In The Wrong Shoes

But what about this apparent injustice that is being done? Here is the loyal, faithful, obedient son working hard but feeling neglected and unrecognized. It hardly seems fair. The scales of injustice appear to be tipping heavily in favor of the younger brother. Does that bother you at all?

Mr. Merv Grazinski of Oklahoma City purchased a brand new 32-foot Winnebago motor home. On his first trip home, having driven onto the freeway, he set the cruise control at 70 mph and calmly left the drivers seat to go into the back and make himself a cup of coffee. Not surprisingly, the R.V. left the freeway, crashed and overturned. Mr. Grazinski sued Winnebago for not advising him in the owner’s manual that he couldn’t actually do this. The jury awarded him $1,750,000 plus a new motor home. The company actually changed their manuals on the basis of this suit, just in case there were any other complete morons buying their recreation vehicles. I can hardly read the paper when such injustices are being done:

• A customer was awarded $780,000 in a suit against a store owner after tripping over her own, out-of-control child;

• A car thief was awarded more than $74,000 in a suit against a motorist when the thief’s hand was crushed as he tried to steal the hubcaps on an occupied, moving car;

• A burglar received a $500,000 award against a home owner when the thief became trapped in the garage of the house he was robbing;

• A man was awarded $14,500 in suit against a dog owner despite the fact the injured man provoked the dog (which was chained and fenced) to bite him by entering the yard and shooting the dog repeatedly with an air rifle;

At first glance, this story in the fifteenth chapter of Luke seems like it could be found in the same category. It’s a great story when we’re looking through the lens of the younger brother; but if we’ve been a part of the church for any length of time, that’s not where we’re found in the story. Unfortunately, this is a story where I realize that I’m in the wrong shoes…the shoes of the older brother.

Let’s revisit the Scripture:

(vv. 1-2) Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering around to hear him. But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law muttered, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” THEN Jesus told them this parable:

SO He told them this parable (NASB)…And he spake this parable unto them (KJV)…The Message says, “Their grumbling triggered this story.” This entire parable is not some random section of Jesus’ teaching; it was told for a reason.

There were two distinct groups of people in the crowd. There were people who sincerely sought to follow God with all that they had. They had devoted their entire lives to understanding the Word of God and to teaching other what it meant. These were the teachers of the law and the Pharisees. The other group was a group of immoral people. From the text, we can only know that there were tax collectors and “sinners,” but there are plenty of other scriptural references which reveal Jesus’ reputation for hanging out with some pretty rough people…sinners, tax collectors, and prostitutes. If you remember, last week I mentioned that in this culture, to eat with someone was to accept them completely.