Sabotage and Ministry
When Anxiety Disrupts Faithful Work
Natural Responses
In the parable often referred to as the Prodigal Son, the older son responds to his brother’s return by standing outside the celebration, resisting the joy his father has begun, and in doing so, disrupting the moment meant to restore the family (Luke 15). All of the older son’s reactions appear to be very natural.
By ‘natural,’ we do not mean healthy or faithful—we mean predictable under anxiety, anger, fear, etc. In doing so, the older son is sabotaging the restorative action of his father.
We often treat sabotage as a moral failure. This parable invites us to consider whether it might instead be a response to anxiety.
- Why are the older son’s reactions natural?
- When we see or experience sabotage in the church, how do we typically view, understand, and frame it? Why are these responses, in the church, deeply understandable under anxiety?
Modeling God’s Mercy
In the parable, the response to the older son is, “Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.”
- If we were the father in the parable, what would a natural, instinctive response to the older son look like—before reflection, prayer, or trust? How does the father’s response disrupt that instinct?
- What assurance and care is given to the older son, who sabotaged the party?
- The parable ends without resolution, as if to ask the listener where they will step into the story. If you were the older son—feeling as he feels and acting as he acts—how might you respond to the assurance the father offers at the end of the parable?
Living Jesus’ Parable
Long before we had language for family systems theory, this parable already showed what later thinkers would name. Drawing on family systems theory, particularly Edwin Friedman’s work (see chapter 14), we can say: sabotage is not what evil people do—in systems under stress, sabotage is far more often driven by anxiety than by malice.
- Based on this parable, and your pastoral, elder, and/or leadership training, what are three ways to respond to sabotage that do not escalate anxiety or take responsibility for another person’s work?
- In a similar manner, what practices reduce anxiety in a system before it expresses itself as sabotage?