Alley-Oop

Of the all the major sports that we celebrate, I enjoy basketball the most.  The shooting, the dunking, the scoring, the rebounding, the dribbling...it has always been so fascinating to me.  One of the most exhilarating moves on the court, perhaps, is what most call the "alley-oop."  I am not familiar with the etymology of the term, but it describes the move of one player throwing up the ball for another player to immediately score, which is usually a dunk.  Alley-oops are always great plays because they serve as a sort of eye candy.  Men seem to accomplish a feat that is unusual to observe and thus, a fun visual.

Within the last few days, I have been reading some commentary on the book of Jonah.  Most of us know this story as a man who gets swallowed by a "whale," because he disobeyed God.  While this is at least partially true, the story contains much more than just Jonah getting swallowed.  In an amazing twist, the book of Jonah ends in a sort of "alley-oop," a term that I heard a friend use to describe this ending.

Jonah is a story of God's calling upon a man to go to an evil city to tell them to repent.  This city was Nineveh.  Nineveh was not just an evil city, however, it was Jonah and his people's enemy city.  God was telling Jonah that He wanted to have compassion on his enemy, and that he wanted to use him to pursue this goal.  Jonah didn't want to have anything to do with it, and thus, God caused him to be swallowed by a big fish.

It was in the fish that Jonah opened up his eyes and heart to God.  After a long prayer, God caused the fish to vomit Jonah out of his mouth.  This was not the end of the story, however, for Jonah still had a lot to learn about his unforgiveness and hatred toward Nineveh.

In chapter 3, God tells Jonah to go to Nineveh again.  This time, Jonah obeys and the impossible happens.  This wicked and evil city repents, and God withholds His judgment.  This made Jonah angry.  He could not understand why God would have compassion on his enemy.  God teaches Jonah a lesson by growing up a plant to give Jonah shade, and then destroying that same plant in the same day (Jonah 4:6-7).  Jonah was angry at this but God had him right where He wanted him--loving a plant more than he did people.

At the end of the book, God uses Jonah's anger at the loss of his shelter as a teaching tool to illustrate how his heart needed to be changed.  God said, "Do you have good reason to be angry about the plant?   And he said, "I have good reason to be angry, even to death."  Then the Lord said, "You had compassion on the plant for which you did not work and which you did not cause to grow, which came up overnight and perished overnight.  Should I not have compassion on Nineveh, the great city in which there are more than 120,000 persons who do not know the difference between there right and left hand, as well as many animals?" (Jonah 4:9-11).  In essence, God is throwing up an alley-oop to Jonah, and to us.  He is asking, "Shouldn't your love be like mine?"

Today, I encourage you to look around and to have compassion on those around you.  Perhaps you have enemies in your life or people who have wronged you in the past.  Shouldn't your love for them be like God's love?  Timothy Keller has written that Jesus was the "ultimate Jonah."  He writes, "While the original Jonah was merely thought to be dead, Jesus actually died and rose again.  It was what Jesus called the sign of Jonah (Matthew 12:38-45)" (Keller, Counterfeit Gods, 151).  God loved His enemies so much, that He was willing to send His only Son to die on the cross for them.  That enemy was us.  Our love should reflect God's, which is abundant and full, hoping to see others understand what it means to be under God's grace.