Mercy Defines God's Existence

Homily for Wednesday of the Twenty-seventh Week in Ordinary Time

Jonah is angry because God shows mercy to Nineveh, a city Jonah hoped would be destroyed. This passage reveals Jonah’s struggle with divine compassion—he wants justice, but God offers grace. This fascinating story caricatures a narrow mentality which would see God’s interest extending only to Israel, whereas God is presented as concerned with and merciful to even the inhabitants of Nineveh (4:11), the capital of the Assyrian empire which brought the Northern Kingdom of Israel to an end and devastated Jerusalem in 701 B.C.

The book is replete with irony, wherein much of its humor lies. The name “Jonah” means “dove” in Hebrew, but Jonah’s character is anything but dove-like. Jonah is commanded to go east to Nineveh but flees toward the westernmost possible point (1:2–3), only to be swallowed by a great fish and dumped back at this starting point (2:1, 11). While the sailors pray to their gods, Jonah is asleep in the hold (1:5–6). The prophet’s preaching is a minimum message of destruction, while it is the king of Nineveh who calls for repentance and conversion (3:4–10); the instant conversion of the Ninevites is greeted by Jonah with anger and sulking (4:1). He reproaches the Lord using the very words of Israel’s traditional praise of his mercy (4:2; cf. Ex 34:6–7).

Unlike other prophetic books, this is not a collection of oracles but the story of a disobedient, narrow-minded prophet who is angry at the outcome of the sole message he delivers (3:4). It is difficult to date but almost certainly is postexilic, which explains in part Jonah’s reaction to God’s mercy. These were the enemies of Israel. Why show mercy to those who destroyed Jerusalem?

Of course, the greatest irony of this story is that Jonah is the only prophet of Israel who is successful in bringing about repentance. Jonah will find his way into the Gospels as Jesus speaks of the sign of Jonah. Some see Jonah’s time in the belly of the large fish as akin to Jesus’ time in the tomb. However, Jesus tells his listeners that the Ninevites will fare better in God’s judgment because they accepted God’s Word while Jesus’ fellow Jews reject him and his preaching.

God’s mercy is at the core of God’s existence. God’s mercy, characterized by some as a sign of weakness, is really God’s strength. God’s mercy is the characteristic that separates divine nature from human nature. In the Eucharist we find the surest sign of our merciful God.