No Tickertape Parades

 

Understanding why a prophet is not honored at home

03/16/2026

John 4:43-54 At that time Jesus left [Samaria] for Galilee. For Jesus himself testified that a prophet has no honor in his native place. When he came into Galilee, the Galileans welcomed him, since they had seen all he had done in Jerusalem at the feast; for they themselves had gone to the feast. Then he returned to Cana in Galilee, where he had made the water wine. Now there was a royal official whose son was ill in Capernaum. When he heard that Jesus had arrived in Galilee from Judea, he went to him and asked him to come down and heal his son, who was near death. Jesus said to him, “Unless you people see signs and wonders, you will not believe.” The royal official said to him, “Sir, come down before my child dies.” Jesus said to him, “You may go; your son will live.” The man believed what Jesus said to him and left. While the man was on his way back, his slaves met him and told him that his boy would live. He asked them when he began to recover. They told him, “The fever left him yesterday, about one in the afternoon.” The father realized that just at that time Jesus had said to him, “Your son will live,” and he and his whole household came to believe. Now this was the second sign Jesus did when he came to Galilee from Judea.

There is a verse in today’s gospel that deserves a second look. Jesus testified that “a prophet has no honor in his native place.” Notice Jesus said a prophet is not honored in his native place, not a conquering hero. We give tickertape parades when soldiers return from war, but we don’t give tickertape parades when prophets come home. Why not?

Because a prophet’s job can be summed up by that rule of thumb for a good preacher: “to comfort the afflicted and to afflict the comfortable.” In other words, a prophet is not honored in his native place because he has come to afflict his own family when they feel too comfortable. And comfortable people don’t appreciate being afflicted, especially by their next of kin.

Every month I drive to Little Rock for meetings with the bishop because I serve on three diocesan boards: the Presbyteral Council, the Personnel Board, and the College of Consultors. In fact, I’ll be going to Little Rock early tomorrow morning for our own version of March Madness. But of the three boards, the most interesting is the Personnel Board because we advise the bishop on up-coming clergy changes: which priests will be assigned to which parishes.

Basically, we sit around a table and gossip about brother priests because what we say might help the bishop make a better priest assignment as pastor for a parish. But there is one unwritten rule of thumb that guides the work of the Personnel Board, namely, a priest is never assigned to his home parish as its pastor. For example, we would enjoy gossiping about Dc. Christopher but we would never recommend that he be sent to Christ the King in Little Rock, the parish where he grew up.

Now, you might object to that unwritten rule and say, “I bet his home parish would love to have him come back and be their priest! In fact, they would honor him with a tickertape parade, and give him gifts, and invite him over for supper! Especially his mom and his siblings. What parish could possibly be a better first assignment for a young priest than his own home parish?”

Well, that objection is based on a false premise, namely, future Fr. Christopher is returning to his home parish as a conquering hero. That is not true. Rather, he would be returning as prophet. That is, he would be going there to comfort the afflicted, and to afflict the comfortable. And comfortable people – like me and you – do not appreciate being afflicted, especially by our next of kin.

There is a second reason the Personnel Board does not recommend a priest be a assigned to his home parish: because people think they already know him. After all, the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, right? So, since we know future Fr. Christopher’s parents, his siblings, where he attended elementary and high school, his hometown may conclude: we know everything there is to know about future Fr. Christopher!

But that assumption hides a terrible oversight and a tragic oversimplification. Every human being is indeed a product of his parents – 23 chromosomes from mom and 23 chromosomes from dad. But that only constitutes his physical make-up. Each human being also receives an immortal soul directly from God, which the parents had nothing to do with.

In other words, each human being is a child of God, just as much as he is a child of his parents. And therefore, every human being is a great mystery, just as God is a great mystery. Just like we cannot guess what God will do next, so we can never guess what a human being will do next. We can categorize and quantify the laws of nature, but we can never do that with the laws of human nature. Why not?

Because our ultimate law is love, and love is utterly and wildly unpredictable. And that is the second reason the Personnel Board will not recommend that future Fr. Christopher be assigned to Christ the King. He is not simply the product of the laws of nature and the laws of nurture, but rather a subject of the law of love.

And therefore we will not be able to guess what he will say or do next – not even his mom who knows him best since he spent his first 9 months in her womb. We must be prepared to hear and see things from future Fr. Christopher that will surprise, shock, and even scandalize us.

To be entirely submissive to the law of love and to speak the hard truth is a daunting task for a newly ordained priest – indeed for a veteran priest – and that difficulty is multiplied exponentially if he were looking at his parents, siblings, and childhood friends staring back at him from the pews.

After all, priests are not assigned to parishes to be welcomed with a tickertape parade as conquering heroes, but rather are being sent to every parish as a prophet, and a child of God. We can save our tickertape  parades for heaven, only then we will know who really is a conquering hero.

Praised be Jesus Christ!