When I was in high school my friend had a party at his house. It was on a Saturday night. Everyone was talking about what they did that day. People were basically bragging. One person went golfing. Another played tennis. Another was at the spa. Someone else went shopping in the city. It was my turn to speak. I had worked all day for my father. I was doing some kind of hard manual labor. We were building a house for the pastor of our church. It wasn’t far away from my friend’s house. Nobody really said anything after I shared. They were just kind of quiet. I think I heard some crickets chirp. It was because of this kind of interaction with my peers that the next Saturday I was working on the jobsite I felt depressed and didn’t want to be there.
Jonah most likely suffered from depression. There are a number of times he says that he wants to die, and he makes choices that are self destructive. He rebels against God’s call to go to Nineveh, and nearly drowns when he is thrown from a ship during a terrible storm. God saves his life by providing a fish to swallow him, and then spit him out on shore. Why did Jonah want to die so badly?
Sometimes when a person suffers deeply the pain is so great that death would seem to offer relief, because it would be the end of pain. Jonah had to go to spend time caring for his sworn enemies. Nineveh wasn’t simply some foreign town, it was the epicenter of the Assyrian empire which was known to persecute and conquer Israel. Jonah was caught between a rock and a hard place. Because the only thing worse than the job to go love your enemy, is not having a job at all.
When you don’t have a job to do you suffer terribly. First of all you don’t have money to survive. Secondly you feel as though you don’t have a purpose, or a reason for living. Thirdly, without a job to do you cannot show God how good and worthy you are of God’s blessings. It’s for a good reason that economists call mass unemployment “depression.” Not working at all can feel and be very destructive. God had in mind to destroy Nineveh because they were not doing the job God had given them. Without a job life becomes unbearable, and even death would appear to be a better option.
God also suffers for not having a job. God’s job is to create, save, and make sacred. When creation dies or is destroyed, God suffers for no longer having the privilege of caring for it. God was suffering from the destructive actions of Nineveh. What God wants more than anything is for Niniveh to not be destroyed, because it’s existence is pleasing to God. We learn this in the last words of the book of Jonah.
Jonah sat on the west side of the city outside its wall. The sun scorched Jonah with its strong rays. Suddenly a plant grew to give Jonah shade and joy. The next day the plant died from a worm. Jonah again wanted to die because of his rage. Then God said to Jonah, Why do you want to die? Because the plant died, whose existence before gave Jonah joy. That’s how I feel about Nineveh, said God. Its existence gives me pleasure, joy, and purpose to live. Caring for her is my purpose. I delight in it. God says, I delight in your existence too. God delights in you too. It’s God’s job.
God gives you a job to do too! The job that God gives you is full for purpose, and it gives you joy to be alive. That is what the point is of the parable of the vineyard workers. There is no need to be angry if you work all day from sun up to sun down in God’s vineyard. Consider yourself blessed to have a job. The ones who suffer, are the ones who only get to work for a short amount of time. Maybe it is never too late to start to work for God. God will hire you at any stage of your life, any time of day. You can accept God’s invitation to work anytime. Martin Luther King Junior said, “The time is always right to do the right thing.”
An old painter approached me. He told me, what’s wrong with you mijo? What’s wrong? As I had nothing to say, apart from the obvious that a teenager wanted to spend the day by the river, the oak stream, with my friends and not work in the dust and the sun with old painters. He smiled really big, and touched my chest with his thick finger. He said to me, “Hey chicken, do you know how lucky you are? You, son of a carpenter, son of a construction manager. How many things did you do this summer? You excavated the foundation. You mixed mud with the cement for the blocks and bricks. You cut the wood for the walls. You hammered nails into the ceiling. You picked up the drywall. How many times did you sweep the floors. Every day learning more. Now he didn’t not touch my chest but my head. Then he went back to work and so did I! Now with more enthusiasm.
So get to work!
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