Wednesday, July 9, 2025: When God Changes the Rules

 A simple yet mighty expression of an innate desire for the liberation of the oppressed resulting also in the unexpected liberation of the oppressor: the fist a symbol of resistance, solidarity, and unity in the face of oppression and injustice.

 

When God Changes the Rules

 

Theologian Bruce Epperly sympathizes with Jonah’s reluctance to become a prophet to the Assyrians.  

What would you do if God asked you to challenge everything you thought was true? What if God told you to turn your back on the religious values you learned in church and in the Bible?.... Worse yet, what if God changed God’s mind to expand the circle of grace to include our nation’s worst enemies…?  

Moreover, what if the God you believed in … changed the rules of the faith, threw out the spiritual guidebook that shaped your life, and commanded you to adopt a different, and unprecedented, approach to life? Would you follow God’s new directions, stay put, or run away from this rule-changing God?...

In the past few decades, committed Christians have struggled with theologically radical ways of reconceiving marriage and divorce, equal rights, war and peace, the insights of other religions, homosexuality and marriage equality, and the nature of mission in light of changing understandings of God’s vision for our world. If God is still speaking, then God can surprise us with new insights for changing times. Like Jonah, we must decide how we will respond to a god whose ways are different than we imagined. 

Epperly invites us to consider how God is calling us to move beyond fear of the other:  

In a world in which politicians fan the flames of fear and anger, Jonah presents a provocative possibility: What if God loves our enemies as much as God loves our friends? What if God’s revelation comes to outsiders as well as persons from our own faith tradition?...

We are all tempted to create a God of our own making, who will uphold the status quo and baptize our values as God’s definitive word. When God challenges our way of life and the religious and cultural values we hold dear, we are tempted to run away in search of a new god—a god of our own making—who will support our privileges and prejudices and lead us into battle against our foes. 

In contrast to nationalist and parochial images of God, the Book of Jonah portrays a different vision of God: God, the iconoclast; God, the lover of our enemies; and God, who cares for non-humans with the same devotion as God cares for humankind. Constantly doing a new thing, God calls us to be innovative and iconoclastic as we embrace new understandings of God’s vision for humankind and the world…. 

From the Book of Jonah:

1 The word of the Lord came to Jonah son of Amittai: 2 “Go to the great city of Nineveh and preach against it, because its wickedness has come up before me.”

Jonah responds: I knew that you are a gracious and compassionate God, slow to anger and abounding in love, a God who relents from sending calamity. 3 Now, Lord, take away my life, for it is better for me to die than to live.”

4 But the Lord replied, “Is it right for you to be angry?”

5 Jonah had gone out and sat down at a place east of Nineveh. There he made himself a shelter, sat in its shade and waited to see what would happen to the city. 6 Then the Lord God provided a leafy plant[a] and made it grow up over Jonah to give shade for his head to ease his discomfort, and Jonah was very happy about the plant. 7 But at dawn the next day God provided a worm, which chewed the plant so that it withered. 8 When the sun rose, God provided a scorching east wind, and the sun blazed on Jonah’s head so that he grew faint. He wanted to die, and said, “It would be better for me to die than to live.”

9 But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the plant?”

“It is,” he said. “ I’m so angry I wish I were dead.”

10 But the Lord said, “You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. 11 And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left—and also many animals?”

[Jonah] believes that God changed God’s mind, and he doesn’t know which way to go. His running away (when he climbed aboard a locall boat to avoid going to Nineveh in the first place) is a running from a new, more universal and loving, vision of God…. 

Jonah asks us what it means to follow God’s way in a world of terrorism, xenophobia (fear of strangers), and fear-based politics. God calls us toward world-changing discipleship in our time. Will we run away from God’s vision or follow God’s call to embrace otherness, with all our ambivalence and anxiety, or will we baptize our prejudice and hatred in the waters of religious faith?  

 

Story From Our Community

During these divisive and painful political years, I noticed my contempt toward certain [people]. One day as I planted zinnia seeds, I imagined the colorful flowers I knew would bloom months later. It struck me that I was 100% certain of the potential and growth of a tiny seed, but not of a human being. I also knew I would faithfully tend these seedlings, regularly watering them, and ensuring they were close to light. In that moment, I was flooded with the reminder that “every thing is sacred”—that God’s love for each human being is certainly as great as it is for these seeds. 

—Tara D.