THE JONAH COMPLEX

Wednesday of the 27th Week in Ordinary Time

Jon 4:1-11

God called Jonah to warn the Ninevites that unless they repent, God would punish them. Jonah fled from God and took a ship bound for Tarshish instead. God overtook Jonah by sending a great storm. Jonah was found sleeping by the others who were with him in the ship in the midst of the violent storm. The boatswain ordered Jonah to get up and pray to his God. The rest suggested that they cast lots and the lots fell on Jonah. Asked what they were to do with him, Jonah proposed that they throw him overboard the ship. At first they refused; instead, they rowed harder to reach the shore but to no avail. Thus, after praying that they be not held accountable of Jonah’s life, they threw Jonah into the sea; and the sea grew calm again. Jonah meanwhile was swallowed by a very large fish. After three days in its belly, the large fish vomited Jonah right on the very shore of Nineveh. Jonah had no choice but deliver God’s message to the Ninevites who subsequently repented and was spared from punishment.

Jonah accomplished what God wanted but Jonah was not happy. He wanted to see the Ninevites punished for their wickedness. He explained to God that it was precisely because he knew that God would show mercy to the Ninevites that he did not want to go and preach there in the first place. He was indignant about the happy turn of events for the Ninevites so much so that he asked God to take his life. He went out of the city and sat under a shelter at the east of the city, waiting to see what would happen to Nineveh.

Thereupon, God made a castor-oil plant to grow up over Jonah to give him shade and soothe his ill-humor. But God caused a worm to attack the plant that soon withered. When the sun rose, God made it beat down so hard on Jonah’s head that he was furthered infuriated and begged for death.

God questioned Jonah why he was so upset about the castor-oil plant which cost him no labor and yet not rejoice with Him over the repentance of the Ninevites who, like everyone else, were God’s creatures. God confronted Jonah’s attitude towards the Ninevites with these words: “…am I not to feel sorry for Nineveh, the great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left, to say nothing of all the animals?”

We have many lessons to learn from Jonah.

First, we cannot escape from God. When He calls and chooses us for a mission, He always finds a way to overtake us if we run away from Him.

Second, God does not wish the death of a sinner. He sends His prophets then and today to warn the sinner, not to condemn and punish them. He hates sin but loves the sinner. He does not delight in seeing the wicked suffer because He is a loving Father to both saints and sinners.

Third, we accomplish our mission when we have led a sinner back to God, not when we have implemented God’s punishment on him. We are called to be agents of God’s love and mercy, not to be instruments of God’s wrath.

Fourth, because we are called to be channels of God’s mercy and not of His just anger, we should learn to rejoice with God when the people we preach to are converted from their sinful ways. This lesson is echoed by the father in the Parable of the Prodigal Son when he says to the elder son, “My son, you are with me always and all that I have is yours. But we have to rejoice and celebrate because this brother of yours was lost and now is found, was dead and has come back to life.” If we find our selves indignant when a repentant sinner is spared by God from the punishment he deserves, we have to examine our motives and honestly answer the disturbing question “Why?”.

Fifth, no one – yes, even the prophets – can claim righteousness before God. We – yes, even God’s chosen ones – deserve punishment for our sins but we have been so undeservedly treated with unfathomable and inexhaustible mercy by a loving God.

Psychologist Abraham Maslow said that most of us suffer from the Jonah Complex. He explained that we are afflicted with this psychological disease when we flee from responsibilities we regard to be beyond our grasp because we suffer from inferiority complex. In the light of today’s First Reading, I add that Jonah Complex is also when we refuse to rejoice with God over the conversion of those to whom He sends us to lead to repentance from their wicked ways.

Are you suffering from the Jonah Complex? There is only one remedy. The Gospel gives us the cure: “The Lord’s Prayer” (Lk 11:1-4). Pray it and live it out!

We do not want to stay in the belly of a large fish for three days only to end up indignant and wanting to die. Do we?