Good failure, bad failure

Reading

Jonah 3.3-4.5

So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days’ walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day’s walk. And he cried out, ‘Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!’ And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When the news reached the king of Nineveh, he rose from his throne, removed his robe, covered himself with sackcloth, and sat in ashes. Then he had a proclamation made in Nineveh: ‘By the decree of the king and his nobles: No human being or animal, no herd or flock, shall taste anything. They shall not feed, nor shall they drink water. Human beings and animals shall be covered with sackcloth, and they shall cry mightily to God. All shall turn from their evil ways and from the violence that is in their hands. Who knows? God may relent and change his mind; he may turn from his fierce anger, so that we do not perish.’

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

But this was very displeasing to Jonah, and he became angry. He prayed to the Lord and said, ‘O Lord! Is not this what I said while I was still in my own country? That is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning; for I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing. And now, O Lord, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live.’ And the Lord said, ‘Is it right for you to be angry?’ Then Jonah went out of the city and sat down east of the city, and made a booth for himself there. He sat under it in the shade, waiting to see what would become of the city.

Reflection

During the COVID pandemic, we got a bit of an insight into the blooper reel of other people’s lives. From people being interrupted on zoom calls, forgetting they were only correctly dressed from the waist up, and the various connectivity issues (“You’re on mute … ”), these mini-disasters actually brought us closer as we all muddled along together. Failure can be endearing. Seeing other people as vulnerable and human too can be quite comforting. Jonah’s failure is quite endearing and funny. At first he tries haplessly to run away. Then when the people of Nineveh listen to his warning and change their ways, he stomps around the city, throws a strop at God for being merciful to them and goes off to sulk under a tree.

But other failures have the opposite effect. When a politician has lied or when someone says something hurtful on social media, we feel angry. Different types of failure elicit very different responses.

Challenge

What failures in others do you find funny or endearing? And what failures do you find offensive and dangerous? Why do you think that is?