Even though I was living in small town Pleasant Hill, Missouri, rather than New York, 9/11 was a scary day for me and my family. Before I knew it, I was told my dad was not allowed to leave the air force base he was stationed at, since they were a potential target for future attacks. The thought of my dad being stuck on base while our country was under attack, let alone not coming home alive, was paralyzing for a 7th grader. Nothing may have happened, but it remains a haunting thought to this day, and it caused me to become skeptical of anyone I met who might…well, you know…be a “terrorist.”
Fast forward a few years later, and the same fear that gripped us as a nation then still lurks in the corner (or sometimes forefront) of our minds now. This is why Trump gets so much support for his ideas: if it were Japanese or Australian soldiers who had flown planes into the Twin Towers, Trump’s rhetoric against Muslims and Middle Eastern men and women would be powerless. However, because of 9/11 and our supposed “war on terror,” it’s easier to view others as potential terrorists and our enemies simply because they are Middle Eastern in descent. It’s simply how we’ve been conditioned to think.
This idea of social conditioning is nothing new, however. In the Old Testament, we find Jonah, the infamous “How in the world did I just manage to live three days in a giant fish” prophet who throws a fit when God wants to give grace to Israel’s enemies. While most of us are familiar with the general idea of the story, that God extends grace to whomever He chooses (No, the fish/whale/Godzilla is not the focus of the story, sorry!), it is not as common to go any further with this idea. Maybe we might see our neighbor who honks his horn late at night and stop ourselves from looking up who his landlord is, or maybe we’ll even refrain from giving the middle finger to the person who just cut us off. But when it comes to extending grace to our actual enemies, let alone people we mistakenly perceive as such, how do we even do that? And what happens if they abuse this grace?
This is what Jonah was dealing with, and understanding the historical context here makes a world of a difference. With the assumption the story is in fact historical, Jonah was a prophet in the 700s BCE who would have been meeting with the Assyrian Ninevites shortly before the Assyrians would eventually enslave Israel. Assyria did not come to power overnight; they were a political and military force to be reckoned with, and Jonah knew this. He knew that if the Ninevites were given a chance to repent and worship YHWH, this would, in essence, give Assyria the chance to destroy Israel.1R.W.L. Moberly, Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 199-200. However, if Jonah just ran away and let YHWH’s judgment come to pass, there would be nothing to fear. Israel’s enemies would get what they deserved!
Nevertheless, no matter how Jonah felt, YHWH still forgave Nineveh, and the entirety of the community felt the need to worship Him. Positively, this is one of the largest conversion stories in the entire Bible, and that point should not be ignored. Poignantly, however, since it is believed this book was written after the exile, it would not be hard to imagine the recitation of this story being haunting: seeing your god extending the same grace to your former captors that you yourselves long for every day.
Why do these “outsiders” deserve YHWH’s love when they aren’t his people?
If our God is a god who wants to extend grace to all humanity, who calls us to love our enemies, we cannot simply “choose” who does and does not deserve this love. As Christians, we have the ability to be like Jesus who, in the midst of being tortured and killed, decided to forgive his very abusers; the people who, days and weeks before, followed him around town and heaped upon the Messiah praise after praise. Or we can be like Jonah, who would rather run away from his mandate to proclaim the gospel message and, upon witnessing YHWH’s forgiveness, would rather complain and murmur than rejoice in divine love. How much more does this apply to those who have never personally wronged us, but have only been wrongly accused themselves?
In this time and season where one particular politician calls on us to ostracize and literally deport those who “appear” to be our enemy, without any due process of law, this decision is important. What happens over the next few months will demonstrate where our allegiances really lie (God or country) and how dedicated we are to serving our fellow brothers and sisters, even if it means getting over our culturally conditioned fear of the other.
Lord, help us make the right decision. Help us live and love your words.
References
| 1. | ↑ | R.W.L. Moberly, Old Testament Theology: Reading the Hebrew Bible as Christian Scripture (Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Academic, 2013), 199-200. |