Luke 15:11-32

Every dysfunctional family needs a problem child. Notice I didn’t say they HAVE a problem child. I said they NEED a problem child. Every dysfunctional family needs a problem child.

I know a little bit about dysfunctional families, since I’m the eldest of four children and our family certainly could have functioned better. But for an expert in dysfunctional families, you have to go to God. God has more experience with dysfunctional families than anybody.

Just look at the list in the Bible. Adam and Eve have two boys, and one murders the other one. Is this a problem child, or what? And it doesn’t get any better. Abraham has two sons, by two different women. One version of the story has the older son abusing the younger, and so he and his mom get driven out into the desert. Isaac and Rebecca have twin sons. They play favorites. They play one son against the other. Jacob gets identified as the problem child, and he leaves home.

Jacob and Rachel have twelve sons. One gets sold into slavery by the rest. One of King David’s sons rapes one of the daughters and gets killed by another son. Then that son rebels against dad. With an army. We are talking industrial strength dysfunction, here.

And then we come to Jesus’s family. Mark reports that they thought Jesus was crazy, and they were coming to kidnap him. (Remember all those families in the ’70’s who were kidnapping their children in order to “deprogram” them?) It’s pretty obvious who the problem child is here, Jesus of Nazareth!

Every dysfunctional family needs a problem child, because then they can shake their heads and go “Tsk, tsk, tsk,” and say “Ain’t it awful?” Every dysfunctional family needs a problem child who can distract them from paying attention to their own problems....

Modern psychologists have discovered an interesting train of events. When a problem child is removed from the family, he or she often gets better. When the kid is put back into the family, he or she gets worse. If the problem child is removed for a longer time, someone else gets promoted, someone else starts acting up. Every dysfunctional family needs a problem child, even if they have to create a new one.

Three years ago I described this story in Luke as the parable of the Prodigal Father, and I pointed out how extravagant, how spendthrift, how prodigal the father acted when his son came home. It was only two months after I mentioned how prodigally Jesus responded when that wedding party ran out of wine: his mom told him to go down to Safeway and buy a couple of jugs, but instead he whipped up 150 gallons more!

God will never run out of energy to squander on us. God will never run out of money to spend on us. God will never run out of loaves and fishes to feed us. There’s always a new fatted calf waiting to be roasted, and remember: while we ration the communion wine by the teaspoonful, God will make more by the barrel full. With God we will never suffer a water shortage, for God will place in us a spring of water welling up unto eternal life. And God will never run out of love to share around.

God, the Prodigal Father. I still think it’s true, and I still stand by it. But today I want to look at this story as a lesson in family relationship.

What if the little brother left home because he couldn’t get along with his big brother? What if the older brother needed him to act out and get into trouble, so the older brother could look good by comparison? Psychologists can point out families exactly like this, today! What if the kid brother got tired of being identified as the problem child all the time? So of course, when he does leave, everybody says, “Well, that’s all you can expect from a problem child like that.” And the older brother can chime right in, “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Ain’t it awful?”

Every dysfunctional family is scripted. Every family member has a script to follow, just like a stage play, just like a soap opera. Everybody knows their lines: “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Ain’t it awful?” “What an ungrateful wretch, just what we’ve come to expect!”

But in this case Dad throws away his script. What he’s supposed to say is, “Well, I see you’ve come crawling back with your tail between your legs.” But Dad blows his lines. He forgets what he’s supposed to say. He acts completely out of character. He runs down the road and hugs his son and kisses him, and he throws a party in his honor. All of a sudden they’re playing a different game. All of a sudden they’re living in a different story. This is not the bad boy crawling back home. This is the return of the hero. This is the Academy Awards. This is the-local-boy-makes-good-and-gets-invited-to-speak-to-the-Rotary-Club. This is the Medal of Honor winner made Marshall of the Creston Day Parade. They all lose their scripts, nobody knows how to act, all they can do is follow Dad’s lead and start to party. All of them. Well, all except one.

When a problem child starts getting better, the family often creates a new problem child. Guess who just got elected?

The older brother sulks. The older brother acts out. You’d swear he’s picked up the script that was dropped by his little brother. The words are different but the behavior is recognizable. “I was the good boy, and what do I get? Maybe the only way to get any attention around here is to run away from home! Well, maybe I’LL just stay away from home for a while and see if you like that! Maybe if I start taking up with prostitutes, you’ll throw a party for ME!”

It would take the slightest nudge to flip roles and the old game would start up again. One tiny little word from Dad ... and the problem child becomes the favorite son and the favorite son becomes the problem child, and they are all reading the same old scripts again, just with the actors reversed. It would be so easy. Everybody knows the lines. You wouldn’t even have to coach the little brother, sitting at the banquet table inside. “Your brother won’t join the party.” He knows what to say: “Tsk, tsk, tsk. Ain’t it awful?”

In fact Dad could have accomplished this by doing nothing, by staying inside where the party is, leaving the older brother all alone to sulk. That’s the dignified, fatherly way to behave. But what does this Dad do, the one who forgot his script, who’s making this story up as he goes along? He does the same thing he did with the little brother, he goes to where the pain is, he turns himself into an ambassador for love, he leaves behind all his privilege and his authority,... and the veal parmigiana,... and goes out alone to this hurting member of his family, and you just know he’s going to hug this brother, too.

This is a father who isn’t going to play favorites. This is a father who loves his children equally. Not like those families in Genesis, where the parents were always playing favorites. Not like king David, who set his children up to fail. This father loves equally. This father loves extravagantly. This father loves ... more than anything else.

Last week I told you that God doesn’t think the way we do. That God gives precious food without charging for it. That God will abundantly pardon. That God has nothing to do with rewards and punishments. That God has everything to do with second chances … and third chances and fourth chances and seventy-times-seven chances. That where misery is, there is the Messiah. God doesn’t keep score. God isn’t in the punishment and reward business.

But I am. I am judgmental. I am keeping score. I am full of righteous indignation. I’m sitting in the audience judging this family, and grading them way down. In the first act I was all for punishing the little brother. He deserved all the grief he was getting. In the second act I was all for punishing the big brother. He deserved it for not welcoming his little brother home. I was even deducting points from the father for not managing his family correctly.

You know, I spent a lot of my life thinking, “If God gives everybody what they deserve, my little brother is in big trouble!” I since have discovered that he spent a lot of his life thinking, “If God gives everybody what they deserve, Don is in big trouble!”

But God doesn’t keep score. God doesn’t punish or reward. God doesn’t think the way we do. This score-keeping is human. This treasuring up grudges is human. This judging others is human. God’s way is completely different.

“In Christ God was reconciling the world to Godself.” Christ was God’s ambassador. The ambassador goes where the need is. The ambassador goes where the pain is. Christ ran down the road to hug the little brother, and Christ left the party to persuade the big brother: “I entreat you, be reconciled to your brother.”

The nature of God is not judgment but reconciliation. The nature of God is not punishment or reward, but wild, extravagant, over-the-top partying when a single lost child comes home. The nature of God is not keeping score but gentle persuasion, “I entreat you, be reconciled ...”

God is the gardener who won’t give up. God is the prodigal father who never ceases to love. God is the ambassador who is always throwing parties, but also willing to leave the party to go where the pain is. God is the business owner who gives the one-hour worker a full day’s pay. God is the innocent victim, who still has love for the thief on the nearby cross.

Jesus never tells us how the story ends. Jesus doesn’t tell us if the older brother ever comes in from the cold. And even if he did, Jesus doesn’t tell us how the relationship worked out the day after, the week after, the year after. My guess is that they had to make it up as they went along. No script. Lots of mistakes. Lots of new opportunities for the father to seek reconciliation. Lots of new chances for each one to be an ambassador.

You and I have been welcomed home to a party in our honor. You and I have been invited to come in from the cold. And you and I have been made ambassadors, to go where the pain is, to make it up as we go along, to express the overwhelming, extravagant, prodigal love of God.

(Comments to Don at crestnch@televar.com.)

Creston Christian Church, Creston, Washington, USA