What if the Older Brother Had His Way?
If I were to ask you how many main characters there are in the parable of the Prodigal Son, what would you say?
In recent years there has been an awakening to the fact there are indeed 3 characters in the parable. I have heard this parable taught in Sunday School classes and sermons all of my life, and most of the time the spotlight was only on the prodigal and the father. The older brother was only an after thought.
How do we most often apply the parable of the prodigal son to our own lives? We think of ourselves as the son who went astray, and returned home to the loving arms of the father. The sole focus for us centers on what happens between the prodigal and father.
But what about the third character? What about the older brother? Why did Jesus tell this parable in the first place? We can start by asking this question: who was Jesus’ audience?
Now the tax collectors and sinners were all gathering around to hear Jesus. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” (Lk. 15:1, NIV)
Who represents the Pharisees in the parable of the prodigal son? It certainly wasn’t the prodigal son. This is not to say that Pharisees don’t need God’s grace just as much, but we will get to that.
Let’s take a look at the older brother.
He was away in a field when he heard a party going on at his father’s house. He heard the music, saw the dancing, and smelled the roasted fatted calf.
“A party? What is going on?”
One of his father’s servants replied, “Your brother has come home…and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.“ (Lk. 15:27)
The text goes on to say that the older brother became angry and refused to join the party.
Can you picture the scene? Can you hear the older brother muttering to himself as he stomps right up to his father…
“You’re throwing a party for him? For HIM?! Have you forgotten what he did? He abandoned us! He was irresponsible with his money and squandered it in wild living and the only thing he had to show for it was the pig slop on his clothes!”
The anger is palpable. Here are the actual words of the older brother…
He answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’ (Lk. 15:29-30, NIV)
Is it clear to you how the older brother thought about himself compared to his brother?
“I did things the right way. I obeyed our father. I was responsible. I didn’t cut corners. I worked faithfully for all these years and never received anything extra! Now, all of a sudden my irresponsible little brother returns home after making a mockery of our family name and squandering our wealth, and he gets the fattened calf in his honor?! As if that wasn’t enough, he also gets a robe, a ring, and sandals? Do you know how long we have been fattening that calf up? Who is going to pay for that calf?”
Imagine how shocked the prodigal son was when he returned home. He practiced his speech on the way home.
“Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants.” (Lk. 15:18-19, NIV)
The prodigal son expected to return to an angry father who demanded every cent be paid back. He expected to return not as a son, but as a hired servant. The prodigal son was aware of the debt that he was returning to, and he was prepared to work it off for as long as it took.
The father saw the son from a far way off, and he ran to meet him. The prodigal son probably continued to practice his speech. As they approached each other, the son confessed, “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” (Lk. 15:21, NIV)
Instead of being greeted with a frown or a scowl, the father approached his son with a bear hug and kisses.
Can you imagine how strange this felt to the prodigal? He wasn’t berated. He wasn’t banished to the servant’s quarters. Quite the opposite! He was showered with extravagant grace.
Grace.
Grace is unmerited favor.
One of the meanings of the Greek word for grace (charis) means gift.
The prodigal had no framework to understand this kind of grace. It didn’t make sense to him, but he had enough humility to accept the lavish love of his father. The prodigal’s debt had been paid, and the only response in the face of this kind of grace is joy (killing the fattened calf for a party).
I sometimes think about the prodigal son having children of his own. Would he be as gracious to his children as his father was with him?
Jesus tells another parable in Matthew 18:21-35 where a servant was forgiven a large debt by his master. Instead of paying it forward to his servants, he demanded that they pay him every cent, and when they couldn’t, he threw them into debtors prison.
When God’s grace gets ahold of our hearts, the proper response is to be people who share that grace with others. We ought to look on the world around us with grace colored lenses.
God has been generous to us, so we ought to be generous with others.
God has removed the burden of our debt, and calls us sons and daughters.
In the Lord’s Prayer, we pray, “Forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors.” We receive God’s grace so that we can share it with the world around us.
So back to the older brother. He was angry because after all of his years of faithfulness, obedience, and responsibility, his father never even gave him so much as a young goat (Lk 15:29, NIV).
Look at the father’s response…
“My son, you are always with me, and everything I have is yours” (Lk 15:31).
The older brother received grace from his father for his entire life, but he was blind to it. It’s no wonder he couldn’t join the party to celebrate his brother’s homecoming, because even though he had lived in his father’s estate for his entire life, and had been given everything that the father owned, he never received it as a gift. Unearned. Unmerited. To the older brother, the father’s gifts were based on obedience, faithfulness, and responsibility.
The late Frederick Buechner wrote,
“Turn around and believe that the good news that we are loved is gooder than we ever dared hope, and that to believe in that good news, to live out of it and toward it, to be in love with that good news, is of all glad things in this world the gladdest thing of all.”
Unless the grace of God grips our hearts in some way, we will stomp angry around this world whenever we see grace dispensed to people who didn’t earn it “like we did.”
Who can fully understand the love of God for us? Our minds cannot comprehend the full measure - the depth, height, length, width of God’s love on this side of eternity (Eph. 3:17-19, NIV).
I confess, I am more like the older than the prodigal son. I still treat grace as something that I earn and work for.
What about you? Do you see any hint of the older brother in your thoughts and attitudes?
God is throwing a party where those who owe much are forgiven much.
And “that good news is of all glad things in this world, the gladdest thing of all” (F. Buechner).
Freely you have received. Freely give (Mt. 10:8).
Grace & Peace, Beloved.