Election year wisdom (or lack thereof) from a biblical anti-hero

on Jonah and "enemies"

The biblical character of Jonah sitting on a hill pouting like a baby.

(click that little triangle thing-y above the picture if you’d like to hear me read this one to you!)

The heated rhetoric in The U.S. right now, meaning the “they are all racists who hate women” and “they are all marxists who hate America” shit is cranked UP and I find it exhausting and I’m sick to death of how everything we read online (no matter your affiliation) is meant to make us feel righteous and make millions of other Americans look ridiculous.

But the reason I find it exhausting isn’t because I am so much more evolved than everyone who falls for it, it’s because I KEEP FALLING FOR IT. And while I am hesitantly hopeful for the first time in 8 years, and have my own strongly held beliefs about how I’d prefer for my country to move forward, I am also trying to be honest about what this is doing to my soul.

So here’s a short Bible story that helps me when I get caught up:

Jonah and my enemies

The detail most people remember about the story of Jonah is that he got swallowed by a whale, probably because this image lends itself to nursery wallpaper in a way that Jonah throwing a temper tantrum, or Jonah being a bigot does not. The whale part – that’s like, ok and everything…. but the rest of Jonah is amazing - I mean, you have to love a Bible story where the least interesting thing about it is that some guy gets swallowed by a big fish and is spat back up on dry land. 

Background: The Assyrians were the enemy of Jonah’s people - they had ravaged and pillaged so much of Israel taking their wealth, occupying their land, and demanded that they be paid tribute – basically District 12 and the Capitol. 

And then one day, The Word of the Lord comes to Jonah and God says “Go tell that wicked Assyrian city Nineveh to repent– those guys suck so much that their wickedness is like, totally stinking up heaven”.

It’s like if God came to me and said “Hey Nadia, you know the Jan 6th insurrectionists, and the people who worked to ensure that women in this country could no longer make their own healthcare decision, also all those mansplainers on twitter …well, you’re right, those people suck. So I’d like you to cry out against them for me.”

Can you imagine? I don’t know about you but I’d take God up on it in a heartbeat. A divinely sanctioned call out? I’d throw up some tweets and go on some podcasts about it and even show up in person with a bullhorn to cry out against my enemies, The Horrible People.

So it’s kind of weird that Jonah doesn’t take God up on this offer. Instead, Jonah takes off on a boat in the opposite direction. God says for him to go speak against his enemy - to tell them to repent - and Jonah takes off. Which is weird.

So here’s where he gets thrown off a boat, swallowed by a big fish and spat up on the shores of Nineveh where he finally speaks his little half-assed prophecy: “repent or be destroyed” but like, quietly and with about zero sincerity.

But the thing is, it worked! Jonah’s reluctant prophecy worked. His enemies repented. They stopped their violent ways, they dealt with their systemic racism and provided universal health care and separated their recycling. 

And God did not destroy them! 

A difficult-to-control kind of God

But here’s the rub: Jonah, rather than being delighted that his enemies repented and changed their ways, pouts like a big fat baby. Sitting on a little hill outside Nineveh, Jonah finally admits why he was so reluctant to call for his enemy’s repentance: it wasn’t because of low self-esteem, home sickness or fear of public speaking. No.  When his enemies repent and are then spared, Jonah is like, Yeah, that’s why I didn’t want this stupid job in the first place – because I knew, God, that you were gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.

Yep. That’s a biiiig problem, a God like that. Why?  Because that kind of God is really hard to recruit onto our own team.

God was like, wait, you’re angry? And Jonah says hell yeah I’m angry (and here’s where he becomes a total drama queen) he says I would rather DIE than for my enemies to be spared.

I would rather die than for my enemies to do better and be shown mercy. 

That’s what’s hard about reading Jonah - I have to look at how maybe I too need my enemies to stay my enemies, since it’s hard to know who I am if I don't know who I’m against. And maybe I need for the apologies of those who have done wrong to never ever be “good enough” for me, because being the one who is right is a comfy place to be.  Not to mention that showing up with a bullhorn to cry out against someone else is a pretty effective way for me to avoid being the one being cried out against.

Reading Jonah, I am confronted by how uncomfortable it is to me that God loves even those who I think are WRONG, like seriously wrong.

Don’t mistake me. I haven’t budged on women’s rights and gun control and a number of other issues that make me other people’s “enemy”. I just want to have a modicum of humility - just barely enough to say that maybe God’s mercy is as much for me as it is for them. Because as impossible as this is for me to believe most days, I may be wrong about some things. And if I am, I’m going to need a God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, not a God who sides with me and smites my enemies.

I guess what I am saying is that my ego loves being “righteous” but my soul can only rest in a God whose mercy is great enough for all.

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I’ll be out and about a few times in the next couple months…please come say hi and tell me your a member of The Corners!

Where to find me:

Fri Oct 11 – Indianapolis, In 7p

Spirit & Place Big Tent Talk on Gratitude (free) get tickets here

Sunday Oct 27 Denver, Co - Montview Presbyterian (preaching 8:30a & 11a)

Nov 7 -Cleveland, Oh - Case Western University 4p – Limited Futures Lecture Series

Sat Nov 16-17 Little Rock, AR - Westover Hills Presbyterian Church  (more info soon)

Sat Nov 16 7p Cotham Memorial Lectures

Sun Nov 17 10:30a  preaching, 7p – fireside chat

Tues Nov 19 – Nashville, Tn Westminster Presbyterian Church – “An Evening With Nadia Bolz-Weber” (save the date – tickets available soon)

Sun Nov 24^th – Denver, Co - St John’s Episcopal Cathedral 8a, 10:30a, 5p - preaching