Dysfunctional Families
Sermon
Our particular age seems to be suffering considerably from what might be called the effects of dysfunctional families. These are the families which for some reason produce children who are anti-social and who cause trouble and mayhem to others. No doubt society has always suffered from such social disruption, but when the population was smaller and people lived in smaller communities the problem was less noticeable and was usually dealt with by the community.
It may be that the second world war is responsible for some of our present problems. Children who grow up scarred because they have witnessed terrible violence and death and destruction, may find it very difficult to function adequately as adults. And children who have not experienced proper parenting, perhaps because they were sent away for long periods and were unfortunate enough to end up in families which were harsh and severe, are often unable to adequately parent their own children. Those children have now produced children of their own and so the problem spreads wider and wider and becomes almost endlessly magnified.
Add to this mix a society in which both parents usually go out to work, television is welcomed as a baby sitter, adults can no longer reprimand children, and money flows much more freely than previously so that free time and excess energy is no longer spent on chores, and we have produced the perfect setting for anti-social behaviour to escalate.
But we shouldn't despair, for there has been anti-social behaviour at previous periods of history and we have somehow eventually managed to contain it. Dickensian England, where gangs of children roamed our city streets stealing and pilfering in order to survive, is now (thank goodness) a thing of the past. Orphanages are now no longer needed in the same way as once they were. Teenage girls who become pregnant are no longer thrown out of the home onto the streets.
Dysfunctional families can be traced right back to beginning of time. One of the earliest dysfunctional families must be that of Jacob, and his dysfunction can perhaps be traced back (at any rate in psychological terms, if not in real terms) to what appears in the Bible as only a mild misdemeanour by those original ancestors of humanity, Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve's sin was so minimal that it seems strange that the punishment should be so severe. All they did was to eat the fruit of a tree they'd been told not to touch and they were thrown out of their home for that act. Yet that sin opened the way for all sorts of negative human emotions and in turn led to the first murder of Abel by his brother, Cain.
Violence has entered the human scene, along with deception and manipulation and excess pride, and all these character traits can be seen within the story of Jacob and his family.
Jacob started on his path in life by cheating his brother of the inheritance and deceiving his father Isaac by manipulating him into giving Jacob the patrial blessing. Then Jacob himself was deceived into marrying two sisters, which gave rise to jealousy and suffering since Jacob made no secret of the fact that he loved one sister much more than the other.
When the children came along, Jacob's favouritism continued. The preferred wife, Rachel, was infertile for many years, so when she eventually became pregnant Jacob's joy was unmatched. His ten sons by the unpreferred wife, Leah, apparently counted for nothing against Rachel's first son, Joseph. And this favouritism by Jacob continued with Rachel's second and last son, Benjamin (Rachel died in childbirth).
Joseph grew up as a precocious brat. He was the archetype spoiled younger son, treated much more favourably than all his brothers. And he built upon his favouritism, bragging about his dreams in which all his brothers bowed down to him and worshipped him. He told tales about his brothers to his father Jacob, flaunted a gorgeous cloak woven especially for him by his father, managed to avoid the hard work of caring for the animals but landed the soft job of merely wandering out to see if the boys were alright in their work - a sort of managerial post even at that age.
No wonder Joseph's brothers were deeply jealous of him and hated him. Through his history and into the present day, Jacob had produced the perfect setting for anti-social behaviour to escalate. And escalate it did. When the ten older brothers saw their young brother swaggering towards them in his posh cloak, something snapped. They decided to get rid of Joseph once and for all.
They were all for murdering Joseph and lying about their act to their father, but the eldest brother, Reuben had a greater sense of responsibility than the rest, as eldest children often do. He needed a compromise, but he knew his brothers were in no mood to compromise, so he persuaded the others to rip off Joseph's distinctive cloak and to throw Joseph into a pit. Reuben planned in his own mind to come back later when everything had cooled down, and rescue Joseph. He still had some feeling for Joseph, no matter how pretentious Joseph was. But of course that wasn't to be, for the brothers saw the chance to make money out of Joseph and sold him as a slave to some passing traders.
There is real evil in the story of Jacob and his sons, and looking back, it's easy to see how the jealousy and the anger and the hatred arose. When children of the same family are treated unfairly and when one is loved above the rest, trouble always ensues.
In our human family today, some of us are treated much more fairly than others. We in the West have every material advantage over those in poorer countries and we flaunt our materialism. No wonder some of those who grow up in disadvantaged circumstances are deeply jealous of us and hate us. No wonder we have international terrorism.
Nearer to home, when some children grow up without love and respect and care, no wonder they are jealous and resentful of those who are loved and respected and cared for. No wonder we have anti-social behaviour.
But the good thing is that despite all the inequalities, despite the lies, the deception, the manipulation, the murderous intentions, the jealousy and all the other evils perpetrated in Jacob's family and originating from Jacob himself, despite all this, God still loved every one of those human beings and still used every one of them to advance God's purposes for humanity.
The precocious brat that was Joseph became a key figure in Bible history, working with and for God. Each of the murderous brothers became the head of one of the tribes of Israel. And Jacob himself became renowned as a Patriarch, one of the founding fathers of Judaism.
God works through each one of us. No-one is too evil for God to use, no-one is too great a sinner for God's purposes. But like Jacob and Joseph and all the brothers, we need to recognise God in our own situations and allow God to lead us. And perhaps if we do that, even our anti-social minority will be able to be used for God's purposes.
It may be that the second world war is responsible for some of our present problems. Children who grow up scarred because they have witnessed terrible violence and death and destruction, may find it very difficult to function adequately as adults. And children who have not experienced proper parenting, perhaps because they were sent away for long periods and were unfortunate enough to end up in families which were harsh and severe, are often unable to adequately parent their own children. Those children have now produced children of their own and so the problem spreads wider and wider and becomes almost endlessly magnified.
Add to this mix a society in which both parents usually go out to work, television is welcomed as a baby sitter, adults can no longer reprimand children, and money flows much more freely than previously so that free time and excess energy is no longer spent on chores, and we have produced the perfect setting for anti-social behaviour to escalate.
But we shouldn't despair, for there has been anti-social behaviour at previous periods of history and we have somehow eventually managed to contain it. Dickensian England, where gangs of children roamed our city streets stealing and pilfering in order to survive, is now (thank goodness) a thing of the past. Orphanages are now no longer needed in the same way as once they were. Teenage girls who become pregnant are no longer thrown out of the home onto the streets.
Dysfunctional families can be traced right back to beginning of time. One of the earliest dysfunctional families must be that of Jacob, and his dysfunction can perhaps be traced back (at any rate in psychological terms, if not in real terms) to what appears in the Bible as only a mild misdemeanour by those original ancestors of humanity, Adam and Eve.
Adam and Eve's sin was so minimal that it seems strange that the punishment should be so severe. All they did was to eat the fruit of a tree they'd been told not to touch and they were thrown out of their home for that act. Yet that sin opened the way for all sorts of negative human emotions and in turn led to the first murder of Abel by his brother, Cain.
Violence has entered the human scene, along with deception and manipulation and excess pride, and all these character traits can be seen within the story of Jacob and his family.
Jacob started on his path in life by cheating his brother of the inheritance and deceiving his father Isaac by manipulating him into giving Jacob the patrial blessing. Then Jacob himself was deceived into marrying two sisters, which gave rise to jealousy and suffering since Jacob made no secret of the fact that he loved one sister much more than the other.
When the children came along, Jacob's favouritism continued. The preferred wife, Rachel, was infertile for many years, so when she eventually became pregnant Jacob's joy was unmatched. His ten sons by the unpreferred wife, Leah, apparently counted for nothing against Rachel's first son, Joseph. And this favouritism by Jacob continued with Rachel's second and last son, Benjamin (Rachel died in childbirth).
Joseph grew up as a precocious brat. He was the archetype spoiled younger son, treated much more favourably than all his brothers. And he built upon his favouritism, bragging about his dreams in which all his brothers bowed down to him and worshipped him. He told tales about his brothers to his father Jacob, flaunted a gorgeous cloak woven especially for him by his father, managed to avoid the hard work of caring for the animals but landed the soft job of merely wandering out to see if the boys were alright in their work - a sort of managerial post even at that age.
No wonder Joseph's brothers were deeply jealous of him and hated him. Through his history and into the present day, Jacob had produced the perfect setting for anti-social behaviour to escalate. And escalate it did. When the ten older brothers saw their young brother swaggering towards them in his posh cloak, something snapped. They decided to get rid of Joseph once and for all.
They were all for murdering Joseph and lying about their act to their father, but the eldest brother, Reuben had a greater sense of responsibility than the rest, as eldest children often do. He needed a compromise, but he knew his brothers were in no mood to compromise, so he persuaded the others to rip off Joseph's distinctive cloak and to throw Joseph into a pit. Reuben planned in his own mind to come back later when everything had cooled down, and rescue Joseph. He still had some feeling for Joseph, no matter how pretentious Joseph was. But of course that wasn't to be, for the brothers saw the chance to make money out of Joseph and sold him as a slave to some passing traders.
There is real evil in the story of Jacob and his sons, and looking back, it's easy to see how the jealousy and the anger and the hatred arose. When children of the same family are treated unfairly and when one is loved above the rest, trouble always ensues.
In our human family today, some of us are treated much more fairly than others. We in the West have every material advantage over those in poorer countries and we flaunt our materialism. No wonder some of those who grow up in disadvantaged circumstances are deeply jealous of us and hate us. No wonder we have international terrorism.
Nearer to home, when some children grow up without love and respect and care, no wonder they are jealous and resentful of those who are loved and respected and cared for. No wonder we have anti-social behaviour.
But the good thing is that despite all the inequalities, despite the lies, the deception, the manipulation, the murderous intentions, the jealousy and all the other evils perpetrated in Jacob's family and originating from Jacob himself, despite all this, God still loved every one of those human beings and still used every one of them to advance God's purposes for humanity.
The precocious brat that was Joseph became a key figure in Bible history, working with and for God. Each of the murderous brothers became the head of one of the tribes of Israel. And Jacob himself became renowned as a Patriarch, one of the founding fathers of Judaism.
God works through each one of us. No-one is too evil for God to use, no-one is too great a sinner for God's purposes. But like Jacob and Joseph and all the brothers, we need to recognise God in our own situations and allow God to lead us. And perhaps if we do that, even our anti-social minority will be able to be used for God's purposes.
