Memorial of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of the Church
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Learning from Jonah
The Lord God called to Adam and asked him, “Where are you?” Adam answered, “I heard you in the garden, but I was afraid, because I was naked. So I hid myself.”
Our son-in-law, a long-time computer engineer with a certification in massage and who is studying Hebrew, said he measures children’s Bibles by how the author treats the Book of Jonah. If the author’s emphasis is on the whale, or the Big Fish, then that bible “doesn’t enter the house.” He laughed. But he was serious.
Because Jonah is a satire which reminds us how God deals with sinners. The men and women of Nineveh (to say nothing of the animals) confessed their sin and tore their clothes. They had been the worst of the worst, killing and pillaging nation after nation. Jonah, on the other hand, one of God’s chosen prophets, one of the best of the best, remembered the past evil of Nineveh but took no stock in the peoples’ conversion. In fact, he was angry with God for giving them grace.
God asked Adam, “Who told you that you were naked?” You have eaten, then, from the tree of which I had forbidden you to eat!”
As our Pastor Matt pointed out that for us and for Jonah, the point of the story was the end of the story. The question God poses is to Jonah, of course, and also through Jesus to the Pharisees, and through the Holy Spirit to each of us.
“You love what I love … right, Jonah?”
“You love what I love … right, Pharisees?”
“You love what I love … right, David?”
No answer? No, that’s not going to work with God.
God gave Jonah more than one second chance to “love what He loved,” but Jonah just got more angry. Angry at the Ninevites, angry at the unpredictable plant, angry especially at God, who ordained everything that happened. Jonah did not even care about the cows.
Hundreds of years later, Jesus told parables, hoping the Pharisees could  change how they saw God, themselves, and others. He talked of the prodigal father, the rebellious son, and the self-righteous son. When the father put his best robe around the renegade but repentant son, his brother refused to even come into the house. In his resentment of he who was lost but now found, he ignored any sense of his own closed mind.
“But you love what I love … right?”
On the cross, aware that everything was now complete, Jesus said, “I thirst.” When Jesus had taken the wine, he said, “It is finished.” And bowing his head, he gave up the spirit.
And of course, there’s me. Margaret and I are in our 45th year of marriage. We often do not see eye to eye. I wait for her to see her own dark side rather than acknowledging my own. And the Holy Spirit whispers in my ear.
“You love what I love … right, David?”
Margaret is praying for me this morning, as Dr. Sargent removes the cataracts from my left eye (right eye last week) and places a brand new lens. Margaret’s prayers are precious to me, and of course they are precious to God. She listens when God asks her:
“You love what I love … right, Margaret?”
We are both learning to answer the question.
Pastor Matt addresses the obvious: “How did a guy like Jonah get his own book in the Bible?” Well, for one thing, God did everything in this book. Jonah did nothing except get in God’s way, and God didn’t quit.
That’s a very helpful reminder about what God does in my life, too.
And all shall sing, in their festive dance, “My home is within you.”
(Genesis 3, Acts 1, Psalm 87, John 19)
(posted at www.davesandel.net)
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