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Jonah was greatly displeased and became
angry that God did not carry out the evil he threatened against Nineveh. He
prayed, “I beseech you, LORD, is not this what I said while I was still in my
own country? This is why I fled at first to Tarshish. I knew that you are a gracious and merciful God, slow
to anger, rich in clemency, loathe to punish. And now, LORD, please take my
life from me; for it is better for me to die than to live.”
But the LORD asked, “Have you reason to be
angry?”
Jonah then left the city for a place to
the east of it, where he built himself a hut and waited under it in the shade, to
see what would happen to the city. And when the LORD God provided a gourd plant
that grew up over Jonah’s head,giving shade that relieved him of any
discomfort, Jonah was very happy over the plant. But the next morning at dawn God
sent a worm that attacked the plant, so that it withered. And when the sun
arose, God sent a burning east wind; and the sun beat upon Jonah’s head till he
became faint. Then Jonah asked for death, saying, “I would be better off dead
than alive.”
But God said to Jonah, “Have you reason to
be angry over the plant?”
“I have reason to be angry,” Jonah
answered, “angry enough to die.”
Then the LORD said, “You are concerned
over the plant which cost you no labor
and which you did not raise; it came up in
one night and in one night it perished. And should I not be concerned over Nineveh, the great city, in which there
are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who cannot distinguish
their right hand from their left, not to mention the many cattle?”
Have mercy on me, O Lord, for to you I call all the day. Gladden
the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, I lift up my soul.
For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in kindness to all who call upon
you. Hearken, O LORD, to my prayer and attend to the sound of my pleading.
All the nations you have made shall come and
worship you, O Lord, and glorify your name. For you are great, and you do
wondrous deeds; you alone are God.
You have received a spirit of adoption as sons through which we cry: Abba! Father!
Jesus was praying in a certain place, and
when he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, “Lord, teach us to pray
just as John taught his disciples.”
He said to them, “When you pray, say:
Father, hallowed be your name,
your Kingdom come.
Give us each day our daily bread
and forgive us our sins for we ourselves
forgive everyone in debt to us,
and do not subject us to the final test.”
1. The theme that runs throughout today’s
readings is God reaching out to and wanting real relationship with us. The concept seems to be the same as the
dynamic that expressed in Wisdom
7:23: “beneficent, friendly to human beings”(New Jerusalem Bible). See also Isaiah
55, John
3:16, and Romans
5:8,
2. God
cared about the Ninevites, even though they were pagans.
3. As
in other readings so far this week, we are encouraged to call upon God, to
reach out to Him. See Jonah 2:3-5, 8 and Psalm
130:1-4, 7-8
4. God wants us converse with Him through out
the day, carrying on an ongoing conversation. This seems like the same dynamic
underlying 1 Thessalonians 5:17 and The Practice of the
Presence of God
5. The
Holy Spirit calls us to God as a child is called to his or her parent.
6.
Jesus was happy to teach the
disciples to pray—to interact with God. In fact, the verses in today’s reading
are followed by other verses exhorting us to pray. See Luke
11:5-13.
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