Sermon for July 2nd, 2017

Jonah 4:1-10

1 Jonah was very indignant at this; he fell into a rage. 2 He prayed to Yahweh and said: ‘Ah! Yahweh, is this not just as I said would happen when when I was still in my own country? That was why I went and fled to Tarshish: I knew that you were a God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in graciousness, relenting from evil. 3 So now Yahweh, please take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.’

4 Yahweh answered: ‘Have you good reason to be angry?’ 5 Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down to the east of the city. There he made for himself a shelter and sat under it in the shade, to see what would happen in the city.

6 Then Yahweh God arranged that a colocynth plant should grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head and soothe his discomfort; and Jonah was delighted with the colocynth plant. 7 But at dawn the next day, God arranged that a worm should attack the colocynth, and it withered. 8 Next, when the sun rose, God arranged a burning wind from the east, and the sun beat down so hard on Jonah’s head that he was overcome and begged for death, saying, ‘It is better for me to die than to live’. 9 God said to Jonah: ‘Have you good reason to be angry about the colocynth plant?’ And he answered: ‘I have every right to be angry, even to death’.

10 And Yahweh answered: ‘You grieve for this colocynth, which cost you no labour, which you did not make grow, which sprouted in a night, and in a night has perished. And am I not to 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, to say nothing of all the animals?’