One of my most vivid memories of being a little boy is of pouting. Most little kids pout a lot. For a little kid, the world seems to be full of injustices and inequities, which, of course, means, "I didn’t get my way," or "Billy got the toy I wanted," or whatever.

I don’t really remember pouting so much as I remember my mother’s response to it. In good little boy fashion, when I pouted, my lower lip would stick out, way out (like this), and usually quiver. This was an involuntary sign to the world that I had been done wrong, that my feelings were hurt, that I was on the verge of crying (and for very good reason, thank you). This was serious business, this pouting.

And my mother, every time without fail, would say, "If you keep sticking that lip out, I’m going to have to get some scissors and cut it off." Then she would make her fingers into scissors and come after my protruding lower lip.

I think they must teach that in parent school. But, of course, her fingers never got to my lip because I would recoil in horror. Here I was announcing with my stuck-out lip that, from the perspective of a four-year-old, some great injustice had been visited upon me, and here she was making light of it. At the time, I thought it cruel and insensitive. Now, a parent myself, I think it was just the right thing to do. We need to teach our children that disappointment and jealousy don’t constitute injustice, that not getting what you want does not mean that you’ve been wronged, and that Billy’s good fortune in getting the red truck doesn’t make you a deprived child. And I think a pretty good way to teach those lessons is to come after protruding lower lips with fingers fashioned into scissors.

And that’s what God does to us today in a couple of stories. First, we get to hear my favorite part of the story of Jonah. God had told Jonah to go to the city of Ninevah and "cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me." (Jonah 1:2) Jonah was, to say the least, not thrilled. Ninevah was a gentile city, full of foreigners. Why would God care about them? Besides, this mission might be dangerous. So Jonah got on a ship and headed the other way. God sent a big storm and got him thrown off the ship, eaten up by a big fish (that’s the part we all remember from Sunday school), and spit up on the beach near Ninevah.

That’s what most of us remember from Sunday school, but the rest of the story is, I think, wonderful and funny (if we’ll allow ourselves to laugh at funny things in the Bible, which is a big step). Jonah tells Ninevah that the city is about to be destroyed for being evil, and the people in Ninevah repent. Yea! They repent! And God says, "Great! They repented. I’ve changed my mind. I’m not going to destroy people who’ve repented." Wonderful! Good news! Jonah is happy, right?

Out comes that lip. Way out, just a quiverin.’ "I knew it; I knew it; I knew it!" Jonah shouts at God. "You dragged me all the way over here; I did what I was supposed to do; I played by the rules, and you said you were going to destroy them because they deserved it. And that’s what I told them. Now you’ve made me look like a fool. I knew I couldn’t trust you. I knew you’d be ‘gracious and merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and ready to repent from punishing.’ I just knew it; I could just die."

Oh, yeah, that lip is out; it’s way out. Jonah’s mighty upset that the Ninavites aren’t going to be destroyed. He feels that it’s a personal affront to him, a great injustice. That lip’s a quiverin’.

And God just laughs. And then he starts teasing Jonah. Makes Jonah so mad. God toys with him, teases him, because Jonah is angry that God won’t destroy Ninevah. As we leave the story of Jonah, God saves Ninevah, and Old Jonah’s lip is just a quiverin’, and God is after it with fingers fashioned into scissors.

We get another pouting story today. This one’s a little different because most of us can laugh at Jonah’s pouting; I mean he sounds so much like a child. God says, "Is it right for you to be angry about the bush," and Jonah says, "Yes. Angry enough to die." Jonah sounds so much like a pouting child that I think most of us can identify with God as the parent making the scissors.

But in the story Jesus tells, lots of us get caught being the pouters (so it’s not quite as much fun). You know that story: a landowner goes out at the crack of dawn to the labor pool and hires a crew to work his fields for the day. They agree on the usual wage. Then at nine o’clock, he goes back to get more laborers, and they agree that he’ll pay them what is right. And then the same thing at noon, and three, and even five o’clock. "Work the rest of the day and I’ll pay you what’s right."

Then, at the end of the day, his manager starts paying them in reverse order to the amount of time they worked. So the guys who didn’t start until five o’clock come first, and, low and behold, they get a full day’s wages. Well, the guys who’ve been working since sunup get all excited. "If he’s paying them a full day’s wages for an hour’s work, think of what we’ll get." And then they get it. Just what they agreed to. A day’s wages for a day’s work. And out come those lips. Grumble, grumble, grumble. Quiver, quiver, quiver.

Now, when I’ve taught about this passage in Bible study classes there is usually lots of sympathy for the grumbling laborers who worked all day. "If God is like this landowner," folks say, "then God’s not fair. God’s not just. This is an injustice, an outrage."

That’s why I love this story: because there are so many times when I find myself struggling with how wide God’s mercy can be. I struggle with God loving people who don’t deserve it. Think of the people who don’t deserve God’s love. Atheists. People who don’t have a religious bone in their body. People who say they are religious and are really hypocrites. People who take advantage of children or the elderly. Terrorists. Murderers. You probably, secretly, have your own list (I think we all do). Maybe it’s liberals, or conservatives, or gay people, or homophobes, or Baptists, or bishops: I don’t know, but I think most of us secretly harbor a list of people God really shouldn’t love, or at least not as much as God loves us, us good folk who are, after all, in church this morning. It just wouldn’t be fair. It wouldn’t be just. It’s an outrage!

I love this story because when I start thinking like that, like that it wouldn’t be fair for God to love the people who haven’t earned it as much as I have, I’m always brought up short by the gospels, by the full day’s wages going to the Johnny-come-latelys. And when I feel my lip coming out, I have to laugh at myself.

You see, no one is cheated in this story. There is no injustice in this story. The people who worked all day got a fair wage, which was what they bargained for. The wages given to the five o’clockers didn’t come out of their pay. There is no injustice here. What there is, is grace, an undeserved gift. And so God’s question to them, to us, comes at our pouting lips like divine fingers fashioned into scissors: "Are you envious because I am generous?"

I love these stories because they challenge me to laugh at myself when I really am being childish, when I’m like Jonah, angry because God is merciful, when I’m like the grumbling workers, angry because God is generous.

And, I love these stories because they are so, so important. I really think that there is a huge divide in Christianity. On one side are those who feel that if God is generous, they are somehow losing something; it is somehow an injustice to them. And so, they have lots and lots of rules and regulations and requirements to be sure that you deserve God’s love, that you’ve earned admission into heaven. It’s very certain and neat and tidy and regulatory.

On the other side are people, like us I hope, who sometimes fall into that trap, but who, when we do, feel the fingers of God coming at our grumbling, pouting lips and, God willing, laugh at ourselves. And on this side are people who try to remember that, good church going folk or not, in so many ways we are loved so much more than we deserve; we receive so many gifts we don’t earn, we are so blessed. God willing, we remember how often it is that we are the people of Ninevah, that we are the ones who come at five o’clock, that we are the ones who receive so much more than we deserve, that we are the ones who are showered with God’s grace.

On this side of the divide, things are not so certain and neat and tidy and regulatory. We live with the wonderful mess, the joyful surprises, that grace makes.

In a few minutes, we’re going to sing one of my favorite hymns, There’s a wideness in God’s mercy. The higher voices will sing the first verse; the lower voices will sing the second, and then together we’ll sing the third. It goes like this:

For the love of God is broader
than the measure of the mind;
and the heart of the Eternal
is most wonderfully kind.
If our love were but more faithful,
we should take him at his word;
and our life would be thanksgiving
for the goodness of the Lord.

Powerful words. The implication of these words cannot be overstated. Can we really, really sing this hymn joyfully, thankfully? Or will we be envious because God is generous?

By the grace of God, it is hard to sing with your lip stuck out.