My big pink mug sprung a leak last week and had to be retired from service.  It has been my constant companion for nearly 20 years, In July, 1989 it was purchased for me at the RonJon Surf Shop in Cocoa Beach, Florida by the Gooch family.  I was their new preacher, and they noticed that I was a heavy drinker.  It was so kind of them to think of me, and to bring me a mug that held more than a liter of beverage.  My mug had a well balanced handle.  The beveled bottom was about an inch longer than the punt, so the mug never left a water mark.  It was originally covered in RonJon logos, but those wore off after a few years, and for the greater part of its useful life it was monochromatic.  I wrote earlier that it was pink.  In fact I always referred to it as “my big pink mug.”  But it was really a sort of day-glow fuchsia.  It was a lovely color.  There are lupines somewhere in alpine meadows this very color.  Certain sunsets attain this particular shade.  And now it leaks. 

            I thought about trying to repair my mug.  Perhaps I could re-melt the bottom, or use boat patch, or hot glue.  Duct-tape won’t work (I found out).  The problem is I can’t really find the source of the leak.  It just leaks.  I haven’t been able to replace it.  I’ve looked at Wal-Mart, Target, K-Mart, Bed-Bath-and-Beyond-Your-Body-Works, CVS, The Dollar Tree, the Family Dollar Store, The General Dollar Store, The IKEA catalogue, the Pottery Barn catalogue, and the Crate&Barrell catalogue – and no one has what I’m looking for.  I’m reconciled to replacing it with a 2 quart Mason jar.  But that is not really a replacement.  My big pink mug is gone.

            You may think that my attachment to a plastic mug a little irrational, but I’ll wager (were I a wagering man) that you have the same sort of attachments.  Maybe it is a hairbrush, a hammer, a pair of shoes, a watch, a guitar, a fountain pen, a nine-iron, or a twenty-gauge shot-gun – but you have something – something just right, something that fits.  I feel that way about my Bible.  I have a NASB Harpers study Bible in hard cover and leather.  My wife bought the former for me 21 years ago, and my grandfather bought the latter a year later.  The NASB is not my favorite translation – but as tool of my trade this particular Bible, with its side columns, single column verses, and readable type just fits.

            Jonah famously developed such an irrational attachment for a gourd vine.  He had gone to Nineveh, after an initial attempt at flight left him sitting on the beach in whale vomit (and happy to be there), and had delivered God’s message of destruction there.  Then he walked far enough away from the great city to get a box-seat for the mushroom-cloud.  While he was waiting in the hot, hot sun God gave him a gourd vine, which grew up in a single day, and provided him with shade.  Jonah loved his gourd-vine.  Then God sent a worm to kill it.  Jonah was so upset about the death of his gourd-vine that he begged to die and cried, “Death is better than life to me.”  God’s reply is, “Do you really have a good reason to be angry about this plant?”

            God’s point is that Jonah was desperate about the health of a gourd-vine he had enjoyed for only a day – while 120,000 human lives were hanging in the balance of judgment.  We often walk away from Jonah believing that the great lesson is that you can’t run from God.  That is certainly a lesson this book teaches.  The conclusive point of the book, however, is that God’s people should care deeply about the souls of the lost. 

            One might argue that it would be irrational for an Israelite to want to save an Assyrian.  Perhaps.  Using worldly rationale this is certainly the case.  And yet how rational is it to want to die because your gourd-vine has died?

            People are more important than things.  Nothing has the value of a soul.

            One might argue, “You just don’t choose who or what to love.”  Maybe.  We do decide who or what to value, though.

            We say we love Jesus, and we do.  Peter points out that the fact of this love defies what some might think of as rational since we haven’t seen Jesus (1 Peter 1:8).  John takes this thought a step further, arguing “The one who hates his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen,” (1 John 4:20).  A lack of concern about each other, and about souls makes any claim of attachment to God irrational, and indefensible.