A Call for Reverend Jimmy

While George Barclay fills in for the church’s recovering pastor, people begin wondering whether Jimmy will follow his father into the pulpit. Mrs. Jeffries tells Jimmy that good preachers run in families and suggests that everyone expects him to become one. Her casual remarks make him view himself differently. When George later struggles to find a substitute for Mr. Grant’s lively Sunday school class, he asks Jimmy to teach it. Jimmy accepts the request as another sign that preaching may be his future.

Jimmy prepares with piles of reference books, a concordance, a Greek New Testament he cannot read, and a book about the habits of great preachers. Lawrence is impressed by how Jimmy advises Donna about the embarrassing childhood stories George has been using in sermons. When Lawrence says Jimmy sounds like his father, Jimmy announces that he thinks he wants to become a preacher.

His new ambition changes his behavior. He wears a tie to school and solemnly blesses Donna when she passes the milk. For a lesson about the Good Samaritan, he makes transparencies and a workbook explaining Roman history. He refuses to ask George for help because he wants to succeed on his own. He even plans to imitate his father by using an embarrassing story about Donna’s disastrous childhood brownies.

Donna has problems of her own with George’s preaching. His family stories are entertaining the congregation, but she feels exposed by them. A story about her trying to glue back hair she disliked and another about her asking for a private telephone line at age six have already made her uncomfortable. When George tells the church that she once attended Jimmy’s awards banquet partly to watch a boy, Donna is mortified because Jack Davis is there and recognizes the incident.

Jimmy’s Sunday school lesson goes badly. He spends so long describing the Roman Republic and directing the children to maps in his workbook that time runs out before he reaches the Good Samaritan. Lawrence’s only questions are whether Mr. Grant will return and whether the class will receive advance warning if Jimmy ever teaches again. Jimmy leaves convinced that he is boring and that his supposed call has vanished.

At home, both Barclay children retreat from George’s cheerful plan for a barbecue. Mary speaks with Donna, explaining that George is still nervous in the pulpit and relies on family stories because his family is what he knows and loves best. That does not excuse embarrassing Donna, but Mary encourages her to tell him plainly how she feels.

George talks with Jimmy and learns that his son never truly wanted to preach. Jimmy has mistaken Mrs. Jeffries’s opinion, George’s request, and Lawrence’s comment for instructions from God. George assures him that one failed class cannot decide his future, but he also explains that a calling must come from God rather than other people’s expectations. Advice is useful, yet Jimmy should not let anyone else choose his life for him.

Before the evening service, George practices his sermon at the family barbecue. Its theme is the honesty God desires from His children. He pauses to apologize to Donna and promises to ask permission before using stories about her again. Donna forgives him and allows him to use the present family experience in that night’s message.

Mary then reveals that an ultrasound has shown whether the new baby is a boy or a girl. George, Jimmy, and Donna lean in eagerly as she begins the answer, but the roar of another low-flying airplane drowns out the news.