Then God said, is it right for you to be angry about the plant?
A little background. Jonah once received a very direct word-of-the-LORD, directing him to preach truth in a major Iraqi city teaming with all sorts of people and practices his own culture considered outright wrong. He was famously reluctant to go, took a ship sailing in the opposite direction, encountered a massive storm of God's mercy which threw him into a death-and-burial like fish-belly experience. He recognised the disaster as rescue, repented, prayed, found himself spewed out on the beach and trekked off to the despicable Ninevites. His apocalyptic warnings found a shockingly receptive audience, so that God relented from disaster and saved a couple hundred thousand people. Jonah watched the non-destruction event from the shade of a vine which God provided as he sulked in the desert. When the vine withered, Jonah despaired. So God asked, is it right to be angry about the plant?
And Jonah replied, yes.
There is so much in this story that is relatable to the 2020 COVID-era missionary. For many of us, the constricted state of the legalities of our current existence feels like a burial. Food, social interactions, work, the future, any plans, any relaxation, any travel beyond a mile or two on foot, has strict limits. We are separated from our people, dreaming of Tarshish and grumbling on the dunes. Most of us haven't noticed the local government declaring a state of repentant emergency with universal sackcloth, but we do see a global openness to paring down to essentials. People are re-considering their lives, inside out. Spiritually, our staff prays with sincerity as we struggle to come to terms with a world that is beyond our control. Tomorrow will be 70 days in this state which surely sounds like a Biblical number. A lot of what we learned early on and started preaching: masks, distance, screening, hygiene, has become routine. The strictness of Uganda's lockdown has kept cases very limited. Even the too-little-too-late lockdown places have staved off the worst case scenarios.
And yet . . . like Jonah, rather than being delighted, I feel cheated.
This week it hit me: what is my plant? What is the shade that God gives to which I so quickly feel entitled? Which seems more important than the fate of 120,000 persons who don't know how to tell their left hand from their right (children), not to mention the livestock (last verse in the book)?
And as soon as I let my heart be real, the answer is clear. I'll trek to Nineveh . . . . as long as I can count on my shade-flights to see our kids and our moms once or twice a year. For others I know the shade-plant is different. Driving in a car at will. Accessing movies or ice cream or anonymity or a break. Leaving the district every 8-10 weeks. Having family visitors, having summer interns. Electricity that works. Friends. Good things, these desert plants. God-given things. Sabbath-consistent resting things, many of them. It was not wrong to appreciate the plant; but God graciously withers it to allow Jonah to see his entitlement.
The ancient story, with all its fantastical details, rings relevant. Jonah, and we, want to see ourselves as prophets, want to be right. We want to enter, preach, exit. We want God to affirm our approach with something dramatic that vindicates us. And while a bit of discomfort is certainly expected, it shouldn't be too much. We need some shade after all. After all we've given up, surely a plant isn't too much to ask?
When the plant disappears, our anger is a symptom that leads to a diagnosis. I want to keep God in my box, set my limits, keep a bit of control.
But God is wind, is storm, is disruption, is mercy. Not just for Nineveh, but for me. The shrivelled plant, the beating sun, the questions, become an opportunity to crack open a hard heart, to lean into grace. To see that God actually loved the animals and children of Nineveh so dearly. To see that God was so deeply grieved for the suffering and sorrow of all of Nineveh that he was willing to shake things up for them. And then God was not content to leave Jonah in his self-righteous pout. God was also willing to shake things up for Jonah.
Where is this story playing out this week around the world? Minneapolis, for sure. The comfortable narrative of a progressive place has been upended by a policeman and his knee. God is shaking things up there. And if we don't let God scorch our ethnocentric assumptions, that's where we can all end up. Better to be stirred to anger now, than to be cocooned in our superiority in such a way that we end up seeing each other as sub-human, calling the police, feeling threatened by law-abiding bird-watchers, ignoring a cry of "I can't breathe." I've seen this graphic on a few different sites:
(Tamar Messer Illustration)
A little background. Jonah once received a very direct word-of-the-LORD, directing him to preach truth in a major Iraqi city teaming with all sorts of people and practices his own culture considered outright wrong. He was famously reluctant to go, took a ship sailing in the opposite direction, encountered a massive storm of God's mercy which threw him into a death-and-burial like fish-belly experience. He recognised the disaster as rescue, repented, prayed, found himself spewed out on the beach and trekked off to the despicable Ninevites. His apocalyptic warnings found a shockingly receptive audience, so that God relented from disaster and saved a couple hundred thousand people. Jonah watched the non-destruction event from the shade of a vine which God provided as he sulked in the desert. When the vine withered, Jonah despaired. So God asked, is it right to be angry about the plant?
And Jonah replied, yes.
There is so much in this story that is relatable to the 2020 COVID-era missionary. For many of us, the constricted state of the legalities of our current existence feels like a burial. Food, social interactions, work, the future, any plans, any relaxation, any travel beyond a mile or two on foot, has strict limits. We are separated from our people, dreaming of Tarshish and grumbling on the dunes. Most of us haven't noticed the local government declaring a state of repentant emergency with universal sackcloth, but we do see a global openness to paring down to essentials. People are re-considering their lives, inside out. Spiritually, our staff prays with sincerity as we struggle to come to terms with a world that is beyond our control. Tomorrow will be 70 days in this state which surely sounds like a Biblical number. A lot of what we learned early on and started preaching: masks, distance, screening, hygiene, has become routine. The strictness of Uganda's lockdown has kept cases very limited. Even the too-little-too-late lockdown places have staved off the worst case scenarios.
And yet . . . like Jonah, rather than being delighted, I feel cheated.
This week it hit me: what is my plant? What is the shade that God gives to which I so quickly feel entitled? Which seems more important than the fate of 120,000 persons who don't know how to tell their left hand from their right (children), not to mention the livestock (last verse in the book)?
And as soon as I let my heart be real, the answer is clear. I'll trek to Nineveh . . . . as long as I can count on my shade-flights to see our kids and our moms once or twice a year. For others I know the shade-plant is different. Driving in a car at will. Accessing movies or ice cream or anonymity or a break. Leaving the district every 8-10 weeks. Having family visitors, having summer interns. Electricity that works. Friends. Good things, these desert plants. God-given things. Sabbath-consistent resting things, many of them. It was not wrong to appreciate the plant; but God graciously withers it to allow Jonah to see his entitlement.
The ancient story, with all its fantastical details, rings relevant. Jonah, and we, want to see ourselves as prophets, want to be right. We want to enter, preach, exit. We want God to affirm our approach with something dramatic that vindicates us. And while a bit of discomfort is certainly expected, it shouldn't be too much. We need some shade after all. After all we've given up, surely a plant isn't too much to ask?
When the plant disappears, our anger is a symptom that leads to a diagnosis. I want to keep God in my box, set my limits, keep a bit of control.
But God is wind, is storm, is disruption, is mercy. Not just for Nineveh, but for me. The shrivelled plant, the beating sun, the questions, become an opportunity to crack open a hard heart, to lean into grace. To see that God actually loved the animals and children of Nineveh so dearly. To see that God was so deeply grieved for the suffering and sorrow of all of Nineveh that he was willing to shake things up for them. And then God was not content to leave Jonah in his self-righteous pout. God was also willing to shake things up for Jonah.
Where is this story playing out this week around the world? Minneapolis, for sure. The comfortable narrative of a progressive place has been upended by a policeman and his knee. God is shaking things up there. And if we don't let God scorch our ethnocentric assumptions, that's where we can all end up. Better to be stirred to anger now, than to be cocooned in our superiority in such a way that we end up seeing each other as sub-human, calling the police, feeling threatened by law-abiding bird-watchers, ignoring a cry of "I can't breathe." I've seen this graphic on a few different sites:
The story of Jonah is the story of our hearts. Socially acceptable supremacy of culture, of skin, of privilege, of education, of wealth. Any of us could end up being the police man who thinks he is justified in his use of force to get his way, who thinks the being he is holding down doesn't need to breathe. Lord have mercy and burn some plants, lest we find ourselves now or in a few years or decades literally or metaphorically crushing a person of colour to get what we think we need.
I want to get back to see my people sometime, and sooner feels better. But surely the 120,000 children around me are just as important to God as my travel plans. Surely it is better to have a soul that stays attentive to injustice and to evil than to have comfort. Surely it is more of a mercy to be shaken awake from our entitlements than to become a person who steals another's breath.
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