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.
But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry.
He prayed to the LORD and said, "O LORD! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing.
And now, O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."
And the LORD said, "Is it right for you to be angry?"
Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.
The LORD God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush.
But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered.
When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live."
But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die."
Then the LORD said, "You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night.
And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"
Matthew 20:1-16
"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for his vineyard.
After agreeing with the laborers for the usual daily wage, he sent them into his vineyard.
When he went out about nine o'clock, he saw others standing idle in the marketplace; and he said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went.
When he went out again about noon and about three o'clock, he did the same.
And about five o'clock he went out and found others standing around; and he said to them, 'Why are you standing here idle all day?'
They said to him, 'Because no one has hired us.' He said to them, 'You also go into the vineyard.'
When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his manager, 'Call the laborers and give them their pay, beginning with the last and then going to the first.’
When those hired about five o'clock came, each of them received the usual daily wage.
Now when the first came, they thought they would receive more; but each of them also received the usual daily wage.
And when they received it, they grumbled against the landowner, saying, 'These last worked only one hour, and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the day and the scorching heat.'
But he replied to one of them, '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.”
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You know, what kind of God is this anyway?!
This is the question that is not only on Jonah’s mind, but he has actually said it out loud to God. And, as I hear him saying it, it’s through gritted teeth:
I knew it – I knew this about you all along. How you are a God who is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. I just KNEW it.
And what he knows, because of this, is that God is going to be merciful to those blasted Ninevites. No matter how much Jonah thinks they really do need to be blown away, obliterated by God, he can just tell how this is all going to turn out. And boy, is he ticked off about it.
The story of Jonah too often gets reduced to the fact that he was swallowed by a big fish because he would not obey God, and that he eventually he was thrown up out of the fish onto the land (I know, it’s gross), and in that way he was saved by God so he could try and start over again, turn a new leaf. But even in the brief four chapters of this book – only two pages in your pew Bible – and I am glad for that, because my second Hebrew class in seminary involved translating the whole book of Jonah from Hebrew and interpreting it – even though it’s this short, it is packed with important messages for us about who God is, about the nature of God’s character, and about how that often results in outcomes that we are not so crazy about. But thanks be to God that that’s the way it is. God is not fair, because God is merciful beyond our comprehension – and for that we are thankful.
This message can be found throughout each chapter of Jonah. In the first chapter, we get to see how Jonah cannot bear to bring the word of the Lord to his enemies, the Ninevites, and so he tries to escape the will of God for his life by getting on a boat that is going in the opposite direction from Nineveh. But God pursues Jonah, not
with wrath, but with conviction (!), and ultimately provides an out for both Jonah and the sailors who became unwitting accomplices to Jonah’s ill-fated scheme of getting thrown out of the boat to keep it from capsizing. The Psalm that Jonah prays in Chapter 2 reflects his recognition of God’s salvation, and of course Jonah is saved from the belly of the fish, allowing him another chance to show his obedience and trust in God.
In Chapter 3, the narrator lets us see that even the Ninevites can be awakened to the word of God, even when that word is coming from the likes of Jonah, who really hopes they will not repent. We see that God does accept a contrite heart, and that salvation, even of the Ninevites, belongs to the Lord. And Chapter 4, which we just heard, which at first is so confusing, becomes a lovely, personal, one on one dialogue and teaching moment between God and Jonah. As we hear Jonah focus on his personal plight, vent his frustration
with God, and settle himself into a front row seat to watch for Nineveh’s destruction, God does not thunder at Jonah, but asks him gentle questions, all the while giving him
relief through the shade of the plant, and then using the removal of the plant and the other actions and
questions as a living parable about God’s loving kindness, compassion, power and might, and the use of God’s power to reconcile all people to God.
Jesus’ parable is saying the same thing about God’s mercy, and as usual, he gives it to us in a way that, frankly, makes us uncomfortable.
This landowner goes out in the morning and selects workers for the day’s harvest work, promising to pay them fairly. Then, in a way that is strange for a landowner to do, he goes back out at noon, sees how many workers are still there, and tells some more to come back with him and work for the rest of the day. And then he goes and does it again, in the afternoon, and finally once more, late in the day, expressing his wonder at why these last workers have not yet gone off to work somewhere? And when they tell him nobody hired them, well, he brings them back with him too and puts them to work for the last hour of daylight.
Before we even get to talking about how they get all paid at the end of the day, there is already something unusual or atypical in the story that is worth pointing out.
It’s very strange to have the landowner going out multiple times a day to hire day workers. Usually all of that would be delegated to the manager. But for whatever reason, the landowner made the first trip. And when Jesus tells us that he continues to go out to the marketplace, over and over, this becomes a point of interpretation that has received much attention by theologians. Kenneth Bailey, who spent much of his life in the Middle East, wrote a beautiful book about the parables of Jesus, and he gives this parable a different name than what it is typically called. Rather than calling it “The Laborers in the Vineyard”, he names this parable “The Compassionate Landowner”. In doing so, he is helping us shine the light on what this parable tells us about the character of God. Just like in Jonah. God’s fairness is the kind that tends to make us shake our heads, and even question how it can really be considered fair. The second half of this parable is where this really gets uncomfortable for us.
Because whatever the reason that the landowner decided to hire all the workers that he found, what are we to think about the way the manager handles their payment at the end of the day?
The ones who came last, who worked the least, are paid first, and they get the “usual daily wage”. And so on, each group is paid, all the way up to the first ones, who have been running calculations in their head the whole time they are standing there in line, and figuring out what they should be getting if those 1-hour guys got the usual. But, as it turns out, each set of workers gets the usual daily wage.
So the guys who got hired first, they are grumbling about this, and they take their complaints to the landowner. And they say “you made those one-hour guys equal to us, after we worked all day in the scorching heat. How is this fair?”
Now, are any of us hearing this and shaking our heads, saying, “I can’t believe what those all-day guys are saying”? No – because this is the way we all understand how things are supposed to work, right? The truth is, we see the world as being all about getting what you earn.
But the kingdom of God turns that upside down, because grace cannot be earned.
And so, the landowner responds gently to these grumbling workers, saying “Friend, I am doing you no wrong. Didn’t you agree to the usual daily wage? Take what belongs to you and go. Don’t cause trouble about what I choose to give to the others. Isn’t it mine to do as I choose? Or are you envious because I am generous? (The more accurate Greek translation of this sentence is “Is your eye evil because I am good?”). Envy was often described as “the evil eye”, the way we look at others when we are envious of them. “Is your eye evil because I am generous, I am good?”
The problem that the all-day workers are having is the same problem that Jonah is having. When God calls Jonah the prophet to go tell Nineveh to repent, he detests Nineveh so much that he would rather go to the other end of the earth than have anything to do with them. But when God continues to “pin him down”, so to speak, or to “hem him in”, not letting him escape but giving him another chance to do what God has asked him to do, he goes, walking about a third of the way across Nineveh and saying “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And then, the thing is, Nineveh responds! The people of Nineveh proclaim a fast, and put on sackcloth. Even the king of Nineveh takes off his royal robe, covers himself in sackcloth, and sits in ashes. He proclaims a fast for all people and all animals. Even the cows put on sackcloth and fast from food and water.
And – what do you know?
God sees them turn from their evil ways, and he relents, and changes his mind, and decides not to overthrow Nineveh.
And Jonah’s response, which is told in the last chapter, is to get totally frustrated with God’s nature, “slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”, and so he marches up to the top of a hill, and sits down, determined to watch and hoping that Nineveh will be destroyed. But God not only saves Nineveh, but God teaches Jonah about his love, first growing a shade plant for him, then killing the plant. He says to Jonah, “are you angry because I killed the plant? How much more should I care for the people of Nineveh, one hundred twenty thousand people who have lost their way, and even their cows, than you care for that plant?”
God is saying, are you envious because I am generous with my grace? Is your eye evil, Jonah, because I am good?
And there the story ends, leaving us to ponder the outcome.
And Jesus also leaves us with the question from the landowner – “are you envious because I am generous?” and this conclusion – The last will be first, and the first will be last.
Again, we are faced with the paradox that is the kingdom of God – we do not earn God’s favor. There is nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there is nothing we can do to make God love us less. That is amazing grace for us – and it is also amazing grace, for those whom we define as “undeserving”. God doesn’t use our definition. God is love, loving us all, and calling on us to love one another, suspending judgment on the other, letting God be “slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love”. Thank God for that mercy, for it is by that mercy that we are all saved!
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