God Should Have Higher Standards

In this time of high anxiety about inclusion, perhaps the church should be studying the little Old Testament book of Jonah. Here's an excerpt from my upcoming publication called Who Knows: Jonah, Katrina and Other Tales of Hope.

Jonah is grieving. He is protesting. Jonah is grieving and protesting because genocide has been averted. We might have about as much sympathy for Jonah as we would for Adolf Hitler at the death of his pet dog. It is an instance of human grief. It is not something deserving of our support.

“As a general rule,” writes Barbara Brown Taylor, “I would say that human beings never behave more badly toward one another than when they believe they are protecting God.”  This is the reality which at this historical moment makes the Book of Jonah the most contemporary and pertinent of the Old Testament books. Certainly the remarks of certain so-called Christians about the reasons for New Orleans’ destruction fit this description. Christians, Muslims and Jews of various stripes have engaged in horrific behavior as ways of protecting God from human sinfulness. The LORD who inhabits the pages of the Book of Jonah neither needs nor desires such protection.

And yet, we feel obliged to protect God from a case of low standards—or at least from a case of having standards other than our own. Jonah flees to Tarshish, perhaps, to save the LORD from the embarrassment of sparing Nineveh. That is, of course, the argument the prophet offers in Jonah 4:2. And what does the prophet get in return? He certainly doesn’t receive an outpouring of Divine Gratitude for his efforts. At best he gets a sort of bemused tolerance for his foolishness. Is it any wonder the prophet feels cheated? And there is no rage like that of someone who has been deprived of a perceived entitlement.

Earlier we wondered how Jonah might have gone from an experience of heartfelt gratitude to bitter recrimination in the course of just over a chapter. Now, what if Jonah’s response to his rescue was not heartfelt gratitude but rather a sense of obligation? What if he was paying off his vow, made in the belly of the great fish, by pronouncing Ninevite doom? In her book, Positivity, Barbara Fredrickson describes the “evil twin” of gratitude—“indebtedness.”

“If you feel you have to pay someone back," she writes, "then you’re not feeling grateful, you’re feeling indebted, which often feels distinctly unpleasant. Indebtedness pays back begrudgingly, as part of the economy of favors.” If we return to Jonah’s psalm in chapter two, we might catch a hint of that indebtedness language. Jonah promises to make a thank-offering to the Lord in response to his rescue. “What I have vowed,” he sings from the belly of the fish, “I will pay.” 

The Hebrew word for “pay” in that verse is related to a word we know—“shalom.” In one sense, the word refers to wholeness, completion, health and peace. In the piel form, however, it has an edgier tone. It can refer to making amends. More to the point, it means paying a debt or fulfilling a vow. It has the sense of obligation answered and accounts settled. Does Jonah celebrate his reunion with the LORD, or does he promise that the moral books will balance? Let the reader consider…

In his book, Give and Take, Adam Grant describes people as either “takers,” “matchers,” or “givers.” Takers have no trouble accepting and even demanding things from others without providing much of anything in return.  Givers have no trouble giving themselves to others without expecting anything in return.  Genuine takers and givers make up a small part of the general population.

Most people are “matchers.”  Matchers try to keep the game of life even.  If I do a favor for you, then I have put you in my debt.  It is only right, from the matcher point of view, that I should be able to expect and claim repayment at some point.  If you do me a favor, I may become very uncomfortable because I have an outstanding debt to you.  Matchers often cannot rest until the “debt” has been settled.

Since most people are matchers, the idea that God is gracious is very difficult.  It seems that Jonah lives with this burden. God is clearly a giver—“gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.” Jonah is not a giver. Jonah is a matcher. Jonah pays his debts and settles his accounts. It would seem that Jonah expects the LORD to have the same standards. And it would seem that Jonah’s rage comes, at least in part, from a sense of disappointed entitlement.

Terrence Fretheim suggests that the LORD might well have spared Nineveh regardless of their repenting or not.

"It is striking to note that in Exod 32 God repents regarding Israel quite apart from any repentance on their part, with only Moses' prayer in view (Exod 32:14). So, it is possible that God would have changed the divine mind even apart from Nineveh's repentance, on the grounds of divine compassion alone (4:11). God's final question in 4:11 includes no suggestion that Nineveh's repentance conditions God's repentance (so also 4:2). God's compassion prompts God's response to the Ninevite's repentance. God will spare them because of who God is and who they are."  

God is The Giver. The LORD is not a matcher. The world does not work the way Jonah assumes. Can he live in such a world or not? Victor Hugo pursues the same line of inquiry throughout his novel, Les Miserables. In the musical adaptation, Inspector Javert has been rescued from death by his archenemy, Jean Valjean. This presents Javert with a paradox that he cannot cram into his rage for order and fairness. Javert cannot be in the debt of one he believes to be a criminal. Javert is the prototypical matcher. 

Worse still, Javert cannot live in a world where such a thing could happen. He is faced with a moral and spiritual crisis. His “heart of stone” begins to tremble with doubt. The world he has known “is lost in shadow.” He wonders if his enemy and tormentor is from heaven or from hell. The musical plot wavers for a moment on the high note of that line. Then Javert decides. He cannot accept the gift of his life from such an agent of disorder. He cannot live in this world of such disorderly grace. In Javert’s view Valjean has killed him after all. He plunges to his death in the River Seine.

Jonah is not Javert—at least not yet. He desires to leave a world where grace and mercy rule. But he has not yet had his ticket punched.