Preaching Thoughts on a Non-Preaching Sunday

Today the children of this congregation are doing a musical based on the book of Jonah, on the same day that the gospel reading is Luke's parable of the prodigal. But for this largely accidental pairing, I don't know that I would ever have contemplated the similarities between these two stories. Both the younger son of the parable and Jonah act contrary to what is expected of them. Jonah flees the call to be a prophet, and the younger son refuses to act the part of a good son. And both are eventually rerouted by events and circumstances.

If that were not enough, both the parable and the book of Jonah end with uncertainty. Will the older brother come into the party thrown for his younger brother? Will Jonah come around to God's willingness to save the people and animals of Nineveh? (Curiously, Jonah gets to play both the disobedient role and the older-sibling-like role of one offended by God's mercy and grace.)

Both these parables are fairly well known. The parable of the prodigal is much beloved, although there is a tendency to ignore the fact that most of us church folks are more older sibling sorts. We someone manage to hear the story from the younger brother's perspective, even while we run our congregations like elder siblings, insisting that church exists primarily for us elder types, not the wayward folks out there.

So too the story of Jonah, one of the Bible's more remarkable parables, is known in a stereotyped way. People know about Jonah being swallowed by the fish, but know little about the story's playful wrestling with running away from God's call and despising God's love given to those we hate.

As I approach my first anniversary as pastor of this congregation, I find that issues of call are taking center stage. This includes my own sense of call but also the call God places on this congregation. And it seems to me that this morning's two parables offer cautionary tales of sorts. They invite us to consider the ways in which we function like Jonah or like an older brother, unable to embrace the grace of God that is scandalous and offensive. And so they invite us to consider where we, who like to think of ourselves as God's people, are found to be opposing God's plans.

But most of all, these two stories remind us that God's grace will have its own way. Wayward siblings and Ninevites will be rescued, renewed, and restored. There will be rejoicing and celebration as grace has its way. And the only question, in these two parables at least, is whether we will join the celebration.