We are Jonah

Please read the whole of Jonah this week. It is not that long and it is rich and full of the radical message of God's grace and of our need to live graciously and mercifully. This is not just a story about a whale and a reluctant prophet, or merely about Ninevah. It is about us.

We are Nineveh. We are Jonah. We don’t know what it was that Jonah did. Maybe they polluted the environment, maybe they oppressed the poor, maybe they worshiped false Gods. The point is that they repented of their actions and then God repented of Gods.

A story, but very real. Grace was there for Nineveh, even though they had done great wrongs. Grace was there for Jonah when Jonah was at his lowest. But the real challenge of Jonah is to see the grace and activity of God being present not just for ourselves but also for even those we regard as our enemies. This book is about the presence of God’s grace and the absence of Jonah’s.