But this was very distressing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, "O Lord! Is this not what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live."
And the Lord said, "Is it right for you to be angry?"

Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a shelter for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city. The Lord God appointed a vine, and made it come up over Jonah, to give shade over his head, to save him from his discomfort; so Jonah was very happy about the vine. But when dawn came up the next day, God appointed a worm that attacked the vine, so that it withered. When the sun rose, God prepared a scorching east wind, and the sun beat down on the head of Jonah so that he was faint, and asked that he might die. He said, "It is better for me to die than to live."
But God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die."

Then the Lord said, "You are concerned about the vine, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it was a child of the 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 twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"

Luke 11:29-36 The sign of Jonah and the Nineveh
Then the Lord said, "You are concerned about the vine, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it was a child of the 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 twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?" (Jonah 4:10, 11)

It is an engaging tale in itself. But it takes on even greater meaning when we realize that Nineveh was the capital city of the Assyrian empire, which eventually conquered the Jonah's nation, the Kingdom of Israel, and carried away as captives its people, who were never heard from again. In other words, Jonah was asked to preach repentance to the mortal enemies of his own nation. This explains why as soon as the command came from the Lord, he got on a ship, intending to go as far as he could in the opposite direction!

Of course, he didn't get away with it. After his famous three days and nights inside the fish, Jonah figured he might as well obey the Lord's command to go and preach repentance to the inhabitants of Nineveh. Much to his dismay and disgust, the Nineveh actually listened to him, and repented in sackcloth and ashes. Still, Jonah hoped against hope that the Lord would carry out his threat anyway, and destroy the city, ridding Israel of its most dangerous enemy. And so he took up his position east of the city to see what would happen.

There he built a shelter to protect himself from the elements. Apparently it wasn't quite sufficient for that purpose, since the Lord helped him by making a vine (traditionally a "gourd") grow up as a shade and a comfort to Jonah. Finally God had done something Jonah liked! But just as fast as the vine grew up, God sent a worm to chew the vine and kill it. And as if that wasn't enough, God also sent a scorching east wind, which, added to the blazing sun, brought Jonah to the brink of heat prostration. Meanwhile, the city of Nineveh just sat there, with no fire and brimstone raining down from heaven to consume it. So much for God doing things that Jonah liked! Jonah was definitely having a bad day.

Well . . . we sometimes have those kinds of days, too. Days when everything seems to go right for the people we think are wrong, and everything goes wrong for us. That's not how it's supposed to work! God is supposed to take care of us and blast our enemies, not the other way around! And when God doesn't do what he's supposed to do, that can make us mighty cranky.
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This is one of the clear messages in the book of Jonah. When God sent Jonah to prophesy to Nineveh, the capital city of Israel's archenemy, this was a shocking departure from God's usual ways. In the past, the prophets' work had always been with their own people. Maybe they were preaching fire and brimstone to the people, but even that was a sign that God cared enough about his special people to rebuke and chasten them. It was our fire and brimstone! In sending Jonah to rebuke and chasten an enemy of Israel, God was saying, "I care about your enemies just as much as I care about you."

This, Jonah simply couldn't accept. It went against everything he understood about the history of his people and their relationship with God. So he first ran away from the call, and only after being softened up by a hurricane at sea and three days confined inside a fish did he grudgingly go and preach to the people of Nineveh, as commanded.

And the worst thing was that they repented! This meant that God would not destroy them after all--which was the only part of his mission and message that gave Jonah any pleasure. This was the context of our story for today, which is the fourth and final chapter of the book of Jonah.

His job of preaching to Nineveh completed, Jonah went outside the city to see what would happen. There, he built himself a shelter. God made his shelter better by sending a fast-growing vine (or bush) to grow up and provide him shade and comfort. So Jonah sat down in the comfort of his shelter and of the soothing vine, safely isolated from these people whom he hated, but whom he had been all but compelled by God to serve in his role as a prophet. He had done what he was supposed to do, and now it was God's turn.

But God's work in Nineveh was finished for the moment. They had already repented. Now God had a tougher nut to crack: Jonah himself. And since Jonah was not in any state to listen to reason, God instead sent a vine to teach Jonah the lesson he needed. It is a lesson that all the rest of us need as well--especially those of us who consider ourselves, for whatever reason, to be special in God's sight and set apart from others.

The vine grew up quickly and provided Jonah shelter. And Jonah was very happy about the vine. He loved the vine because it served his own comfort. The worm that chewed on the vine, killing it, was an evil thing as far as Jonah was concerned. It destroyed what had given him comfort. And now, with the vine dead, and the blazing sun and scorching east wind assailing Jonah in his own ineffectual shelter, Jonah decided that things were so bad it was time to die. Then the pointed closing dialog of the chapter:
God said to Jonah, "Is it right for you to be angry about the vine?" And he said, "Yes, angry enough to die."

Then the Lord said, "You are concerned about the vine, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it was a child of the 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 twenty thousand people who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?"

No one after lighting a lamp puts it in a hiding place or under a bowl, but on a lamp stand, so that those who come in may see the light. Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are good, your whole body is also full of light. But when they are bad, your body is also full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness. Therefore, if your whole body is full of light, and no part of it dark, it will be completely lighted, as when the light of a lamp shines on you. Amen