Petulant Buts

I'm preparing to lead a series of studies in the book of Jonah. I spent last week reading over it--what a tremendous piece of Scripture! The thing that stood out to me last week was how appropriate it was that a book about a petulant and difficult prophet turned on the axis of a series of "but" statements.

Consider Jonah 1:1-3 (TNIV):
The word of the LORD came to Jonah son of Amittai: "Go to the great city Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me." But Jonah ran away from the LORD and headed for Tarshish.

But that, of course, isn't the last but.

God sends a storm (NRSV: "But God"), Jonah tells the sailors to throw him overboard because he's the cause of this life-threatening situation. God provides a big fish (NRSV: "But God"), swallows him whole, Jonah spends three days and three nights in the belly and offers up a powerful prayer while he's there. The fish spews him out and the word of the Lord comes again to Jonah.

This time, of course, he's learned his lesson and he goes. Jonah walks Nineveh with the message of repentance and the entire city repents. And in Jonah 4, we get a series of "buts" that capture Jonah's back and forth with the God who is merciful both to the Ninevites and the stubborn prophet.

Jonah 4:1 (TNIV)
But to Jonah this seemed very wrong, and he became angry.

Jonah is hacked off about God's mercy being extended to a people so evil as the people of Nineveh.

Jonah 4:4 (TNIV)
But the LORD replied, "Is it right for you to be angry?"

God refuses to let Jonah pout or get off the hook. He will pursue Jonah to the bitter end, just as he did the people of Nineveh. Jonah and God have some back and forth and Jonah sets up shop on a hill outside the city, hoping for a "shock and awe" show--that is, hoping that God would incinerate Nineveh in spite of their repentance.

God provides a large plant that springs up to give him shade and Jonah is happy. The next day, God sends a worm and the plant dies, and Jonah complains that it would be better for him to die.

Jonah 4:10-11
But the LORD said, "You have been concerned about this gourd, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left...?"

The book ends here, with the word of the Lord to Jonah. We have no idea if he repents, if his heart is softened towards the grace and mercy of God.

But what we do see is that God is radically committed towards having the last "but." The Lord will pursue Jonah and the Ninevites and you and I, even though we hear his voice, his commands, his calling and the very next word in our stories, in my story, is most often "but Alex."

The Lord will speak his "no" to us through storms, through fish swallowing us whole, through dreams deferred, through failures and struggles and challenges in order that we might finally, one day, come to delight in his very large, and very loud, yes. He is relentless. He will not stop pursuing us with his yes to our very last breath, be we petulant prophets, lost wanderers, hardened skeptics, or some combination of all of the above.