God loves all people regardless of our perceived national interests

Probably most of us are familiar with the story of Jonah, typically from Sunday school, where the story is reduced to a supernatural Aesop fable: God tells Jonah to do something. Jonah refuses and decides to flee to Tarshish (modern day Spain — or the furthest end of the earth, as far away from God’s land as Jonah could imagine). God is angry. The ship is tossed in a storm. The sailors throw Jonah overboard. A big fish swallows him, where he stays for three days. Then the big fish vomits him onto a shore, and Jonah goes and does what God commanded him to do: spread the word in Nineveh.

The Sunday School tale — naturally — glosses over the rich theology of the story.

Jonah, a staunch religious believer, regards and relates poorly to people who are racially and religiously different from him. Nineveh was the largest and oldest city in Assyria, set on the eastern bank of the Tigris River (modern northern Iraq). It was a major center for military and political power during the time of Jonah. Assyria was a sworn enemy of Israel. They practiced torture, mutilation, and mass execution of captives. They worked idols, which included child sacrifice and ritual prostitution. They exploited the poor and perverted justice.

Can we all agree that’s pretty evil?

Yet, the word of the Lord came to Jonah: “Arise, go to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it, for their wickedness has come up before Me.” If Jonah obeyed, and the city repented, God would relent from destroying the city.

The last thing Jonah wanted was to see Nineveh spared from destruction.

It is natural for Jonah to want to see evildoers punished. Jonah was also a nationalist. He loved his country, so it is also completely understandable for him to worry about the Assyrian capital’s threat to Israel. Love of country often leads us into the sin of hating others who are different from us and are perceived as a threat. When Jonah refused a direct order to bring God’s message to the Ninevites, he was deciding to put Israel’s national and political interests ahead of God’s will.

Jonah had essentially turned his nation into an idol, putting it ahead of God’s justice and mercy.

When Jonah does finally go to Nineveh, his message is half-hearted at best.

Jonah’s sermon was only five words in Hebrew, lacking any call to repentance, mention of God’s mercy, or details of how to avoid destruction. “Forty days and Nineveh will be overthrown.”

Yet, it was God’s word, and the people heard and repented.

Jonah exits the city but finds no shade. He tells God he wants to die. God provides a shade tree. Then sends a worm that kills it, and Jonah again complains and tells God he wants to die.

Jonah 4: 9-11:

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“I am,” he said. “And I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight.

And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

The lesson — all creatures great and small, all the plants of the field, in the high places and the low, are God’s creation. God loves the whole world. And we are expected to do the same, especially its people (see the story of the Good Samaritan).

I see people saying they don’t care about “illegal immigrants.” They’re invading our country. They’re all evil lawbreakers. So any mistreatment of them, any denial of justice, is justified.

This is what nationalism looks like, the same kind of nationalism Jonah used to justify not following God’s command.

What’s God’s command for us? To love our neighbors as ourselves. Who are our neighbors? Everybody, including and most especially the people who are different from us, whom culture scorns and abuses, who are the least among us, who are sinners.

In Micah, we are told, “The Lord your God asks only three things of you, to practice justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God.”

For those who say this is a Christian nation, it’s a fair question: How well are we practicing what God commands us to do?