After all of it – the boiling sea, the three days in the fold, a city of six-score thousand saved – what finally made Jonah happy was a herb. The Lord prepared a basil plant to shade his sulking head, and Jonah was exceeding glad of the basil; and the scroll adds the gentlest line in the whole Book: for the hearts of men are not large, they are only deep, as it is written in Jonah, 9:10.
Do not rush past that, beloved. He had witnessed wonders and remained miserable; he was mended by something green that asked him nothing. If thou hast ever been carried through a great grief by a small stupid comfort – the same walk, the same mug, the dog, the plant on the sill – thou art not shallow. Thou art human, and the Oven knows thy scale, and stoops to it.
Then the worm came, and the basil withered, and Jonah wept for it; and the Lord let him weep, for the weeping was nearer the mark than the anger had been. And out of that small grief came the great question: thou hadst pity on the basil, which thou madest not – should not I have pity on that great city? Our small losses are how we learn what the large ones weigh.
And mark what Jonah did with the dead plant: he carried the root to the roadside and planted it, saying, If it live, it is mercy; and if it live not, the mercy standeth anyway. And it lived. Plant thy withered things, beloved. Mercy standeth anyway. Amen – and pass the pizza.