A sermon on the story of Jonah and Jesus’ parable of the generous landowner (Matthew 20:1-16)

The Lord is gracious and full of compassion, slow to anger and of great kindness. (Psalm 145:8)

Jonah experienced both the anger of God and the kindness of God, the wrath of God and the mercy of God, each in extraordinary measure.

When God first told Jonah to go and preach to Nineveh, he bolted. It’s hard to blame him; Nineveh was a byword for evil and no friend to the prophets of God. Still, thinking he could escape God on a borrowed boat was a bold move. It didn’t work. There was a storm. There was more than a storm: there was a tempest. There was the fury of God whipping up the water, although no one perished that night. The sailors realized that something supernatural was afoot, and they drew lots to see who had caused the waves to swell with anger. On finding that it was Jonah, even so they tried at first to save him, but the storm was too much for them, and they ended up throwing him overboard. At once, the storm settled down, and they were able to go on their way in peace.

As for Jonah, he was famously swallowed up by a great fish, a sea monster on his way to the ocean floor, and deposited three days later on the shore, seemingly little the worse for wear, and giving thanks to God for his strange and salty salvation. Then God’s word came to him a second time, and he went to Nineveh.

For three days he strode across the city proclaiming the wrath of God. Three days in the belly of the beast, three days in the city of sin, three days suspended between life and death, judgement and mercy. For three days he told anyone who would listen of the storm that was heading their way, and they did listen, and they did repent, and they dressed in sackcloth and ashes from their king to their cattle, and just as happened on the sea, the storm of God’s wrath ceased, and all was restored to calm.

Except for Jonah. Jonah was mad. Jonah told God, “See, I knew you would do this. This is exactly why I didn’t want to come – because you were just going to turn around and forgive them!” Jonah had experienced the wrath of God and the mercy of God, each in extraordinary measure, and while he was praying and praising God from the insides of a sea monster, so grateful was he to be rescued, still for everyone else, he wanted the storm to devour them.

Poor Jonah. He would have been cast as the unforgiving servant in a play of last Sunday’s parable, or the first day worker in today’s. He would have been able to portray that hurt righteousness, that aggrieved penitence so well. He knew, like those characters in Jesus’ story, that while the mercy of God is life and delight to those who receive it, not everyone deserves it in the same measure as me.

Both of these stories today struggle with that: Jonah with the graciousness of God toward Nineveh, and the day labourers with the generosity of the landowner towards those whom no one else would hire, who showed up late, or who were unable to pull their full weight.

The first in line think that they are owed more than the others because they assume that those others had it easier, or were lazier, or feckless; but the landowner chooses generosity, because what if their childcare fell through, or they had trouble getting a work permit, or their transport broke down, or their biggest struggle was simply getting out of bed and choosing to face another day? Or what if none of the above, why should the landowner have to justify giving them their daily bread?

We can for sure read this as an economic parable; and if the landowner had not given everyone their daily bread, then those left behind in the marketplace could have ended up begging from their neighbours who were hired first, instead of breaking bread with them, and the dignity of everyone involved could have been further damaged – but I think that Jesus was also talking about the economy of God’s grace.

Jonah thought that he knew the sin of Nineveh, but how can a whole people be summed up in a sentence? Jonah didn’t want the people of Nineveh even to have the chance to repent and return to God, thought they didn’t deserve to know what God was capable of, from storms to sea monsters to salvation; but God knew better, those hundreds and thousands of lives and the little ways in which hope still festered beneath the surface.

There is a sense of fairness, like Jonah’s, that skews us away from generosity toward punishment or restriction, but the justice of God as rendered by Jesus is mercy, abundant compassion, and great kindness. We can choose whether to grumble at that, or to celebrate it. We can choose to hope for brimstone, hoping it doesn’t fall upon us, or we can choose to live into God’s outrageous generosity and grace.

And, to be clear, I have heard of the generosity of this community, and I know that you celebrate the gifts of God and God’s love for all whom God has made and known, neighbours and strangers alike. I have experienced this morning your sharing of the good news of God, who is slow to anger and full of compassion. I have seen your food pantry, and the way in which you make sure that your neighbours, know and unknown, receive their daily bread. It is a gift to be with you this morning, to share in the bread of life, the love of Jesus poured out for us all, of the great kindness of God.

And when I am feeling a little like Jonah, and a little like the workers at the end of a long day, and a little less generous than Jesus, may you remind me of the grace of God, and the depths of God’s mercy, and the abundance of God’s love, broken and shared among us.

Amen. 

Illustration: photo of a postcard of Jonah and the Whale, Sarum Antiphoner, 1400, Ransworth Church, Norfolk, England, Printed and Published by Jarrold & Sons Ltd, Norwich