Jesus Calls Us to Be Better
God gave Jonah the prophet a task: “Arise, go to Nineveh, the great city, and cry out against it, because their wickedness has come up before Me.”[1]
Jonah was a prophet during the early part of the 8th century, B.C. Nineveh, the capital city of the Assyrian Empire, was located in what is now the country of Iraq. The Assyrians dominated the Middle East during most of the 9th, 8th, and 7th centuries, B.C., and were known for their cruelty and ruthlessness.
The last thing Jonah wanted to do was to travel more than 800 miles to warn the people of Nineveh that God was displeased with them. Jonah would have preferred that God simply treat them like he did the people of Sodom and Gomorrah, and wipe them off the face of the earth. After all, they were different—different race, different culture, different language, different religion. Why should Jonah try to help them?
So Jonah tried to run away, booking travel on a ship going in the opposite direction. Of course that didn’t work. After getting tossed overboard, swallowed by a giant fish, and being vomited up on dry land three days later, Jonah finally agreed to go to Nineveh and deliver God’s warning. When the people of Nineveh repented and God relented, Jonah became angry. As I said, he would have preferred that God simply wipe them out. But God explained:
Should I not also have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 people, who do not know the difference between their right hand and their left, as well as many animals?[2]
God expected Jonah to be better than the average man. He expected Jonah to not only care about his fellow Jews, but also about his fellow human beings.
Jesus expects the same from his followers. Of course, it’s easy to be kind to people whom we like. It’s even easy to be kind to people who are like us. But Jesus calls us to be better than that. He demands that we show kindness to all:
Treat people the same way you want them to treat you. If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what credit is that to you? For even sinners do the same.[3]
That is the lesson of the Good Samaritan.[4] The Jews and the Samaritans hated each other, but the Samaritan in Jesus’ story helped the injured man merely because he needed help.
That is also the lesson of the sheep and the goats.[5] The sheep are praised and welcomed into the kingdom because they helped people who were in need. The goats are condemned because they ignored people in need.
Our natural inclination is to help our friends and family members when they are in need. But Jesus demands that we be better than our natural inclination. He demands that we treat everyone as if they were our friend or family member.
Or as stated in the Second Greatest Commandment: “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”[6] The story of the Good Samaritan teaches us that our “neighbor” is anyone who needs our help, whether they are like us or not.
[1]. Jonah 1:2 (all quotations are from the New American Standard Bible translation)
[2]. Jonah 4:11
[3]. Luke 6:32-33
[4]. Luke 10:30-37
[5]. Matthew 25:31-46
[6]. Matthew 22:39; see also Leviticus 19:18, Mark 12:31, Luke 10:27-28
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