A lot of anger has been expressed in the stories from Scripture over the last few days. And it reaches its zenith today. Jonah is angry that God is not pursuing the destruction of Nineveh for its wickedness, and goes into a sulk. Jesus tells the Parable of the Wedding Feast in which, when the guests decline his invitation, the king is so furious that he sends his army to wreak havoc on them. What do these tales tell us about how we act…and about how God acts?
Truly, we all get angry about things over which we have no control: traffic jams, sudden illness, global war, people who cut in line at the grocery store. And there are times when our anger is seemingly justified: abuse, racism, acts of cruelty, wasteful behavior.
In Matthew’s parable today, the King changes his mind from gracious host to violent enforcer because of the actions of others. In the reading from Jonah, the prophet moves from being the champion of God’s justice to being angry with God because of a divine change in behavior. Jonah’s indignation is the result choosing to separate himself from God’s ultimate plan and God’s nature of being gracious and compassionate (Jnh 4:2). Unlike Abraham, who bargains with God when God wants to destroy Sodom, Jonah remains resolute in his hope that God will vanquish Nineveh.
One of the learnings here is that God is God, and we are not. If God chooses to forgive, to pardon, to restore, who are we to become upset that the divine will and ours are not in synch? As we learned while reading the Book of Job, the ways of God are mysterious and sometimes unknowable. But in the last two verses of Chapter 4, we see God’s true heart of love and care and compassion:
God said, “What’s this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can’t I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than 120,000 childlike people who don’t yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?” (The Message)
Are we willing to see things differently? Are we willing re-think our actions? We all have DVR’s. We press the “PAUSE” button when we want to take a break and re-wind and see part of a program again, perhaps from a new perspective. This is sometimes what it takes to access our behavior and our choices, and thereby move closer to God’s will.
Doug McCaleb
Trinity Cathedral Miami
Truly, we all get angry about things over which we have no control: traffic jams, sudden illness, global war, people who cut in line at the grocery store. And there are times when our anger is seemingly justified: abuse, racism, acts of cruelty, wasteful behavior.
In Matthew’s parable today, the King changes his mind from gracious host to violent enforcer because of the actions of others. In the reading from Jonah, the prophet moves from being the champion of God’s justice to being angry with God because of a divine change in behavior. Jonah’s indignation is the result choosing to separate himself from God’s ultimate plan and God’s nature of being gracious and compassionate (Jnh 4:2). Unlike Abraham, who bargains with God when God wants to destroy Sodom, Jonah remains resolute in his hope that God will vanquish Nineveh.
One of the learnings here is that God is God, and we are not. If God chooses to forgive, to pardon, to restore, who are we to become upset that the divine will and ours are not in synch? As we learned while reading the Book of Job, the ways of God are mysterious and sometimes unknowable. But in the last two verses of Chapter 4, we see God’s true heart of love and care and compassion:
God said, “What’s this? How is it that you can change your feelings from pleasure to anger overnight about a mere shade tree that you did nothing to get? You neither planted nor watered it. It grew up one night and died the next night. So, why can’t I likewise change what I feel about Nineveh from anger to pleasure, this big city of more than 120,000 childlike people who don’t yet know right from wrong, to say nothing of all the innocent animals?” (The Message)
Are we willing to see things differently? Are we willing re-think our actions? We all have DVR’s. We press the “PAUSE” button when we want to take a break and re-wind and see part of a program again, perhaps from a new perspective. This is sometimes what it takes to access our behavior and our choices, and thereby move closer to God’s will.
Doug McCaleb
Trinity Cathedral Miami
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