Divorce is an event that often causes us to yearn for the justice of “Judgment Day.” We repeat our mantra, “He’s going to pay!” or “If there’s a God in heaven, she’s going to get hers someday.”
There’s only one problem with this kind of “Judgment Day” thinking – it puts all our focus on the other guy and sends us careening down life’s highway with a self-righteous road rage.
Ancient texts tell the story of a man named Jonah whose journey took him down a similar self-righteous highway. It began when God commanded Jonah to preach repentance in the city of his enemy. Jonah refused because he knew God was a “god of second chances” and he was certain that his enemies deserved God’s wrath.
Refusing an offer from “God (the) fadah” that he shouldn’t have refused, Jonah attempted to escape his responsibility by masquerading as a chaplain on a cruise ship. When the boat ran afoul of a storm, Jonah knew he was fish bait. To save the ship and appease the angry sea, Jonah offered himself to the crew as a sacrifice into the waiting jaws of a great fish.
Unable to stomach this self-righteous preacher more than three days, the fish spit Jonah out on the enemy shoreline. Jonah skipped through the city, covered in fish slime, gleefully preaching his “Judgment Day” message until an unexpected thing began to occur. The entire city repented and pleaded for God’s forgiveness.
Jonah blew a gasket. He figured if he did what God asked him to do, God would deliver “Judgment Day.” But God had only asked Jonah to tell them about Judgment Day. God didn’t say, “…and then I shall smite them with my foot up their sit-upons!” God said, “Tell ‘em, Jonah” and Jonah told ‘em. They got it.
God was asking Jonah to do the footwork and stay out of the results, but he couldn’t. That’s the hardest part for us as well. When we try to do the footwork and control the results, we turn into manipulators and martyrs who proclaim, “I was swallowed by a big old fish and THIS is the thanks I get!”
In our case, it’s sounds something like, “I gave her everything and she had no gratitude!” Or “I tried to be so fair, and he was just a jerk!”
I’ve often wondered what the story of Jonah might have been like if Jonah had responded to the change in the people by saying, “That is very cool, God! Thank you that none us get what we deserve!”
In the end, I have to be grateful every day that I don’t get what I deserve. Can you imagine what life might be like if everyone got what they deserved? I wonder what God’s Judgment would be for cutting someone off in traffic, taking an extra long lunch, or wearing stripes with plaids.
Yes, there are a lot of creeps who need to get what they deserve. When someone has broken the law, we need to enforce the law. Avoiding “Judgment Day” mentality doesn’t mean we have to adapt the attitude of the juror in the Robert Durst case who explained her vote to acquit Durst of murdering his neighbor and chopping up the body by saying “Hey, this man isn’t someone I’d like to escort my daughter to the prom, but he’s not the worst man walking around town.”
No, that attitude doesn’t work either. We must discern, make decisions, and sometimes choose not to associate with people, but at the end of the day our job will always be to keep our own accounts in order – do our footwork, answer the phone when God calls and let God take care of the rest.
Please e-mail Chaplain Norris at norris@thechaplain.net or by letter at PO Box 19522 Sacramento, Calif. 95819-0522 You may also visit his Web site at www.thechaplain.net where you can see past columns or purchase his book, "No Small Miracles."