Fifth Sunday of Epiphany
February 4, 2024

What about All These Animals?

Tom Are Jr.
Interim Pastor

Psalm 48:9–14
Jonah 4

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We have been journeying with Jonah for a few weeks now, and the story finally comes to conclusion. Actually, it may be better to say it just stops rather than concludes. The story ends with Jonah and God in mid-conversation.

God asks, “Jonah, why are you so angry? Shouldn’t I be concerned about the city? After all there are 120,000 people there. Not only that, Jonah, there are lots of animals. Jonah, have you been thinking about the animals?”

Has he been thinking about the … No, no he hasn’t been thinking about the animals. Who’s thinking about the animals? Let’s back up.

Nineveh is the capital of Assyria. Assyria invaded Israel. They conquered everything north of Jerusalem. The Assyrian empire maintained control over conquered people by relocating them and mixing them with other conquered folks. They scattered the Jews across the ancient world, separating communities, breaking down relationships, attempting to erode Jewish culture. The result is that ten of the twelve tribes of Israel were scattered, lost. The hatred for the Assyrians was deep and long lasting.

To be gracious to the Assyrians was too much for Jonah. His disgust fills his speech. He protests and storms out of the city. The only thing that Jonah finds positive is the gift of a bush. A bush that grows up overnight and provides Jonah with a bit of shade to comfort him from the heat of the sun and the steam coming out of his ears. But then just as quickly as the bush appears it is destroyed, and the blistering heat returns. This is the last straw. Jonah can’t handle it anymore. He has another temper tantrum.

And God says, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

Jonah says, “Yes, angry enough to die!”

God says, “You want to die because of what happened to the bush?”

“But you didn’t create the bush. The bush doesn’t belong to you. The bush belongs to me. I am the creator of the bush.” (We see where God is going with this.)

“So also I created the Ninevites. Shouldn’t I care for them? They belong to me. Those 120,000 Ninevites who do not know their left hand from their right, shouldn’t I care for them?” And then out of left field God says, “And also the animals, Jonah? Have you been thinking about the animals?”

What animals?

Now, we may have a division in the house here.

For some, animals are far preferred to people. I’ve known some people who seem to love their pets more than their children.

At our house, it turns out we are not great pet people.

We had a cat for fifteen years. Clawed our furniture, left dead bunnies on the welcome mat at the front door. The cat loved to sit in your lap, but while she did, she would drool all over you.

She loved to go outside, so we let her roam. About ten years ago, we moved from one neighborhood to another in Kansas City, and the cat scouted out the new neighborhood. Apparently she liked our new place, because after a few months she didn’t come home. She moved in with a family down the street. She upgraded. I was very broken up about it.

If God says, “Tom, have you considered the animals?” — no, no, no, I haven’t.

But don’t think pets here.

Think oxen and goats — possums.

In Jonah’s day they didn’t have pets. They had animals. They weren’t pets; they were livelihood.

But why in the world would God bring up the animals?

If I understand the text, this story pushes us, by reminding us that the grace of God is always more expansive than we think. This story reminds us, as people of faith, we are always struggling to keep up with the grace of God. As soon as we think we have a grasp on how wide the grace of God may be, God moves ahead. We just never catch up.

As soon as Jonah begins to admit that God is gracious to the Assyrians, then God says, “But not just the people; what about the animals?”

We are always struggling to keep up with the grace of God.

When I first moved to Kansas City to serve the Village Church, it was a church of a larger size than I had served before. There was a lot to learn. In my first year or two I had a recurring dream. I dreamed that I was driving to the church, and as I would near the sanctuary, I discover the parking lot is overflowing. And then I remember that there is an event at the church. Sometimes it is a memorial service. Once it was a nationally known speaker whom I was to introduce, and other times it’s worship on Easter, but every time I am late. I have to park two blocks away. I start running to the church, and as soon as I reach the parking lot — this is embarrassing to tell you — as soon as I reach the parking lot, the church building stands up on four strong leg sand runs two blocks down the road. The church building moves. In this dream, I am never able to catch up with the church.

It doesn’t take a trained therapist to interpret that dream. Sometimes we all feel like we just can’t keep up. Sometimes it’s our schedule. Sometimes it’s our demands. It’s a pretty common feeling to feel that life is leaving us behind from time to time.

But when it comes to God, we are always struggling to keep up, for the love of God is always more expansive than we can imagine.

It has been my experience that as God’s children as soon as we expand our perspective on the grace of God, God moves on, and we realize our new perspective is not the end of the journey but just one more step.

Just as Jonah is wrapping his head around God’s grace being poured out on his enemies, God says, “But not just the Assyrians, Jonah. Don’t forget about the animals. You know how I love my animals.”

And Jonah finds his imagination stretched even more.

I can relate to Jonah. Maybe you can too. It’s easy to move through life judging who is included and who is not, who is deserving and who is not. Who belongs and who does not. Making these kinds of judgments is stitched into our brains, and yet God sees us with a different lens. She sees all of the beauty and brokenness, the faithfulness and the failures that make up our lives, and God cares about all of that, but what seems to be the most consistent attribute of God is a refusal to let go of us. “Jonah, the people belong to me. Jonah, the bush belongs to me. Jonah, the animals belong to me. Why would you think I would ever let go of my own?”

God is like that. But we aren’t always. When it comes to living in a gracious manner, when it comes to offering grace to others, I often feel a bit clumsy. I can be gracious in moments, but I never completely catch up. There are times when I treat others in a gracious manner, but at other times I fall flat. Come up short. The ways of God leave me behind.

Am I making sense to you?

Theologian Hans Küng wrote a book called On Being Christian. In the preface he wrote, “The author writes this book not because he believes himself to be a particularly good Christian, but because he believes being Chirstian is a particularly good thing.”

I get that.

I read about a kid named Ben Comen. He ran cross country in South Carolina. He ran every race in high school, and people would show up to watch him run, which was interesting, because not only did Ben never win the race, he always, every single time, came in last place.

Now why would you drop everything to go watch a kid run who you know is never going to win?

Ben has cerebral palsy. It seizes the muscles and contorts his body, leaving him to lunge and falter, tripping over twigs or his own feet. It would take him a better part of the morning to run the 3.1-mile race. In almost every race he falls. When he falls, he falls hard, because his body can’t react quickly enough to catch himself. It is not unusual for Ben to cross the finish line bloodied about the elbows and knees. Every Saturday of autumn he ran, and people waited. Kids on his team, and sometimes kids from other teams, would wait. And when he nears the finish line, they all return to the track and together cross the finish line. Grown men from town watch, twisting their jaws trying to keep the tears in their eyes and off their faces.

Why do you suppose the whole town turns out to watch a kid run who will never win?

I think they watch because in the midst of the clumsiness it is also beautiful. I think they watch Ben Comen because they are so much like him — or, more likely, they want to be like him.

They watch as people who know we aren’t always very good at the things that matter most. When it comes to the ways of God of grace and forgiveness, of holding on to one another, we can be pretty clumsy at times.

And maybe they watch to remind themselves that you don’t have to be particularly good at it to still do a particularly good thing.

This is the truth of us. The love of God comes to us where we are, but it refuses to leave us as we are. Faith is a journey to a better life, a better people, a better world. And we make progress. Some say we don’t, but we do. But we never catch up, for as soon as we get close to who we think God is calling us to be, God moves on. It can sometimes leave us feeling like we are in a race we will never win; we stumble and fall and make a mess of things.

And then we come back here to this sanctuary and we hear God say, “Have you thought about the animals?”

“Have you thought about how expansive my love is?”

Comen … let’s keep running. I know we aren’t always particularly good with those things that matter most. We can be rather clumsy at times, but maybe by the grace of God we will find ourselves stumbling in the right direction, and perhaps God will find it beautiful.

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Sermon © Fourth Presbyterian Church