What Do You Expect?

 “What Do You Expect?”

 Message @ Jericho Ridge Community Church – Sunday, Dec 2, 2012

Text: Jonah 4 // Series: “Nudge”

Good morning, friends.  Well, it’s the first Sunday of Advent, which means that we are getting close to Christmas.  And I don’t know about you, but as we turn the corner into December, it always gets me thinking about expectations.  Our expectations drive so much of our lives and our thinking, don’t they?  For example, when I was a kid, I can remember vividly having a very clear expectation of certain presents being under the tree on Christmas morning.  Sometimes the expectation almost killed me!  So I loved to shake and handle the wrapped presents to see if I could predict if they were going to meet my expectations or not.  This got so bad that one year my parents decided to play a little bit with my expectations.  I remember that this particular Christmas, I was expecting a digital watch.  Oh, it was going to be great – it even had a calculator on it.  And so I poked my head under the branches of our Christmas tree and shook all of the boxes and sure enough, they had the predictable weight and noise and feeling of…. LEGO. Which was OK, it’s just not at all what I was expecting. 

When Christmas morning rolled around and we opened our presents, I waiting uncharacteristically patiently till it was to be my turn, after all, I already know what my gift was.  And when I opened my present, sure enough bits and pieces of Lego fell out.  But to my surprise, so did my watch!  My parents had pulled a fast one on me!  They had planted Lego pieces inside the box so that what I expected to be Lego, turned out to be my long expected Casio calculator watch.

Now that’s a positive example of expectations being met.  But the reality is that so much of our lives are lived in that place where what we expect and what we end up experiencing are vastly different.  We expect that our family members will live to an old and ripe age, and they die seemingly before their time.  We expect that we’ll scape and save and sacrifice and buy the perfect house, and then we get it and it costs more than we ever excepted and ends up being more work than we thought.  We expect that by this time in our lives, we would be free from debt but we’re still paying off student loans and last year’s Christmas impulse credit card purchases.  We expect that we’ll be free from that nagging sin that keeps tripping us up but it still dogs us month after month.  We expect that when we started our Momentum Journal Project 3:45 reading plan that we would be a brand new person and that this would be the year we would finish strong – it hasn’t happened yet. 

You see, to a certain extent, all of us live in that space between our expectations and reality.  And it can be disappointing even maddening or worse!  And the challenging thing is that we carry this same experience into our spiritual lives.  We have expectations of God – how life with God will work out, who God is and how He operates in the world, and so often, when our expectations are not met, we get stuck.  The challenge for some of us becomes who do we turn to and how do we process this experience of disappointment with God.  I mean, if you don’t get what you expect with your investments or mortgage, you talk with your financial advisor.  If God doesn’t meet your expectations, who do you write your complaint letter to?       

This morning, we are wrapping up a teaching series on the book of Jonah from the Old Testament.  A series we’ve called “Nudge” because of the way in which this book pushes us gently us to think about God’s work and the places and people in which He works in ways that we might not expect.  You might remember from the beginning of our story that Jonah is a reluctant messenger who receives what we might call an evangelistic assignment – he is to go to Nineveh – the capital city of the worst enemies of his people, and he is to tell them to repent.  And instead of saying yes or perhaps even a polite “no thank you, God”, Jonah rose to flee from the presence of the Lord.  He runs down to the port and boards a ship leaving for Tarshish in hopes of escaping God.  But there was a mighty tempest on the sea that threatens to break up the ship. And so the sailors and the captain panic and decided that the god’s must be angry and that it must be Jonah’s fault.  The sailors try to out-row the storm but in the end, Jonah’s convinces them that he is better off dead and so they hurl him into the raging sea.  And the sea ceased from its raging.  And that’s all in one short chapter!  (With thanks to Sara Anne for sharing her art with us).  In Chapter 2, we saw that the Jonah’s prayer in the belly of the big fish and we learned not just to pray when we come to the end of our rope.  Then last weekend in Chapter 3, Pastor Keith picked up the narrative where God says again to Jonah arise and go to Nineveh so Jonah rose and went.  And we learned that the most unusual and perhaps unlikely thing happened: the people, from the least to the greatest, heard his message of God’s impending judgment on their city and they repented.  Not just with words of confession, but actions that spoke volumes about their hearts.  And in chapter 3:10 it says “When God saw what they had done and how they had put a stop to their evil ways, he changed his mind and did not carry out the destruction he had threatened.”  So now we have what one would think would be cause for massive celebration.  The expected judgment has been averted; the prophet has been successful beyond his wildest dreams – 120,000 people repenting… This is amazing stuff!  And we pick up the story in Chapter 4:1.  Listen as the text is read... 

One might think that after one of the most successful revivals recorded in the Bible, that the initiating party might be happy about it.  But Jonah seems sullen, cantankerous and argumentative.  I love this guy!  In his prayers, he whines, pouts and throws temper tantrums like a little kid – it’s so raw and so real it’s almost comical.  Except for the fact that Jonah misses the big picture because his expectations as opposed to God’s character loom so large in his mind. 

For Jonah, it was an unmitigated catastrophe that the Ninevites had averted disaster.  In Jonah’s thinking, they deserved strict justice.  They had been brutal and merciless military oppressors of his people and now God was going to show them mercy?!  It just didn’t make any sense to him.  And here you see a bit of Jonah’s hard edge as a person and as a prophet.  In 1:12, we see that he would rather DIE by being thrown into the sea than suggest that they turn the boat around and row back to shore.  And now herein chapter 4, he is so angry that he says “just kill me now, God!  I would rather be dead than to have to face up to the reality that I just saved the lives of 120,000 of my people’s worst enemies.”  Jonah is engulfed and overtaken by his anger. 

His attitude stands in such stark contrast to the character of God.  Seven times in the Old Testament that framework is repeated: That God is merciful and compassionate and, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.”  There’s an old hymn by Catholic writer and poet Frederick William Faber entitled There’s a wideness in God’s Mercy.  Listen to a few stanzas

There's a wideness in God's mercy,

Like the wideness of the sea;

There's a kindness in His justice,

Which is more than liberty.

But we make His love too narrow

By false limits of our own;

And we magnify His strictness

With a zeal He will not own.

For the love of God is broader

Than the measure of our mind;

And the heart of the Eternal

Is most wonderfully kind.

This perspective is what Jonah is missing.  The wideness of God’s mercy.  In Micah 7:18 it reads You will not stay angry forever, but delight in showing mercy  (Micah 7:18).  In his indignation over sin, Jonah misses the depth and the width and the extent of God’s amazing and compassionate grace.  The deep irony here is that those on the outside in the book of Jonah desperately hope against hope and pray that God is compassionate - the sailors in chapter 1:6 pray “Maybe God will pay attention to us and spare our lives!”.  Then in 3:9 the king of Nineveh prays “Who knows? Perhaps even yet God will change his mind and hold back his fierce anger from destroying us.”.  Do you know who knows? Jonah knows.  4:2 Jonah says in his prayer – “I knew that you are a merciful and compassionate God, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love. You are eager to turn back from destroying people.”  The irony is that Jonah as a religious insider jealously guards this knowledge of God’s heart of compassion and grace and is upset when God chooses to pour out His mercy on those who do not deserve it.  But that’s where I see some of my own heart in Jonah.  Because I am sometimes guilty of a thought process where God ought to limit His grace to me and other others who are deserving of it.  I want only God’s abundant grace that comes to me and then it can stop flowing. 

The wonderful but sobering reality that religious people have a challenge coming to terms with, however, is that God’s unfailing love never stops at my doorstep.  The river keeps on flowing not only because of its width and wideness, but also because of its depth.  The depth of God’s compassion is so unsearchable that it is sometimes confusing.  I am reminded of God’s conversation with Moses in Exodus 33 where Yahweh says “Listen, Moses… The question of how and to whom I show mercy to is not yours to argue with.  “I will have mercy on whom I will have mercy, and I will have compassion on whom I will have compassion” (Exodus 33:19).  Jonah misses the width and the depth of God’s love.

And this leads him outside the city, where he sits down to wait the 40 days out, in hopes, perhaps, that God will change Him mind and rain down destruction on the formerly wicked but now repentant city.  God uses the school of ordinary things to teach Jonah and to re-shape his faith.  A storm, a fish, a vine, a worm, the wind.  I am grateful in my thinking here to James Bruckner author of the NIV Application Commentary as he reminds us that God delivered not only the Ninevites, but God delivered Jonah from his calamity.  God delivers Jonah from the storm, now God has delivered the Ninevites from pending calamity, and then again God delivers Jonah from the sun by providing this vine for shade.  But to test what is in Jonah’s heart, God also provides a worm to eat the shade plant so that it dies and then Jonah quickly wishes that he was dead.  And the author of Jonah wants to highlight for us the deep irony that comes out in this story.  In chapter 3, the king of Nineveh tells the people to make their animals fast along with them and put on burlap and ashes on themselves and on their cows as a sign of repentance.  Which I think is a bit stupid – after all, cows can’t repent, can they?! 

But what God is doing here is gently offering Jonah an alternative perspective on the course of events.  God appeals to Jonah’s pity for living things – for the vine - and God says effectively “if you can feel compassionate about the destruction of a plant that you didn’t create, shouldn’t I be concerned about the destruction of people and animals that I DID create?”  Should I not pity Nineveh? And to add to the irony, that’s where the book ends!  We are never told if Jonah was able to accept God’s perspective and open his heart up to the compassion and mercy God had for Nineveh and for him!  This kind of ending, however, is designed to force us as readers to wrestle with and to answer the same questions that God asked of Jonah… You see, friends, the wideness of God’s mercy doesn’t stop with the people of Nineveh.  God is asking the same questions of you and I today.  “Should I not be concerned about the people of the city and the Township of Langley, with 2008 census population of 129,741 people?  Many of whom are living in spiritual darkness.  But the problem we have, friends, is the same one as Jonah had.  So often, we are thankful for our own rescue, but we are apathetic at best and angry at worst, over the rescue of others who in our minds don’t deserve God’s mercy like we deserve God’s mercy.  Everyone has their own list; yours might include addicts, people who have wronged you in significant ways personally or relationally or in business…  And I find it so easy to get smug, self-satisfied that God has been merciful to me and then turn right around and hoard that mercy and grace and dispense it only judiciously to other insiders who share my values and my suburban cultural ethics or my socio-economic status or nationality. 

But the wideness of God’s mercy has a few profound and challenging implications for us to wrestle with here this morning…     

The first one is a biggie, but it involves the philosophical reality that Evil remains alive and well in the world.  The world will be a place where possibility for great evil remains precisely because God longs for the salvation of the wicked.  And the question for you and me becomes then       ?) Does my worldview allow for this?

In some ways, Jonah may seem foolish and pathetic and childish to us, but in fairness to the guy, his entire worldview is coming undone!  What he expected – that God always pushiness the wicked and protects the just – is coming unglued at the hinges!  All of his fundamental convictions are being challenged and uprooted.  But in order for God to show His mercy, there have to be people who need it.    God doesn’t say that justice should not or eventually will not be done.  He simply says that He would rather forgive and take the risk of letting evil persist in the world.  This can be a challenge for us but I think it also helpfully pushes us to pray for and attend with loving action to the realities that we see nightly on the news and read about in the papers.  Yes, evil exists, but it cannot and will not be overcome because of the wideness of God’s mercy.

The second implication for us to wrest with is perhaps just as challenging and that is that as much as we might want it to, Repentance doesn’t always “stick”.  That’s why Jonah climbs his little self-righteous hill… He is hoping deeply that Nineveh will go back to their old ways and then BOOM – God will zap them.  And the book of Jonah doesn’t go into this, but we know from history that the repentance of the Ninevites didn’t last.  By the time the book became a part of Jewish oral tradition and the historic Old Testament cannon in the mid-fifth century BCE, the Assyrian empire was up to its dirty tricks again.  So the question for the reader of Jonah – both then and now is - ?) How do I treat those who repent?. Do I sit on my hill, cross my arms and wait for them to get tripped up by the same old hang ups and habits again or am I able to let the wideness of God’s mercy be what it is.  I think the real question of Jonah us as a faith community is “do we understand the risks in reaching the rebellious here in our city and are we willing to take them despite the very real possibility that we may transform our culture and see our enemies become friends of God.  Or we may not see that in our lifetime.  This risk of repentance not being long-term exists in our own families – will your kids stay with God’s mercy and compassion or walk away from it for a season or forever?…  It exists in our mission of being a loving and listening people because as we extend God’s hope and reconciliation to our community – it may be received with open arms, it may be rejected.  It is part and parcel of being messengers of hope and reconciliation.  Not everyone who hears the message accepts it with glad and open hearts.  Some do, but fall away over time.  So what is my attitude?  Do I wait and see or am I OK to embrace them with open arms or mercy and grace.

The narrowness of our worldview and our historical practice as evangelicals, can lead us to miss perhaps the most obvious and glorious of the implications of God’s mercy…  That God’s invitation is for all to know His love

At Christmas, we celebrate the coming of Christ to earth who was sent to redeem us.  And the poignant from both that event and the book of Jonah is that everyone - Both insiders & outsiders are in the same basic relationship to God: we need mercy.  All of us, Jonah, the Ninevites, you, me, those in our city who are in spiritual darkness… We are all in the same basic boat.  All of us need to accept God’s forgiveness and compassion. To recognize afresh that we need it and to have the humility to allow His grace to nudge us toward Him yet again this morning. 

We are going to respond to God and to one another in worship in song and through corporate prayer.  These songs speak of the depth and amazing nature of God’s mercy.  The prayer team is available here at the front and so I want to remind you when people come for prayer, it’s simply because we are saying “I want God’s mercy and the wideness of it to come into this aspect of my life.  Some of you will be coming perhaps for the first time – God has warmed your heart and stirred in you a desire to cry out for His mercy.  Some of you are in very difficult situations and you need God to work in powerful and merciful ways.  We have people here who are known and trusted leaders within the life of the community - They care deeply about you and they want to listen not only to what you have to share about your situation, but also listen to what God has to say and pray in faith as they stand with you.   Don’t make God’s love too narrow…

By false limits of our own;

And we magnify His strictness

With a zeal He will not own.

There is plentiful redemption

In the blood that has been shed;

There is joy for all the members

In the sorrows of the Head.

For the love of God is broader

Than the measure of our mind;

And the heart of the Eternal

Is most wonderfully kind.

Let’s pray together as we sing these songs of response.