You’ve heard of Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, Gamblers Anonymous, Emotions Anonymous and Overeaters Anonymous. But have you ever heard of OLDER BROTHERS ANONYMOUS?
Let’s take a quick poll -- How many of you were the baby in your family? Would you stand, please? Thank you. Please be seated.
Now, how many of you are the oldest child in your family? How many first-born do we have? Would you please stand?
How many of you felt like the baby of the family got away with things you never could have gotten away with? Please remain standing. Please note that I am standing too!
You may not realize this, but Older Brothers Anonymous is a support group tailor-made just for you and me! I realize the name would be considered sexist by today’s standards, but the group was founded nearly 1950 years before Gloria Steinhem and the members decided to keep the original name for historical reasons.
As a matter of fact, most of you know something about the roots of this relatively unknown organization. It goes back to the famous story attributed to Jesus, the one about the father with two sons. You know the one I mean.
There was this son who got tired of working in his father’s pizzeria, so he went to his dad and asked him for his part of the inheritance now, so he could go out on his own. The father agreed, cashed in half his GIC’S and most of his RRSP’s, and the son was off. He immediately bought himself a Porsche 944, picked up Elizabeth Hurley as his co-pilot and headed for Las Vegas. There he bought drugs and booze and friends and when the money ran out, so did the drugs and booze and the friends. He ended up working as a busboy for Wayne Newton, so he could pay off his gambling debts, and he had to eat the leftover food on the plates he cleaned from the table to keep alive.
One day, while gnawing on a leftover sweet and sour PORK rib, he realized how foolish he had been and wrote home to dad for help. Without a moment’s hesitation and without reading the whole letter which was full of apologies and regrets, dad sent a first class plane ticket back home. The son arrived home and was greeted by dad with the biggest party ever thrown in Saskatoon. While the party was in full swing, along came the older son who had to pick up the slack while the “baby” was blowing a fortune in the U.S.A. He had to stay back until 3 a.m when the last delivery was made, the cash reconciled, the store locked, the security system turned on. He asked one of the guys who was standing outside with a joint in his hand: “Hey, what’s the commotion all about?” “Didn’t you hear the news? Your baby brother’s back, isn’t it exciting? Your Dad’s sure going all out to celebrate!”
Well, the older brother sure wasn’t excited about this pizza party. As a matter of fact, he was, er, cheesed off, to put it mildly. Then, of course, Papa had to come out and smooth the ruffled feathers...but he still couldn’t get himself to join in the festivities.
So, after a few sessions of therapy, his psychiatrist obtained a federal government grant and established the first ever chapter of OLDER BROTHERS ANONYMOUS. It was an instant hit.
We have obtained transcripts of one of the earliest sessions.
“Shalom! My name is David and I am an Older Brother, even though I am the middle child in our family of 19. As you know, I am also a Pharisee. As a Pharisee, I keep all the rules of the Jewish faith, all 613 of them. I tithe regularly. I make every sacrifice that is required. I fast periodically. I pray using all the proper words. I am a model citizen. I look around at the tax collectors, the prostitutes, the pimps and all these “sinners” of every stripe and, yuck! Makes an upright guy like me want to upchuck! I wouldn’t go near them, let alone have a meal with them. And then, along comes this Jesus character, who is supposedly a Rabbi, a model Jew, and he not only goes near them, he talks to them like they belong in his company, and, horror of horrors, he eats with them. I can’t take this any longer. I’ve killed enough bushes already. Will you help me, please?”
Yes, the Pharisees, scribes, Chief Priests, were all founding members of OLDER BROTHERS ANONYMOUS. Over the years, the group developed their own theme song. You may have heard it: “Annoying grace.” Here are the first two verses:
Annoying grace, how shrill the sound
That saved a wretch like thee;
I ne’er was lost, I’m always found;
Me, blind? Say, can you see?
Through many damsels, joints and dares
You have already come!
Disgrace you’ve brought; Dad’s gone too far
And welcomed home a bum!
Obviously, they were no poet laureates. But, you get the drift, don’t you?
At the most recent meeting of the Regina chapter, there was Ann who said: “When I was a teenager I often baby?sat for the two younger ones. My brother was a constant problem. One day he got angry with me and threw his shoe at me. I ducked and it hit my mother’s favourite fruit bowl. Even to this day it is "the fruit bowl which Ann broke", because I shouldn’t have ducked. I must admit that I find it annoying after all these years to still be blamed for something I didn’t do. And so, for their fiftieth wedding anniversary, I bought them a similar fruit bowl. My mother opened it and exclaimed, "That’s just like the one you broke!"
Next it was William’s turn: “I’ve been part of my church for as long as I can remember, and so has my family since they turned the first sod. I’ve done everything I possibly can to help out. I’ve always had offering envelopes, signed up for every work bee, helped with every supper, volunteered for visitation, never missed a church service, not even when there was a Rider game...but do I get any recognition? Nosiree. I don’t feel like I count any more. It’s those newcomers that have taken over our church, with their guitar-strumming, toe-tapping cowboy music, their slide shows and power point presentations, they are the ones that are the toast of the town. Where were they when we laid the foundation? Where were they when we painted the hall? Where were they when we sweated in the kitchen? It’s just not fair. We did all the work, they get all the credit. Thank goodness for OLDER BROTHERS ANONYMOUS!
Julia had been singing "softly and Tenderly" by her father’s bedside. As the last word hummed in her throat, her father reached toward her. "I want that one," he said. His eyes rose to Julia in an urgent glare. "At the funeral?" she asked. He blinked slowly. "I’ll tell Reverend Walton," she said. "You," he whispered. "You."
She thought it was because of the chorus, where Jesus asks the weary sinner to come home. She thought her father was exhausted and wanted it to be over. After all of the pain, and the morphine, and the embarrassment of his own daughter changing his soiled bed sheets, he wanted to slip away softly and tenderly. So she told him she’d sing it.
Then her father had muttered something about Jack, that he’d like to see Jack, and Julia said, "I’ll sing at the service, I can guarantee that, but there’s not a lot I can do about Jack."
In the last few weeks of her father’s life, Julia had been asked again and again to call Jack on the phone. Jack never returned Julia’s message, but an hour after the viewing began, he walked into the funeral parlor, his eyes squinting as if he were entering bright light. His hair was pulled into a tail in the back, his face unshaven. Certainly, he could have worn a proper suit and tie instead of a black tweed jacket over a collarless shirt. The woman he lived with--a nurse he met while he was in some hospital for addictions--was supposedly keeping Jack straight, as he had put it, but evidently not straight enough to dress properly and get a haircut.
Jack sat next to their mother on the sofa and said something to her. She put her hand to his cheek, and he bent over, laying his head on her shoulder. He began to cry and leaned into her. She put her arms around him. He sobbed while their mother held him close. Julia moved toward the sofa, close enough to hear the rapid breathing that shook her brother’s shoulders. "I should have come home," he said between sobs. "I should have come home sooner."
"You’re here now," Anna said. "It’s okay. You’re here now." Julia watched her little brother--a grown man, forty-eight years old--curled on the couch next to their mother, his face in her shoulder. Their mother’s arms were around him, her cheek rested on his bowed head, her fingers stroked his hair.
She could hardly remember the feel of her mother’s arms around her, the caress of her hands, her lips pressed to Julia’s hair. She could not recall the last time her mother had comforted her. In all the weeks Julia had taken care of her parents, there was never as much as a pat or caress from her mother. And she knew--for the rest of her mother’s life, even the rest of her own--she would never be so completely at home as Jack was on that sofa, his head resting in the curve of their mother’s neck, his tears dampening the shoulder of her cotton dress.
As she stared at Jack, she suddenly realized that the hymn had nothing to do with her father. He hadn’t been thinking of himself at all while she sang beside the hospital bed; he was thinking of Jack. The hymn was a way of asking to see Jack, a prayer to call him home.
Julia didn’t understand what it was that made her face burn. It started with a suck of air in her chest, then a rushing flame, like gas hitting a pilot light, the heat rising to her cheeks with each exhale. She decided then and there not to sing. It was too much to ask of her. A hymn to welcome home her brother was more than should be required. She turned from her brother and mother and knew with certainty that her decision was final. She’d have the bulletins recopied to omit the song. The moment would come and go at the funeral, and she would be the only one to feel the absence. The moment came and went, and she didn’t sing.
And now here she was at the meeting of OLDER BROTHERS ANONYMOUS.
The older brother is that responsible part in all of us who doesn’t like it when somebody else gets something for nothing. The older brother is that part of us that measures and weighs every deed for its value - every person for what they have earned or deserve - and has decided that by comparison we aren’t getting the deal we deserve to get - or that someone else is getting more than they deserve.
You see God is not actually in the business of adding up the time sheets and making sure no one gets overpaid. People who do that are called accountants, and God is not an accountant! What God is in the business of doing is reconciling the whole universe to himself. And when you’re in the business of reconciliation it doesn’t much matter what time the last person gets in, when they do it’s party time. The father in the story didn’t throw the party because he liked the younger son better than the older son. He threw the party because what he wanted most of all was both his sons and finally he’s got them both again.
Jesus leaves the story open-ended. Will the elder son go in to the party where all are welcome, even his wayward brother? Will he raise high his glass, and toast his brother’s return? Or will he remain outside, isolated in anger? The door remains open.
How about you? Will you go in to the feast of forgiveness, will you go in to the party where all are welcome, or will you remain outside? One thing’s certain: the party would not be complete without you.
This meeting of OLDER BROTHERS ANONYMOUS is now adjourned.
Thanks be to God. AMEN.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS:
The phrase “OLDER BROTHERS ANONYMOUS” comes from a sermon by Pastor David Russell of First Baptist Church in Ames, Iowa.
The words to “Annoying grace” were inspired by some contributors to the Desperate Preachers Site.
The story about Julia and Jack is a condensed version of "Prodigal," by Michael Olin-Hitt.
I gratefully acknowledge the willingness of these and other preachers to share their riches with their colleagues.
