Jonah’s mission to Nineveh had turned out to be a smashing, outstanding success. The people repented from the king on down. The people turned from their violent and evil ways, and God graciously relented and didn’t bring them the destruction he had threatened. You would think it was time to celebrate, praise God, and thank God for His goodness to Jonah and the people. This has to rank as one of the greatest revivals in history. 

But no. Jonah 4:1-4 says, “But to Jonah, this seemed very wrong, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord, “Isn’t this what I said, Lord when I was still at home? That is why I tried to forestall by fleeing to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.” But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

Wow, we say. But not so fast. Have you ever noticed that we want the best for people we know and like but not necessarily those we don’t? Or that we believe we deserve God’s goodness, but certain people we know don’t? This goes to how we see people. Jonah saw the Ninevites as undeserving pagans who didn’t deserve the grace that he knew God would give. He had a superior attitude toward the Ninevites rooted in the racial animosities between the Ninevites and the Israelites. 

This is a global problem of sinful racial attitudes. Actually, it is not always racial, as anytime we look down on another or a group of people we disapprove of, we do the same thing Jonah did. We are taking a superior attitude that assumes we deserve better than others. And we could not be more wrong. 

God says to Jonah in chapter 4:11: “Should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left - and also many animals.” Jonah was willing for all 120,000 people to perish than to have God spare them. That is what happens when we demonize other groups, see ourselves as superior, or consider one group more important than another. 

God’s concern for the Ninevites was very different from Jonah’s. God saw the Ninevites, evil though they may have been, as people made in His image. As we all are. We are flawed images, to be sure, because of sin, but every person you meet is made in God’s image and a potential Son or Daughter of the King of the universe. This is why CS Lewis wrote, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.” Every person you talk to has an eternal soul, was created in God’s image, and He sent His son to re-image broken images through his death and resurrection. So there are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal.

If this is true, how we see, treat, and love those different from us is of eternal importance. If I kept a list of all the groups that Christ followers I know look down on and treat as inferior to them, the list would be long. And having traveled extensively across this globe, that attitude can be found everywhere. People speak derisively of certain immigrants, groups with an alternate lifestyle from theirs, countries that they think are backward and pagan, and/or maybe the panhandlers on all the major intersections in our cities. That attitude affects how we interact, minister to, and treat people in those categories, whatever they are. 

We say at Forest City Church that we are a church with long tables and low walls. We will always put another leaf in the table for the next one who wants to come. They come to a place of radical hospitality, acceptance, grace, diversity, community, and fellowship around the person of Jesus Christ. All are welcome and safe, no matter how broken. All are appreciated and honored regardless of ethnicity, generation, background, or beliefs. All are invited to a long table where grace and love are the languages, and the magnetic love of Jes