“No! We’re not getting sucked into that again!” (Pause) “I don’t care! We’re not doing it again!”
Jackie stopped curling her hair, and walked toward the kitchen where her husband was shouting into the telephone.
“Absolutely not! You’ve made too many promises, and you’ve never kept one of them! You created the problem! You fix it!” (Pause) “Yes! I’m telling you that we not going to lift one finger to help you this time!” (Pause) “No! You’ve already had hundreds of second chances, and you’ve thrown away every one of them! Do you have any idea what it does to this family every time that you suck us back into your mess? Do you know the pain you’ve caused your mother, or your brother and sister? I’m not going to let you do it again! We are not helping you! We love you, but we will not help you again!”
Jackie watched in horror as Ben hung up on their son. His face was red with anger, and he started banging his big fist on the counter. Then he kicked the wastebasket so hard that his foot went through the side of it. By now their other two children were standing quietly behind Jackie. Everyone knew without asking who had been on the phone.
Ben turned toward his wife. “You think I’m wrong don’t you?”
“No. I think you are right, but I feel like a terrible mother because I think that.”
“You’re not a terrible mother,” her other son said as he put his arm around her. “He’s a terrible son.”
“No, he’s a good son,” she said as she hugged him back. “It’s the drugs that are terrible. Ever since he got involved with them, Tim has not been himself. If he would just quit the drugs and stay clean, you would see a very different brother from what he is now.”
“I hate him!” their daughter stated emphatically. “All he ever does is take advantage of you, and hurt you. He’s so selfish!”
“Don’t hate him,” Jackie responded as she drew her daughter into her hug too. “Hate the drugs that have taken over his life.”
“As I told Tim on the phone, I still love him,” Ben added. “But I admit that it is getting more and more difficult to do.”
“What did he want this time?” Jackie asked.
“Same old thing. He wants us to come get him, and let him live here until he can get back into rehab.”
“How many times have we already done that?” Jackie said.
“And every time we do,” Ben responded, “he lies to us, steals from us and gets everyone mad and yelling at each other.”
“And the people he so casually invites into our home give me the creeps. They really freak me out,” their son added. “I wouldn’t look their direction on the street, but Tim invites them in to stay overnight in our house!”
“And,” their daughter chimed in, “remember when we came home and found those two strangers on the couch! That was so disgusting! I still won’t sit there!”
“Guys,” Jackie interrupted, “we remember it all too well. Please, let your Dad and I talk for a few minutes. It is almost time for us to leave, so finish getting yourselves ready. Okay?”
They grumbled, but they went back to their rooms. Then their son turned at the entrance to his bedroom, and called out, “If you let him come home, he is not sleeping in my room! He steals my stuff, and sells it to buy his drugs.”
“Mine either,” their daughter added.
Jackie turned to her husband with tears in her eyes, “What do we do, Ben? I don’t want my own son in our house. I’m a horrible mother!” She fell, crying, into Ben’s arms.
Ben held her silently for a while, and then said, “Here we are getting ready to go to an awards ceremony at school for our other two children. And the only award Tim ever earned was a chance to go into a rehabilitation center rather than jail. And he quit that three times. I wonder if they will even let him back in again.”
“Where is he this time?” Jackie asked.
“Little town called Shelby. I was there once. It’s a nice little town way up in the northern part of the state. Who knows what he is doing there.”
“I can tell you what he is doing there. Somebody there is providing him with drugs.”
“Yeah,” Ben agreed, “I’m sure you’ve got that right.”
“Did he give you an address or a phone number?” Jackie asked her husband.
“No. He was too far gone to know anything more than the name of the town. And I just assumed it was Shelby, Ohio. It could be Shelby in some other state for all he knew.”
“You take the kids to the award ceremony,” Jackie said. “I’ve got to go look for him.”
“Honey, how many times have we been through this?”
“I know. I know. It probably won’t do any good, and a very large part of me does not want to go look for him. But I have to.”
“But, Jackie, I thought we had decided to let him fail. You know, tough love and all that stuff. If we keep saving him, he will never learn responsibility.”
“Ben, he could be dying for all we know. He will never learn anything if he is dead.”
“Jackie, how many times do we forgive the same person?”
She took her husband’s hands into hers, and looked him straight in the eye. “We will forgive him as many times as necessary. Jesus said forgive not seven times, but seventy-seven times. And not even Tim has gotten near that number yet.”
“Then I’m going with you. It will be the middle of the night by the time you get there, and we don’t even know where to look for him.” “But what about the kids’ award ceremony? At least one of us has to be there for them.”
“We both have smart phones,” their younger son volunteered, “we’ll video it for you.”
Jackie and Ben turned, and saw both their children standing there. “I thought I told you guys to go finish getting ready,” Jackie said.
“I am ready, besides I had to make sure that somebody was going to go get Tim. I got to thinking that if that was me out there, I would want somebody to come get me, even if they had already done it a million times.”
Ben reached over and messed up his son’s hair. They both smiled at each other, knowing that they loved and respected each other.
“We can drop you off, but who will bring you home?” Jackie asked.
“Julie’s going,” their daughter volunteered. “Her parents won’t mind bringing us back home.” She looked at her mother’s quizzical face, “I don’t like Tim, and I’m still not going to let him step one foot into my bedroom. But I don’t want him to die.”
“I love this family so much,” Jackie said. “And I so wanted to be at your award program. Maybe we should wait and leave after the program.”
“Mom, just leave!” the kids both shouted.
“But we will be gone all night,” Jackie said. “You two will be alone all night.”
“We’re not your babies anymore,” her son responded. “We’ll be fine. Now leave.”
As they drove, Ben and Jackie made plans to lock up their prescription medicines and all the lose cash laying around the house. Ben decided to buy the metal cabinet he had been looking at for his basement workshop. He could lock his tools in there.
They knew they would not be able to talk to anyone at the rehab center until the next morning, but they began preparing their argument for letting Tim back in again. They discussed the rules that Tim would have to live by, like not letting him get in touch with any of his old friends. They talked about surviving as a family after Tim entered the scene again.
Jackie told Ben that she felt like she was living in one of Jesus’ parables. “We’re going out searching for the one lost sheep, and have left the others behind in the wilderness. They’ll be okay won’t they?”
“Honey, they’re both in high school. They are both responsible kids, unlike the one we are looking for. They will be fine spending one night alone.”
As they drew closer to Shelby, they talked about where to start looking for Tim. They decided to start at the police station.
Ben and Jackie both breathed a sigh of relief to learn that the police had not locked up their son, nor were they even looking for him. The police gave them phone numbers for hospitals. Tim was not a patient in any of them. They also provided a phone number for the morgue. Ben phoned there. Jackie cried tears of relief when they learned that Tim was not there either. One officer suggested a couple of places where druggies hung out, but he suggested that they not go to any of those places until morning. When Ben and Jackie insisted on pressing forward in their search, the officer decided to go with them to these places. The first two places they looked held no Tim. When Ben and the officer searched under one of the bridges over the river, they saw a few dark lumps up under the bridge. One of those lumps turned out to be Tim. He was sleeping off a high, and so groggy that he was barely able to make it up to the car. They laid him on the back seat, and he fell back into his stupor. He was filthy, and he smelled so bad Ben and Jackie had to roll down the windows to blow the stink out. The officer said that there was no need to bring Tim back to the police station, since they had not been looking for him. Ben and Jackie thanked the officer for his help, and he wished them well as they drove off toward home. As the sun came up, Jackie suddenly realized that it was Saturday. She had an idea. “Ben, every time we have brought Tim home before, we brought him home in shame. We listened to him telling us over and over how sorry he was and how he was going to change. And we told him over and over how he would have to change, and about all the rules that he was expected to follow now.” “Yeah, I know what you mean,” Ben agreed. “It’s been kind of nice that he has slept the whole way, and we didn’t have to suffer through all that stuff. I was dreading going through all that again.” “I want to do it different this time, Ben. I want to do it like in Jesus’ parables.” “What do you mean?” “Well, remember when the shepherd returned with his lost sheep? He called all his friends and neighbors together and threw a party to celebrate. When the woman found her lost coin, she called everybody together and threw a party! And the same thing happened in the story of the father with the prodigal son. He called everybody together and threw a party! Our son was lost, and now he is found! So we are going to throw a party!” “A party? Jackie, are you crazy?” “Well, Ben, the other way sure hasn’t worked. So let’s try it the way that Jesus talked about! We’ll throw a party!” Jackie spent the rest of the drive home calling family and friends inviting them to a party that night. They had to wake Tim up to get him into the house, but he crashed on the couch and fell right back to sleep. When Tim finally woke up late that afternoon, he found his family rushing around preparing for a party of some kind. He was ordered into the shower, and came out to find clean clothes waiting for him. Ben drove him to the barber shop, and then they went across town to pick up some helium-filled balloons. They got home just before people started arriving. It took quite a while before Tim believed that the party was for him, and then he kept repeating all night long, “I can’t believe this.” It was the first time in years that they had seen a smile on Tim’s face. It took a while before everyone warmed up to the idea of welcoming the lost son home. But the food was so good, and everyone was having such a good time, that the idea just kind of worked its way into the hearts of all those gathered there. The evening wasn’t even half finished before everyone was celebrating that the lost son had been found, and they all hoped and prayed that this time he would stay found. And heaven? Was there joy there in the presence of God and God’s angels? No one here can know that for sure, but Jesus told us it would be so. Maybe it was the joy in heaven that worked the change in earthbound hearts that were finally able to welcome home one of God’s lost children. And maybe if more hearts were opened to heaven’s joy, we could welcome other lost home sinners home too. There certainly are plenty of lost people waiting for a welcome. Questions for Meditation, Discussion or Preaching Is this modern parable true to Jesus’ parables of the lost sheep and lost coin? Is this modern parable realistic? Would someone really do this? Do you know anyone who welcomed a drug addict into their home? How did it go for them? Do you know anyone who welcomed some other kind of lost person into their home? How did that go for them? How much is forgiveness involved in helping people like drug addicts? How do Christians keep others from taking advantage and abusing our forgiveness and kindness? Do you think Jesus would consider it important to not let other people take advantage of us? Jesus talks about joy in heaven “over one sinner who repents.” Why do you think this is? Could you feel joy welcoming someone like Tim into your home? Imagine this story going further. If Tim managed to get himself permanently off drugs, what would life be like for this family in the years to come? Think of some lost person your family knows. What would life be like for your family if that person could repent and get their life turned around? Is there anything you can do to help get that started?
Copyright 2020. Robert D. Ingram, 32746 Jourden Rd., Albany, Ohio 45710 (dr.bobingram@gmail.com). Used by permission.
