Daily Lesson for February 18, 2015

Today's daily lesson comes from Jonah chapter 4 verses 1 through 4:

But it displeased Jonah exceedingly, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord, is not this what I said when I was yet in my country? That is why I made haste to flee to Tarshish; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, and relenting from disaster. 3 Therefore now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4 And the Lord said, “Do you do well to be angry?”

"Forty days more, and Ninevah will be destroyed."  

That was the sermon the prophet Jonah preached to the foreign city of Ninevah, leading to its repentance and salvation. And so, ostensibly the take home on this first of the forty days of Lent is to read Jonah as story about some other group's need for repentance. 

But, of course, Jonah himself seems to know the moral of the story doesn't end there. Jonah knows this is a story about his own repentance also; and he doesn't like that a bit.

Ninevah was the capital city of the Jewish people's archenemy; and just to bring that home for many of us today, it was located where modern Mosul is located today.  Really, there was nothing Jonah would have liked more than to have had Ninevah wiped off the face of the planet. It would serve them right. 

That's why Jonah ran away when called to go and preach to the Ninevites. He ran because they didn't deserve to be preached to. He ran because they didn't deserve a second chance.  And he ran because, well, they might just take it.

And sure enough, they did. They repented -- literally meaning they changed their mind.  And so did God about destroying the city.  And by the end of the story, there was a reversal, the Ninevites were reconciled to God, but it Jonah himself was at odds with Him. And so then at the end of the story, God came with a question for Jonah, "Is it good for you to be angry?"

And that question helps us to see that the real prophet in the book of Jonah is not Jonah, but God -- because God knows that its not only the Ninevites who need to change their minds. 

There's an old spiritual that says:

"It's me, It's me, It's me, O Lord,
Standing in the need of prayer.
It ain't my brother, it ain't my sister, It's me O Lord
Standing in the need of prayer."

The 40 days of Lent have begun; it's not a season about someone else. It's a season about me and my conversion.  Because the truth is all that needs to change in the world is not all "out there" in the people I despise and disagree with; it's also in me.