A friend had a political post on her social media feed and I noticed a mutual friend made a comment challenging her view. I knew it was going to get ugly very fast because they didn’t know each other well but were only acquaintances. A comment war soon ensued with strangers adding in more attacks.

I decided to call both of them individually to address the post before it got any worse and it would just be awkward if they ever saw each other again in person. I knew both of them loved Jesus. But they didn’t know each other. So I gently reminded them to recognize how ranting on this one post can make them lose their witness to their non-Christian friends, plus jeopardize a potential future friendship with each other. I challenged them to think about the other person and how our lived experiences and stories shape our perspective; one heated conversation isn’t going to change that. I urged them to show grace and go to each other privately to learn about each other before discussing their political affiliations. They both took the conversation seriously, for which I am grateful.

God’s grace is the only remedy for our anger and hate towards our neighbor.

It is easy to have witnessed and tasted the grace of God, but still not fully grasp it. Living in the current divisive and polarizing culture, we are quick to choose sides and think that those who vote and live differently than we do deserve to be despised. The book of Jonah is a reminder that God’s grace isn’t based on man’s goodness. We are all imperfect and undeserving people who desperately need God’s grace.

Jonah starts with God calling him to Nineveh, the capital city of Assyria — the most powerful, violent nation of that day. Assyrians and Israelites were enemies. Immediately, Jonah decides to go in the opposite direction of God’s plan. He heads to Tarshish, which was as far west as you could go in the known Mediterranean world.

It can seem like Jonah perhaps ran because he feared the Ninevites, but in the last chapter of Jonah, we learn that he also ran away because he didn’t want them to experience God’s grace. Jonah had seen God’s grace before when God spoke through Jonah to King Jeroboam II.

2 Kings 14: 25 (NIV) says, “He was the one who restored the boundaries of Israel from Lebo Hamath to the Dead Sea, in accordance with the word of the Lord, the God of Israel, spoken through his servant Jonah son of Amittai, the prophet from Gath Hepher.”

Jonah witnessed how God’s grace restored Israel’s northern boundaries, increasing its borders in spite of Israel’s king who did evil in the eyes of the Lord. He learned that God’s grace wasn’t based on man’s goodness, but Jonah didn’t want that same grace poured out to the Ninevites.

God pursues Jonah on his rebellious journey to Tarshish with a storm. Jonah recognizes it is God, but rather than surrender and obey, he asks the sailors to toss him into the sea. But God provides a big fish to swallow Jonah.

In the belly of the big fish, Jonah realizes that the storm and the fish were God’s grace towards him in his disobedience. He was reminded again that God’s grace wasn’t based on man’s goodness. He decides to go to Nineveh, but to his surprise, the Ninevites immediately repent and cry out to God. Jonah becomes angry at God’s grace toward the people he dislikes.

It’s easy to judge Jonah, but so many of us have become like Jonah during the election season, angry and annoyed.

Listen, the enemy wants us to live with an “Us vs. Them” mentality and only choose people who are just like us, who believe and vote like us. Often, we defend our hate for our neighbor with love for country and allegiance to a political leader, forgetting that we as Christ followers have been made citizens of heaven and our allegiance belongs to Jesus, alone.

We are called to be people of grace, reflecting His heart and love to those who are different than us and even those who disagree with us. Jesus’s finished work on the cross not only tore the veil so we could have a personal relationship with God, but also demolished the wall of division and hostility among mankind.

“For he himself is our peace, who has made the two groups one and has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility…”
Ephesians 2:14 NIV

Jesus grafted into his family the fisherman and tax collector, Jews and Gentiles, rich and poor. He has made us one.

So as Christ followers, we don’t get to divide and categorize people into groups. We don’t get to determine who deserves grace and love, because His grace was poured out for all people. We fight the enemy’s tactic to divide the family of God and seek unity that can only come from Jesus. I pray that we become people who freely give this grace, that we have been freely given.

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