A New Kind of Christianity - Brian McLaren [100]
Jonah then, in his second suicidal moment, begs God to kill him, as if to say, “I’d rather be dead than have to live in a world where you love both our enemies and us”—a remarkably common sentiment among religious people still today, it seems. God tries to reason with Jonah, first using words and then a kind of experiential learning program involving a bush and a worm, but Jonah keeps sulking and wishing he were dead. God twice asks Jonah what right he has to be so angry. The first time, Jonah just walks away without saying anything, although one can imagine his muttering something under his breath like a cheeky teenager. The second time, he claims he does have a right, and (once again) he’d rather be dead, thank you very much. God replies:
You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals? (4:10–11)
And that’s the end—the only document in the biblical library that ends with an open question and with no sense of closure to the plot.24 This openness presents us with great hope.25 Even though Jonah rebels and runs away from his calling, his rebellion is not the end of the story. Even though Jonah asks to be thrown overboard, his death wish is not the end of the story. Even though Jonah is swallowed by a monster, its potent stomach acids are not the end of the story. Even though Jonah has a snarky attitude and stomps away from God in a huff, his temper tantrum isn’t the end of the story. And so on. Whether you’re Jonah or the Ninevites or us, wherever you turn, you keep bumping into a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love. Again and again, God opens up another chance to repent, and so the story ends without really ending. Instead of closure, the story leaves us with aperture.
Should God not be concerned? Should God not be “a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love”—both toward the Ninevites and toward his reluctant, recalcitrant prophet? Should God not care? Our answers to these questions, I believe, shape our vision of the future. The future is open, because the compassion and care of God are unconstricted, open wide for us to turn and find a better life than we’re now experiencing by taking a better path than we’re now walking.26
What of final judgment? The reality of judgment seems to be a central theme across the biblical library, because in God’s presence all pretense and hypocrisy, like all hidden virtues and goodness, are brought to light and our true colors shine through. This means that the true accounting, evaluation, or assessment of our lives, our works, our nations, and our world cannot help but happen.27 This true accounting, evaluation, or assessment is what “judgment” means. But sadly, that word has been defined for us—and thoroughly spoiled for us—in the old Greco-Roman soul-sort narrative.
As a first step in seeing judgment in our new eschatological context, we must stop defining it as condemnation. God’s judgment in the 3-D biblical context is not merely retributive—seeking to punish wrongdoers for their wrongs and in this way balance some sort of cosmic equation. No, God’s judgment is far higher and better than that; it involves “putting wrong things right.” It means reconciling and restoring, not merely punishing; healing, not merely diagnosing; transforming,