One of the harder things about being a preacher is the effort to remain fresh, to make each sermon sound different from the last. This is not always easy. And I am certain that I often sound like I’m repeating myself. At least over the last few weeks, that repetition is somewhat intentional, since I’ve been doing a series of sermons on what I’ve called “big God theology.” And I had kinda hoped to wrap that up last week then move on to something new. Not because that was a bad topic to discuss, but because I had thought we were done with it, we’d explored it, we’d heard the message God has for us in it, and it was time to seek out new ideas to explore.

Well, that’s not quite what’s going to happen. You see, part of the reason preachers struggle with staying fresh and coming up with new ideas is that Scripture itself is often very repetitive. You could probably sit down and list the major themes of Scripture, Old and New Testaments, and you’d probably discover it’s not a very long list. That’s intentional, I believe. God knows us very well and he knows how thick we can be. I’m certain one of his strategies behind the inspiration that brought us the Scriptures is that if he repeats something often enough, we might actually start to believe it.

Well, that’s true certainly of what I’ve been teaching these past weeks, the idea that God is “big,” that he is merciful beyond measure, and loving beyond words. And today the lectionary appointed text from the Old Testament is one of the best stories that demonstrates that very idea: the story of Jonah.

Now we only have the last few verses of the book as our lesson today, but I’m going to preach on the entirety of the book. It’s not very long and I recommend that you read it if you haven’t. It’s a remarkable story.

Jonah is this guy, a Hebrew, one of the chosen people. God comes along one day and says to Jonah, “I want you to be a prophet.” Jonah responds by asking “What do you want me to do?” God’s answer, “Go to Nineveh and prophesy to them. Call them to repentance.”

Now Nineveh is the capital of the Assyrian Empire. These are the bad guys of the Old Testament. The Egyptians under Pharaoh during the days of Moses and the Exodus ain’t got nothing on these guys. These people are nasty, evil, tyrannical, brutal, and every other monstrous description you can think of. You may recall that after the reign of Solomon, the kingdom of Israel split into two, a Northern and a Southern kingdom. The Northern was made up predominantly of ten of the original tribes of Israel and the Southern was the remaining two. Well, the Assyrians sacked the Northern Kingdom in about 720 BC, took the population into slavery, and even today no one knows what truly became of them. You may have heard of “the Lost Tribes.” These are the guys responsible for that. Three thousand years later and we still don’t know what happened to them. They’re gone, for all we know wiped out by these Assyrians.

Now, Jonah knows all this. He knows what kind of people these are, and when God tells him to “Go to Nineveh,” he gets on board a ship to Tarshish. Tarshish is in what is now Spain. Nineveh is located in what is now Syria and Iraq, the complete opposite direction from Tarshish. To put it mildly, Jonah said “no” to God’s offer.

Well, most of us I think know this part of the story. The boat gets plagued by rough seas and storms and all kinds of horrible things. And the crew cast lots and determines that Jonah’s the cause of all this. So they throw him overboard and he promptly gets eaten by a fish. While he’s being digested, Jonah has a change of heart and he prays to God to be given a second chance. Next thing he knows, he’s being puked up on the shore. And, of course, it would the shore of the kingdom of Assyria.

So now Jonah goes to Nineveh and he prophesies to the city. And the King of Assyria hears his words and declares a fast. Sackcloth and ashes for everyone. We must repent of our sins, for God has spoken. They listen to Jonah and they do what God has asked of them. And God forgives them.

Well, Jonah gets mad. If there was ever a people that deserved a good smiting, it’s the Assyrians and God forgives them! So Jonah goes out of the city and argues with God. “You had to be you!” he says angrily. “You always forgive. And these people don’t deserve it.” Jonah claims that this is why he went to Tarshish, because he figures if he’s not there to deliver God’s message, the Ninevites are not going to repent and God’s going to have to smite them. This is what Jonah wants. He wants to see some smiting.

So he goes and sits down and waits for God to change his mind. I guess he figured his little temper tantrum would make God reconsider. While he’s sitting there, God nurtures a vine and it grows up and gives Jonah some shade. Jonah’s pretty happy about this; he’s got a pretty comfortable spot to sit and sulk in. The next day, God kills the vine and it’s a hot day and Jonah’s sweating and he’s uncomfortable. He gets mad at God again.

God just sort of looks at him and says, “Listen to yourself. You’re upset that the vine died. You cared about it and yet you did nothing for it. You did not plant it. You did not tend it. You put no water on it, did not fertilize it. All you did was sit under it and yet you care about it, enough to be upset now it is gone. Over there is a city filled with 120,000 people. I know every one of their names. I know each of their innermost thoughts. I know the number of the hairs on their heads, because each one of them I created in my image. And you want me to care less about them than you do about this vine.”

If that isn’t a statement as to how short-sighted we can be, I don’t know what is. We are all Jonah at times, seeking mercy for us and ours and damnation for everyone else. We so often just don’t get it. We get angry when God isn’t as small as we want him to be.

But let’s consider what’s really going on in this story. For instance, who disobeys God in this story? The Assyrians are certainly guilty of disobedience; the blood of ten of God’s chosen tribes of Israel is on their hands. But is Jonah innocent? Hardly. When God says ‘go,’ he runs the other direction. And yet when he is contemplating his fate in the belly of that fish, he asks for the mercy God is always so quick to grant and it is given. But he doesn’t see that when God shows mercy to the city of Nineveh, it’s the same thing. Jonah and the Assyrians are the same: all people in need of God’s mercy. They are united, for all the differences and animosity to one another, in this one common cause. And so too are we.

The simple fact of the matter is that if God is as small as we so often try to make him, then we’re all doomed. None of us, not one, fulfills God’s will to perfection. We always stumble somewhere along the line. Most of us do our best, but still falter. Others, thankfully no one here, revel in the pain and evil we can inflict upon the world. But in God’s eyes, it does not matter. One sin is the same as a thousand. And if God is going to smite all the people we don’t like for their sins real or imagined, then we are surely damned as well.

But that’s not who God is. God is a god of mercy. God is a god of love. And just as he forgives Jonah and gives him another chance, so too does he forgive the people of Assyria. So too does he forgive us. For all of them, and all of us, and all people of today, yesterday, and tomorrow have received God’s mercy. It was for all of them that God sent his son into this world to live, to die, and to rise again. And by Jesus’ death and resurrection all sin is made irrelevant in God’s eyes and has brought all of us mercy. This is the “big” God who loves this world. The God who saves this world and all of us too. Amen.