Sermon for July 2nd, 2017

Jonah 4:1-10

1 But Jonah was greatly aggrieved by this, and he was angry. 2 And he prayed to Yahweh and said: ‘Ah! Yahweh, is this not just as I said when I was still in my own country? For this reason I fled first to Tarshish: because I knew that you are a God of gentleness and pity, slow to anger, abounding in mercy, relenting from evil. 3 So, Yahweh, pray take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.’

4 And Yahweh answered: ‘Have you good reason to be angry?’ 5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat on the east side of the city. There he made for himself an arbour and sat under it in the shade, to see what would happen in the city. 6 Then Yahweh God appointed a colocynth to grow up over Jonah, so that it might cast a shade upon his head and relieve his discomfort; and Jonah had great delight in the colocynth. 7 But the day after at the coming of dawn God appointed a worm to smite the colocynth, and it withered. 8 And when the sun rose, God appointed a burning wind from the east, and the sun smote Jonah’s head, so that he was overcome; and he begged for death, and said: ‘It is better for me to die than to live’. 9 And God said to Jonah: ‘Have you good reason to be aggrieved because of the colocynth?’ And he answered: ‘I have indeed good reason to be angry, even to death’.

10 And Yahweh answered: ‘You grieve for this colocynth, which cost you no labour, and which you did not make grow, which sprouted in a night, and in a night has perished. And I forsooth should not grieve for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, and many cattle as well!’