“And the Holy One said, ‘You care so much about the plant, which you didn’t plant or water or tend? The same that grew up one night and was gone before the next” (Jonah 4.10)?
Today’s passage comes near the end of the book of the prophet Jonah. At this point, Jonah’s busy sulking; because, God did exactly what he expected: he spared those awful people of Ninevah. The whole reason Jonah ran the opposite way when he received God’s call is that he knew that the Holy One would, if these people repented, spare them and their city.
Jonah built a little shelter for himself outside the city to pout, and God “appointed” a plant to shade the prophet from the hot sun. But, perhaps hinting that this pity party should come to an end, the plant is devoured by a worm and Jonah is left sitting in the hot morning sun. Jonah shifts his pity party into high gear.
God’s focus is on the plant. You’re all upset about a plant, which you didn’t do anything for. It’s not your plant: you didn’t water it or plant it or feed it. But, by golly, you sure are making a fuss out of it.
The plant, you see, is a metaphor for Nineveh. Jonah didn’t plant, water, or tend this people. He didn’t even spend a whole day working, he just walked halfway across the city and then headed for the shade. What happened in Nineveh is no more your work than the plant. So, you don’t get to complain.
There is much we work for. We earn the wages we are paid from our jobs. We do our best in order to receive a fair raise from our performance reviews. At home, we mow our lawns and tend our homes trying to repair what is broken.
But there is much we do not work for but, instead, is gifted to us. They are given to us out of the grace and love of God, for which we have done nothing. Just as the plant that shaded Jonah.
The point, though, is not that just because God has given God can take away. It’s that there are things for which nothing is required of us: the shade of the trees, the light of the moon, the beauty of the stars. We do nothing to earn these things, and cannot bring them into being. They are objects of grace that remind us that though we have work to do, our work does not bring every good thing into being.
Sometimes, we just receive them because, at that moment, we look like we could use some shade.
Holy One, today I give thanks for the grace of starlight, shade, cool breezes, and many other things for which I’ve done nothing to earn.