Prophets besetting sin… wrath.

Most of the world at present is looking at New York as a train wreck is comingHurricane Sandy is arriving, the public transport is shut down (as are the highways) and New Yorkers are having to stay in place.

Which has only a very loose link to the lectionary. Jonah was not a saint. His besetting sin was wrath. He was happy to proclaim the destruction on Ninevah, and was really annoyed with God spared it.

Jonah 3:1-4:11

3:1The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, 2“Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” 3So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. 4Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” 5And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

6When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. 7Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: “By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. 8Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. 9Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.”

10When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

4:1But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. 2He prayed to the Lord and said, “O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. 3And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.” 4And the Lord said, “Is it right for you to be angry?” 5Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.6The Lord God appointed a bush, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the bush. 7But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the bush, so that it withered. 8When the sun rose, God prepared a sultry east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint and asked that he might die. He said, “It is better for me to die than to live.”

9But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” 10Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. 11And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?”

God’s rebuke was that there were 120K infants (“who do not know right hand from left”) and a bunch of animals. The adults may have sinned. They may be due punishment. But when they repented, God spared them for their children.

One of the problems with prophetic ministry is that you can enjoy it. You can feel self-righteous. You are a prophet: God’s hand is on you. The people who are unrighteous should get what they deserve, good and hard.  That is not why God raises prophets. They are not there to damn. They are there to cause repentance. As the Law makes us realize that we not only have sinned by sin continually, the prophets remind us that we have strayed from the ways of truth.

We need to temper our wrath. Our anger might be righteous, and we should indeed confront not only sin but those who excuse it. But we need to help in times of need, without exception.

So today this Kiwi, who really does not like the East Coast of the USA, is praying for those who generally make policies I hate is praying for the safety of those people. For there are innocents there, and I do not just mean pets.