No doubt, we have all heard similar exchanges, perhaps from our own lips to our children. A sort of bargaining for obedience, in this case, from the mother. But we may have easily heard threats or demands from a child to the parent: “If you don’t buy me the game I am going to scream!”

Such interactions may seem to have little to do with our texts. We have the prophet Jonah, called by God a second time to go to a city known as one of sin and rejection of God. He is to preach “repentance.” He had to be asked a second time to go, following the first time when he set off by sea in the opposite direction.

And from the New Testament we have Jesus calling some of his Twelve, Simon and Andrew, who were fishermen.

For you see, the scenarios between parents and children of one or the other bargaining for some result, some end, have to do with obedience. And they lead us to question: Why obey? Why be obedient to God? Especially, why be obedient if one cannot get what they want--if the means does not lead to the most desired end?

Perhaps in a spiritual sense, we may begin to see that we are not so unlike the child wanting, bargaining, or demanding a certain toy or game from our Spiritual Parent.

Reluctant Jonah, prior to getting to Nineveh and proclaiming God’s message of repentance, was without doubt that God’s threat of destruction against Nineveh would take place. There was no way in which those people should be or would be spared the wrath of God--not even if they repented? Huh?

But let us not be so quick to judge Jonah?

For as Christians, persons trying to live lives of obedience to God, do we not wonder or even become offended when “bad things happen to good people”? Even more so, do we not feel spiritually perplexed “when good things happen to bad people”? This was Jonah. The Ninevites were being given a ‘do pass’ from God.

Why, he had endured three days/nights in the belly of a great fish when he was initially disobedient to God’s command. In his attempt to flee from God on a storm-tossed sea he offered himself to be thrown overboard a vessel to spare the lives of the others, and now, the thanks he gets is that God is going to change his mind and not destroy the Ninevites. Why obey?

Perhaps Jonah felt most assured that his opinion was right, that he could not be wrong. How amazed he was that God had not taken his side, his belief. We are not so different from the child in the toy section of the store or Jonah who pouted under a tree when God refused to destroy that city.

Jesus’ public ministry began with the calling of disciples, to even call a select group--an inner circle, if you will. They would be taught and shown the example of what being obedient to the heavenly Father was like. We know that Jesus desired that they too develop hearts of compassion to continue the Father’s will in earthly ministry. Jesus would become their friend and they his. They would see the heart of God when Jesus would bring health to the sick, healing to the disabled, life to the dead, and forgiveness to sinners.

Jesus called Simon and Andrew, brothers. Their livelihood was fishing. Jesus asked that they leave their fishing-nets to follow him. They would be taught to fish for people. By the way of the Father’s compassion, the nature of Jesus, Simon, who would become known as Peter, along with all but one of the other Twelve, including his fisherman brother, Andrew, would become obedient to the way of compassion--the heavenly love for others at the deepest of levels.

Jesus had guaranteed, if you will, that they would fish for people. Their work would become under Jesus bringing persons into the net of God’s love. There were no promises otherwise. So, why would they obey? All, but Judas, that is.

Would loving others, showing compassion, assist them in acquiring some self-centered goal? Would prosperity come to them in the form of a finer house, grand furnishings, a larger bank account? Would their obedience lead to a soft-feather-bed of ease?

The answer to such questions is ‘No.’ Gratification to their obedience, if it be dubbed gratification, was in and of itself--to be in a loving-obedient relationship with Christ.

Though our story of Jonah was pre-earthly-Jesus, the answer is the same. Jonah’s reward for obedience was to enjoy a loving-obedient relationship with God. But Jonah was disappointed when God was gracious to Nineveh. Jonah learned that he could not manipulate God or restrict God’s forgiveness and love to only those like him. But had he not been disobedient himself?

Earthly parental love is sometimes taught to children as conditional love. Some children because of their parents will never feel loved, as they have come to obey only to avoid punishment in the form of abuse--emotional or physical.

Our work places, school grading systems, or societies in general often teach lessons to be obedient so as not to be punished. Rarely is obedience related to healthy relationships or loving relationships.

So from both our Jonah story and the one of calling the Disciples, we glean the greater truth of God’s love for all persons. While we find Jonah’s receptivity to God’s lesson less impressive than that of those called as Christ’s disciples, the message is as an Andrew Murray (Leadership, Fall 1986) is quoted:

“God has no more precious gift to a church . . . than a person who lives as an embodiment of (God’s) will, and inspires those around (him/her) with the faith of what grace can do.”

Obedience understood as only to receive God’s attention or favor misses the magnitude of God’s love and the relationship that develops from loving responses to that love.

I suspect that God in sparing Nineveh from destruction was just the beginning point of what God desired. From the repentant hearts of its citizens, God forgave. We can be sure God did not forgive so that with a clean slate they could return to the ways of sin or separation from God. No, it surely was the opportunity to henceforth live in relationship with God.

We cannot be certain of the reason for Jonah’s disappointment when God decided not to destroy the city. And it truly does not matter. But God’s lesson from the story is that God loves the peoples of the world. God wanted relationship with the Ninevites as much as God desired a relationship of obedience with Jonah. And so it remains with God.

Jesus, God’s Son, called to his side fishermen, a tax collector and the others who made up the Twelve, to receive the Father’s and the Son’s heart of compassion for others. And so God still calls. God through Christ calls us to him. God calls us to him to be the vehicles of the good news experienced through Jesus Christ.

Conversely, there are times for all Christians and for some, it seems more often than not, to desire that God grant us our wishes, even to allow us control of our lives, especially in relationship to others. Jonah and Judas had difficulty with this. Perhaps we, too. But to love others without self-serving conditions is to love like God. Therefore, we strive to obey in love as God loves us.

Amen.