God Isn’t Fair

Let us pray. Merciful God, we are almost always quicker to judge and condemn than to forgive and love. You are just the opposite, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Your mercy is so wide, your grace is so endless, we cannot fathom it. Pour your love into our hearts, Lord so that we are instruments of that love instead of roadblocks to your kingdom. Even as we have experienced your forgiveness, stir up in a fervent desire to share your goodness with others. AMEN.

There is no denying it. God isn’t fair.

God isn’t just fair. God is much more than fair. God’s steadfast love and mercy extend far beyond our human capacity for love.

Jonah knew that about God and that is why he fled. Not because he was afraid of the Ninevites, but because he knew that God was the kind who would certainly forgive the Ninevites and Jonah didn’t feel that they much deserved to be forgiven.

So Jonah was the most reluctant of prophets. When God said, “Go to Nineveh”, Jonah took off in the opposite direction.

Yet God continued to treat even Jonah with compassion — saving him from drowning in the storm by providing a big fish to swallow him up. Once Jonah is on dry land again, God even gives him another chance to fulfill his mission when it would have been tempting to just give up on Jonah and send someone else instead.

Jonah was totally right in his assessment of God as “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, ready to relent from punishing.” The ironic thing is that in this situation, for Jonah, that is not good news at all. In fact, God’s goodness is the reason Jonah fled from God in the first place. Jonah didn’t want his enemies, the people of Nineveh to be the recipients of God’s mercy and grace. He wants the Ninevites to get the punishment they deserve.

Jonah is also one of the most successful of the prophets. When he finally does carry out his mission the people of Nineveh immediately repent of their evil ways and turn back to God.

So does Jonah celebrate his success and rejoice with God that the Ninevites are now believers? Of course not! On the contrary, Jonah gets so angry at the positive results that he doesn’t even want to go on living!

Jonah didn’t want God to be slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. Jonah wanted God to be fair and just which means that God should dole out the punishment that the Ninevites truly deserve. IT ISN’T FAIR TO FORGIVE THEM!

We humans like to see people get what they deserve. Whether we are willing to admit it or not, we make judgements all the time about who deserves or doesn’t deserve God’s grace, about who belongs or doesn’t belong in church. Sometimes simply because someone is different than us. Instead of reaching out to get to know them better we just keep to ourselves. We may not hop on a boat to Tarshish, but we often we flee into our own worlds of busyness. We can all probably think of times when God was calling us to do something and we went in the opposite direction.

God doesn’t ascribe to the same views of fariness and jsutice as we do. If God were to open the kingdom to those who were deserving, no one would be worthy. But God is much more than fair. God is much moreo than just. God’s generosity knows no bounds.

Let’s look at today’s parable. No self-respecting businessperson would pay the same wage to the workers who started early in the morning as the workers that started an hour before quitting time. A truly fair employer would pay the late arrivals less money than those who toiled hard all day long. IT’s easy to relate to the all day workers’ anger when the others are given equal pay for less work.

God chose not to be fair. God chose to be generous. When those who worked all day dared to complain, the vineyard owner says, “What’s it to you if I am generous?”

Who are we to complain when God is generous, showering mercy and steadfast love on those we think are undeserving? After all, if God weren’t generous where would we be? We certainly never did anything to deserve anything but wrath, but God poured out His love by sending his own son to take the punishment we deserve.

We need to take a step back and put ourselves in the place of the last minute workers and the Ninevites, of the people outside the church that wemight judge and maybe don’t like so much. We need to look at ourselves honestly and see there is nothing that makes us anymore deserving than they are. We are all sinful and unworthy. Yet, in the power of God’s mercy and grace we stand forgiven and worthy.

In the name of “being fair” our human judgements are often much harsher than God’s judgements of us. God would seek to heal, to reach out, to reconcile when we, like Jonah would grumble and run away rather than follow God’s call to be instruments of mercy.

Maybe deep down we know that God is more than fair, and God’s grace has the power to really change lives. Maybe we are afraid to fail and we don’t want to take that chance. Reluctant Jonah only said a few words and Nineveh turned around! Imagine what the Body of Christ set loose on the world to share God’s love and forgive in God’s name can do!

Think about it! What is God challenging you to do? Are you fleeing rather than face your mission? If God used Jonah, kicking and complaining all the way to save the Ninevites, how much more can God use you — pumped up by the joyous gospel truth that as undeserving as you are, God loves you and has redeemed you and made you his own and will use you to accomplish God’s purpose in this world!

What might God be challenging us to do as a congregation here in Random Lake to show this community that God’s mercy is wide and share the continuing good news that God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love? Jonah made a big difference in Nineveh! Imagine what all of us working together in God’s name could do here in Random Lake!

God is not fair. GOD IS SO MUCH MORE THAN FAIR! Generous, gracious, merciful, slow to anger, abounding in love! When we experience this abundance in Jesus Christ, through the love of others and the care of the church, how can we help but want to share that gracious generosity with others. AMEN.