Schadenfreude

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “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?” Jonah 3:10-4:11 

Good news here. God is big enough for us all. Jonah has been asked by God to go and tell the Ninevites (the arch enemies of the Children of Israel) to repent. He tries to escape God on  a boat, gets thrown in the sea, swallowed by a whale and then washed up on Nineveh. THEN- he gets a meeting with the King and tells him God's message- "REPENT OR ELSE" and the King says, "OKEY DOKE!"

Jonah, all along, didn't want to go on what he thought was a suicide mission. Also, he hated the Ninevites and figured they would not listen, and God would blow up their city. They not only repent by smearing the men with ashes and having them wear sackcloths- the women, children and even animals got in on the gang. THEY HEARD HIM.

So now, at the end of the story, we see him upset about this and even grumpier that the shade he was enjoying dried up. He is so upset about the shade that he says to God "Take me now." God says, "Let me get this straight. You are upset about not having shade, but you do not give two hoots about a city full of human beings?" The story ends on this cliffhanger.

Who among us has not had what is called schadenfreude- or "pleasure at someone else's pain"? How great it was that a King decided to repent of being a jerk. How great it was that he heard God's message of mercy. Yet, who among us cannot relate to taking more pleasure out of seeing someone "get what they deserve" versus someone else experiencing mercy? We are all guilty of this, to some degree. 

Take this in:
The story of Jonah means for us that God is not a God of a tribe or a people but a God for everyone whose love extends to everyone (even our enemies). A life's work for us, then, is working on repenting of our hatred and being curious about how we can love our enemies. For starters, we can try not to feel happy when something bad happens to them. We can be curious about why the enmity exists. 

Later, in the person of Jesus, then, we get an example for how this works. We can look to his example of love and the multitude of ways that love can be played out when we let go of our ancient hatreds. Jonah couldn't let go. We can.

T