Rev. Tom Hathaway - September 20, 2026
A Ticket to Tarshish
In Jonah 1, God expands the mission. Jonah heads the other way. With a little help from Voyager 1, this sermon asks what happens when God calls us beyond the plans we thought we understood.
Scripture References: Jonah 1:1-17
From Series: "Jonah: The Relentless Love of God"
Most of us know the whale. Fewer of us know the rest of the story, which is stranger and more pointed than the children's version lets on. Jonah is the prophet who runs from God, gets swallowed, preaches the shortest and most reluctant sermon in scripture, watches an entire city repent, and then sulks because it worked. It's a book about a man furious that God's mercy reaches the people he'd rather see destroyed. Over four weeks we'll follow Jonah into the sea, into the belly, into Nineveh, and out to the bitter little hill where he waits to see what God will do, and we'll find a God whose love is more relentless, and more inconvenient, than we tend to want.
