The word of the Lord came to Jonah, a video blogger with a sizable twitter following who lived in a studio apartment in Brooklyn: “Go to Florida and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.” But Jonah ran away from the Lord and headed for Canada. He took a Lyft to JFK, where he found a plane bound for that port. After paying the fare, he went aboard and flew to Ontario to flee from the Lord.

So, obviously, I’m being a little tongue-in-cheek here, but Jonah is a tale of prejudice and unexpected redemption that should really resonate with us where we are today. The tale begins with the adamantly Hebrew Jonah being called to the Assyrian city of Nineveh, and he doesn’t want to go. Jonah’s reasons have to do with prejudice: he’s heard tales of the Ninevites, and not only is he scared for his life, but he doesn’t even want them to be saved from destruction.
Let that sink in for a minute.
God’s appointed prophet actually wants the city to be destroyed.
Jonah craves destruction.
He doesn’t want anyone to be spared.
Think of how else this story could go in our modern era:

The word of the Lord came to Jonah, a staunch Trump supporter and Civil War reenactor living in Hamilton County, TN: “Go to The Castro in San Francisco…”

The word of the Lord came to Jonah, a Black Lives Matter activist who worked on the Bernie Sanders campaign: “Go to the suburbs of Colorado Springs…”

The word of the Lord came to Jonah, a closet white supremacist whose website describes him as “alt-right”: “Go to Syria…”

These retellings may seem a bit ridiculous, but this is exactly what’s going on in the story of Jonah. When a storm strikes his boat on the way to Tarshish, the sailors (who also aren’t Jonah’s race and religion) ask Jonah to pray to his God to save them, and Jonah comes to his only moment of humility in the entire story: “Pick me up and throw me into the sea, and it will become calm. I know that it is my fault that this great storm has come upon you.” (Jonah 1:12) The sailors refuse at first, but after praying to God to forgive them for their actions, they toss Jonah overboard and then offer a sacrifice to God and vow to serve him.
One of the perpetual ironies in Jonah’s story is that even his acts of disobeying God lead people to God.

Now comes the most famous and farfetched part of the story: God sends a big fish to carry Jonah in its belly for three days. In that panicked moment, Jonah offers prayers to God and thanks God for saving him. Jonah also agrees to go where he was originally sent, but there’s a problem: once Jonah arrives in Nineveh, he goes straight back to his old prejudices.

This may be the most relatable part of the whole story.
Despite accepting God’s command and going into the city, Jonah still secretly wants God to destroy Nineveh, and I think many of us currently find ourselves in this mode politically. No matter what Jonah encounters in Nineveh, he repeats the claim, “Forty more days, and Nineveh will be overthrown!” (Jonah 3:4) And you can’t help but imagine a little skip in his step as he makes the three-day journey across the city forecasting its destruction.

“Forty more days, and the Muslims will be thrown out!”
“Forty more days, and Trump will be impeached!”
“Forty more days, and we’ll drain the swamp!”
Or, you know, whatever modern political rhetoric you want to project onto the hateful little prophet.

But this is where the story takes an unexpected turn: the Ninevites hear Jonah and, instead of attacking him or rejecting him, they believe him. They declare a city-wide fast, reflect on their past sins, and pray for forgiveness. Even the animals participate in the fast and repent, and God decides to spare Nineveh. (Jonah 3:5-10) Because of all this, Jonah is arguably the most successful prophet in the Old Testament, but is Jonah happy about it? Well, this is where things get awkward.

Jonah gets angry —like Donald-Trump-on-twitter-at-3am levels of angry—,
and he admits to God why he really ran away.
All along, Jonah had suspected that God might pull some lovey dovey crap like this,
so he disobeyed God and ran away instead of warning the Ninevites.
Jonah ran because God is perfect love,
and Jonah wants no love for his enemies.
Jonah wants Nineveh wiped from the face of the earth.
He’s angry.
Worse, he stays angry.
In fact, Jonah’s last words in the book are, “I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

You see, the book ends with a strange object lesson. As Jonah sits there pouting beyond the city walls, God has a plant spring up from the earth to provide the prophet with shade, and Jonah is at least momentarily happy. The next day, God sends a very hungry caterpillar to chew up the plant so that it withers and dies right around the time the sun is heating up over the hotheaded prophet. At this point, God speaks to Jonah with a divine “You mad, bro?” And this is where Jonah gives his reply about being so mad that he could just die. God responds with an air of annoyance, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And 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 4:10-11) And that’s the end.

So, a recap: Jonah wanted God to kill a city full of people and their surprisingly penitent animals, but when it came to killing a plant, Jonah got mad at God. God points out Jonah’s hypocrisy, and that is the end of the book. We have no idea what happened to Jonah, but in a way, we do:

I’m Jonah.
And maybe you’re Jonah too.
And the angry guy in the White House is Jonah.
And some of the angry people protesting him are Jonah.
And really, anyone who’s ever felt the addictive kick of “righteous anger” is Jonah.
Jonah takes his place in the Bible to warn us what happens when we let the satisfaction of rage govern our actions:
God still acts, not so much through us, but in spite of us.

There’s a lot to be angry about these days, and much of that anger is well placed.
At the same time, anger can be consuming, so use it with caution.
Do not let your anger be fueled by prejudice as it was with Jonah.
Let your anger be against injustice.
And always remain open to the ways that God might work
in the lives of the people you least expect.