means you have to make sacrifices, juggle and rearrange your schedule and be willing to drop things and do what you can. Funerals come at inconvenient times. They aren’t put on hold. A person dies and a couple of days later he is buried. And very shortly after that, the opportunity is buried. You may have to rush to the store. You may be up at midnight making cookies. You may have to use your lunch hour to drop by the hospital. You may have to change your Saturday plans. I know this because I’ve seen Christians do all of these things. They were on top of the boat doing things, not down below with Jonah sleeping.

Opportunities—to let your light shine…to teach others…to do good. God gives us these opportunities. These are occasions to use our talents. But we must act. Storms pass. The door of opportunities closes. And while the world prays, we may be sleeping.

It took a pagan captain to remind Jonah of what he ought to be doing. It may take a pagan boss, neighbor or family member to do the same for us. Maybe we will do better. Let’s hope so. No, let’s do so!

Roger