Series: Lost
Message: The Older Son
Texts: Luke 15:11-24
Date: August 7
Pastor: Dave McBeath
This morning we continue our LOST series as we look a third time at what is commonly known as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Now it is strange we call this parable the Prodigal Son and focus on the younger son that ran away. It’s especially strange when you consider there is a whole other act to the drama Jesus is telling the crowd. This Drama is about 2 sons and the vast majority of Christians gloss right the second act, about the second son. For most of my life I glossed over the second act about the older son. I read right over it and didn’t think much about it. Have you ever wondered why most Christians do this? Here’s the reason I’ve done this: I’m the older son.
I am the firstborn. I am the oldest of my parents 3 boys. (On a side note—I think God has a sense of humor—I now have 3 boys, I know first-hand what trouble we caused our parents). Who here this morning is a firstborn? Raise your hand.
Who’s not a first born? Raise your hand. Any of you want to tell us older brothers or sisters
what we are like? Put us in our place?
Henri Nouwen, author of The Return of the Prodigal, suggests first-born children,
“…want to live up to the expectations of their parents and be considered obedient and dutiful. They often want to please. They often fear being a disappointment to their parents. But they often also experience, quite early in life, a certain envy toward their younger brothers and sisters, who seem to be less concerned about pleasing and much more free in “doing their own thing.”
Let me tell on myself. This describes me. Growing up, I never wanted to let my parents down or give them cause to be disappointed in my. I was very conscientious about what others thought—especially my parents and elders in our church. I did what was right. For the most part I conformed to the expectations of my parents, teachers, and religious leaders. As a result I was very cautious, careful, and deliberate about the things I did. Ask my brothers and they would tell you I was very controlling—maybe this is why my oldest son, Ian, and I clash so hard even now. But at the same time I was envious of my younger brothers, who just didn’t care about pleasing our parents and other authority figures and who were much more free about doing their own things. I didn’t dare do what my brothers did, and by the time I reached late teens and early 20’s I had a deep seated envy of my younger brothers.
Have you ever felt this way? I am willing to bet that many of us, who have grown up in the church have felt this way about spiritual younger brothers, prodigals. A moment ago, I asked the question, “Why do most Christians gloss over the second part of Christ’s parable of the prodigal son?” Could it be that the vast majority of Christians are like me. We have grown up in the church and are more like the older brother than we care to realize. Are many of our churches filled with older sons? Let’s take a look at the older son in Luke 15:25-32 and see.
Look at verse 25. It says, “Meanwhile the older son was in the field. When he came near the house he heard music and dancing.” Let me stop for just a second. Jesus is doing something here. It’s subtle. Do you see it? If you don’t, let me give you a hint…. Where was younger son, the “prodigal” son, before he started to come home? Was he in the field feeding the pigs in a far country? Why do you think Jesus starts the second half of his drama with the older son in a field? What do you think Jesus is beginning to say? Do you think he may be suggesting the older son is far from the father as well?
So the older son is coming back from his family’s fields, the lands his family owns. He enters the narrow streets that contain the tightly packed households of the village where his family lives. And as he enters the village he hears a party. The text says he heard music and dancing. He heard dancing? You don’t normally hear dancing do you? This must have been a loud party where people were having such a good time—they just let loose.
I imagine a loud, boisterous celebration going on! The drum can be heard a considerable distance away. It announces to the entire village that there is party going on right here! The whole village would be there—the adults partying in the banquet hall while the young children would be running around, playing, singing, dancing in the courtyard. As the older son gets closer, he begins to realize this party is happening at his house!
So what would typically happen in this circumstance? What would the people listening to Jesus expect to happen next? New Testament Scholar and Missionary Ken Bailey suggests that any such son would enter the banquet hall right away! The guests would cheer—because they would have been waiting in eager expectation for the First Son to arrive. After all, he has the second highest rank in the family, second only to his dad. This young man would greet his guests and exchange compliments. Then he would slip out to quickly change his robes and rejoin the celebration.
This is not the older son’s reaction, though! Look at verse 26. It says, “So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.” The Greek word for servants is paidos. If you look at a Greek to English dictionary the first definition is 1. A young boy (pre-puberty), 2. A son, or 3. A servant. Given the context, the NIV uses the wrong definition. The servants are busy in the household making this banquet or party possible. Son doesn’t fit either, because the text would have said it was his brother. So the only other option is that it is a young boy from the village.
The Older son doesn’t know what is going on, so as he approaches the family house in the center of the village and he naturally meets a group of young boys who are not old enough to recline with the elders at the banquet but are outside dancing to the beat and celebrating in their own boisterous way. He asks one of the young village boys partying in the courtyard what’s happening? Why the party? Why the feast and celebration?
Look at verse 27. The young boy replies, “Haven’t you heard? Your brother has come, … and your father has killed the fatted calf because he has him back safe and sound.” Remember from last week the young son should never have been able to come home. The Kezazah ceremony should have been enacted by the village. The villagers should have taken a clay pot filled with ashes, smashed it to the ground, and chanted that the young son was cut off from the village and the family because he lost his wealth, his inheritance to the Gentiles. He shouldn’t have been allowed back for what he had done and how he disrespected his Dad and his village, unless he was willing to make restitution! Earn his way back!
How do you think this first born son felt about this? Especially as the young boy explains how great the party is! The party is large. The whole village is there! Not only that—“Your Dad has killed the fatted calf,” he says, “Your father is serving a meal above all meals!”
Indeed this is a meal reserved for only the most special, best occasion, because in the Ancient Middle East it was a luxury to have just a little meat at a meal. Most people didn’t have sheep and goats and if they did they were for milk. Here they are feasting on the fatted calf. Can you imagine how exciting this must have been for the poor villagers who didn’t have the resources this family had?
Finally, the boy explains why the Father is throwing such a huge party and kills the fatted calf. The NIV translates the boy’s words “because he (the father) has him back safe and sound…….” So the father throws the party because his youngest son is back safe and sound. No not really!
Again the NIV doesn’t catch the nuance of what Jesus is saying. If we go with a more literal translation the text says that the Father has received him. But the Greek verb for received him, apolambano, can also mean the Father has gotten him back or returned him. It is active. The father did this!
According to the boy the banquet is in honor of the father who sought out his lost son and found him, this is what the village is celebrating! The father found what was lost. If you recall from last week, the Father had been looking for him and when he saw him a long way off, outside the village, he ran out, humiliating himself, to meet him. He did this despite the fact that the young boy had wanted his him dead. When the Father did this, he took the eyes of the village off the young sinning prodigal and forced them to look at him. He received the prodigal and restored him before the village could cut him off with the Kezazah ceremony.
Because the father humiliated himself by running and exposing himself to the village, the boy was ready to return as a son instead of a hired hand to earn his place back. As result of this Dad’s reckless love, grace, and forgiveness was ready to restore his relationship with his father
The young boy in the courtyard says that the Father has received or returned his young son with hugiaino. This Greek word can mean good health. But did the Father receive the boy back in good health? Probably not! The text tells us that he had been starving in a far off country. Also, we can assume that he come back in tattered clothes that barely covered him and without shoes—because the father immediately calls for the family servants to clothe him in the best robes and put sandals on his feet. I don’t think he came back in the best of health.
Here is another reason why. The Greek word health “hugiaino” is used to translate the Hebrew word Shalom or Peace in the Old Testament. Most likely, Jesus originally told this story to a Hebrew audience and used Hebrew word Shalom. So the Father has received the erring son with peace. He has restored him with his love and grace and the result is peace between him and his son! The son has been reconciled to his Father!! The village celebrates the joy of restoration instead of the Kezazah ceremony of rejection. The feast is a celebration of the Father’s costly efforts at creating shalom or peace with his rebellious younger son!
Next, the text tells us that the older son gets angry and refuses to go to the banquet. He does this not because he brother is back—but because his brother is reconciled. The young village boy in the courtyard suggests that it is all over! The father has already accepted him—and has done so without the prodigal paying for his sins by making restitution to the village and family! This is why the older son is angry! The older son becomes so angry he doesn’t go into the banquet, the party, the feast, the celebration! Instead, he leaves. He leaves his father!!
Once again this just doesn’t happen in Jesus’ day! To not go in to the party is to show the ultimate disrespect for his family, for the family guests (the villagers), and utter disregard for the Father! It is an unspeakable insult to his father!
The crowd listening to Jesus is stunned once again! Their mouths drop!! They are thinking, not again! Remember the younger son—showed this kind of disrespect earlier in the story when he asked for his share of his Dad’s property and left for Gentile country.
According to Ken Bailey here’s is what would happen if the oldest son refused to enter the feast:
Word would have passed almost instantaneously across the courtyard of the family home and enter the banquet hall. In seconds the entire assembled crowd knows of the public crises forced on the father by the shameful act of the older son. The music and dancing stops and the banquet is brought to a standstill, awaiting the father’s response.
Can you saw awkward!!! You know how awkward the show “The Office” can feel at times? This would have been 1000 times worse!
Before we look at the Father’s response there are 2 things we must understand. First, the older son’s insult cuts much more deeply than the prodigal son’s insult at the beginning of this story because it happens in public at a feast hosted by the father!
Second, most father’s would immediately order the slaves to overpower the disobedient son, force him into a side room and lock him up. The father would then proceed with the banquet trying not to show his hurt and anger. When the guest left the boy would be brought out, held down and beaten for what he did!
So what is the father’s response? Look at the second half of verse 28. It says: “So his father went out and pleaded with him.” According to Ken Bailey:
“The father, in very painful self-emptying love leaves the seated guests and proceeds to the courtyard. A hundred people or more are watching and listening. The assembles guests, servants, entertainers, and young boys observe in stunned silence as the father goes out to the son.”
Once again the father goes out to find a lost son! Once again the father humiliates himself to search for and find the lost! Once again he pays a price! A high price to try to restore another son! Again the father acts out of love and grace and not anger! But this time it is offered to a law keeper not a law-breaker. He hopes that by not giving his boy what he deserves their relationship will be restored as well!
What is the older son’s response to the father’s gracious act of love? Look at verses 29 and 30. The older son, the “good” son, responds in anger:
"But 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!’"
One theologian calls this son’s response lawlessness within the law. Even those that “keep” all the rules are sinners and far from God the Father. They are lost! Jesus is redefining who is lost in this parable. Sinners who wander from God in a far country are just as lost as religious people who do all the “right” things, but don’t have a relationship with the father. Obedience isn’t a relationship!
Jesus is saying that the older son is Lost. The Father represents God himself, and the meal pictures the Wedding Feast of the Lamb in Rev. 19. The religious leaders who mutter and complain that Jesus welcomes sinners and eats with them are just as lost as the sinners they complain about. The religious people are like this older son! They have refused to enter the banquet. They do good to earn their inheritance or salvation, but works are no substitute for a relationship with God the Father. Religious people say to God, “I have been slaving for you all these years.”
Religious people are not lost in spite of their good works but because of their good behavior. It is not theirs sin keeping them out of heaven or the feast, but their righteousness. The good news of Jesus is that salvation is not found in religion, nor is it found in irreligion. Salvation is not found in morality or immorality. This was completely astonishing and confusing to Jesus’ hearers at the time and it may be astonishing and confusing to you.
Why is the younger son lost? He wanted his father’s wealth, but not the father. How did the younger son get what he wanted? He broke the moral rules! He left home and left his father. But the oldest brother also wanted selfish control over the Father’s wealth. He was unhappy with the father’s use of the possessions—the robe, the ring, the calf. But while the younger brother got control by taking his stuff and running away, we see that the elder brother got control by staying home and being very good. He felt that now he had the right to tell the father what to do with his possessions, because he was good and obeyed him. And Jesus says he is lost!
In reality both the older and younger sons wanted to be their own Saviors. One way to be your own savior is by breaking the law, God’s commands, or simply put by being bad. The other way to be your own savior is by keeping the rules or being good. The person following the second wasy thinks if I can be so good that God has to answer my prayer, give me a good life, and take me to heaven. The second person may be looking to Jesus to be their helper or their rewarder, but not their savior. They are their own savior. The difference between a true Christian and a religious person is that the religious person obeys God to get control over God, to get God to give him his things, to get God to give him salvation, but the Christian obeys God, just to love and please and be close to him!
Take a moment to think about your life and situation. Are you a religious person, a religious “Christian”, or are you a true Christian? In a church this size, it is probable that a few of our members or regular attenders are lost elder brothers. They do what is right to get what they want from God—not because they love him and want to be with him! Some are complete elder brothers. They are not true Christians. They go to church and obey the Bible—but do so out of the expectation that then God owes them. They have not understood the biblical good news at all! That good news is this, Jesus paid it all so you don’t have too!
Others elder brothers are true Christians that know good news of Jesus, the gospel—yet they are still elder-brotherish in their actions. They know salvation and restoration are by grace—undeserved favor—in their heads,… but their hearts go back to the elder-brotherish default mode of salvation.
So how do you know if you are an elder brother? What are the signs of this type of lostness? If we look at the elder brother in this parable, I believe we can see 5 characteristics of this type of lostness.
The first sign is “A Deep Anger”. Look at verse 28. He became anger. Elder brothers believe God owes them a comfortable and good life if they try hard and live up to his standards—and they have lived up to those standards! Some for 40, 50, 60, 70 years! So they say: my life out to be going really well! And when it doesn’t they get angry! But they are forgetting Jesus. He lived a life better than any of us—yet he suffered terribly. And who did he suffer for? Sinners! Lost sons—both younger and elder brother types!
The second sign of elder brother type lostness is “A Joyless and Mechanical Obedience”. Look at verse 29. The elder brother says: “I’ve been slaving for you.” Elder brothers obey God as a means to an end—as a way to get things they really love.
Have you ever heard anyone say they go to church so they can make it thru the week? Are they saying the go to church so God will give them a good week? A week were they won’t feel pain or be hurt? God never promises Christians this! Now, obedience is a good thing. It is hard. But older-brothers obey to get what they want. They don’t do it because they love God and so there obedience is characterized by joylessness. It’s mechanical. It’s a slavish thing!
Often these elder brother types force this slavishness on others, especially younger brothers that have returned to the father and now know the joy of relationship with him. They force their rules on the younger brothers. Rules about how to dress, how many times to be at church, how to conduct yourself in the sanctuary, who to vote for,, and on and on….! They do this because they think rules please God and earn his blessing or favor!
This leads me to the third characteristic of elder brother lostness: A Coldness to Younger Brother-Types. Look at vs. 30. What does the older brother say: “This son of yours.” They older brother will not even own his brother. Elder brothers don’t do evangelism well. They don’t share Jesus. They are too disdainful of younger-brother types of sinners, the same sinners Jesus ate with and hung out with. Elder brothers (like the Pharisees or religious people of Jesus’ day) pride themselves on doctrinal purity, and unavoidably feel superior to those who do not have these things.
Additionally, lost older brothers treat younger brothers who have returned to God with disdain as well. They don’t like the fact that younger brothers receive attention from the Father or from the church or from the pastor. They want the attention for themselves. There are some churches where older brother types complain that younger brothers are stealing attention, time, and even money away from them! Can you believe this? This was exactly what the elder brother in this story is mad about! He thinks his dad threw a party for his brother and was wasting his resources on his brother—I mean he killed the fatted calf and gave him the best robes and sandals! Do you know elder brothers in the church in the US? This church? Are you and elder-brother?
Forth, elder-brother types “Lack Assurance of the Father’s Love.” Back to verse 29. The elder brother says, “You never threw me a party.” As long as you are trying to earn your salvation or even God’s blessing , God’s love, or God’s acceptance through your goodness…, you will never be sure you have been good enough. What are signs of this? Every time something goes wrong in your life you wonder if it’s a punishment from God. Another sign is irresolvable guilt. You can’ t be sure you’ve repented deeply enough or done enough to make restitution, so you beat yourself up over what you did!
Fifth and finally, older brother types have “An Unforgiving and Judgmental Spirit.” The elder brother doesn’t want the father to forgive and accept the younger brother. He is mad because the Father had already forgiven and reconciled himself with his younger brother. The elder son was upset that this happened. It is impossible to forgive someone if you feel “I would never do anything that bad!” You have to be something of an elder-brother to refuse to forgive.
Back to my question at the beginning of this message, “Why do so many Christians skim over the second part of this drama?” The reason I did: I grew up an elder-brotherish sort of person. I grew up a partial elder-brother in an elder brotherish sort of church. I didn’t want to see how I might have been “far” from the father while close to him. How about you?
Jesus ends the parable with the lostness of the older brother in order to get across the point that this is a more dangerous spiritual condition. The younger brother knew he was alienated from the Father, but the older son does not! So what can be done about this elder-brotherism, this dark spiritual condition?
Let’s go back to the parable. The younger son accepts the Father act of costly grace. He accepts being found by his father instead of finding a plan to work his way back. The father rant to him—making a fool out of himself in the village. He bared the scorn of the village and the family so the young son would have to be cut off—so he wouldn’t experiences the Kazazah or cutting of ceremony. The younger son accepted his father’s grace shown in this act of love! He takes the fine robe, the sandals, and goes into the feast thrown in his Father’s honor. He accepts being a son again.
The Father did the same thing for his older son. He embarrasses himself—instead of locking this son up and beating him. He gives his son what he doesn’t deserve! It is a costly demonstration of forgiveness, love, and grace.
Notice, the parable ends abruptly! We don’t know if the older son goes into the banquet or not! Why? Jesus wants the religious people who these parables are aimed at to right the ending. He is asking them to come to the feast and eat with him! Will they do it? Will you?
The vast majority of religious people don’t go in. They never go into the feast! They refuse to because Jesus goes after, welcomes, and eats with sinners that don’t play by the rules. The religious people put Jesus on trial for disrespecting them, their religion, and their rules. They find him guilty! They put him on a cross. Jesus dies to welcome younger brother type sinners to his banquet in eternity. But, Jesus dies for the elder brother types that put him to death as well. He says, father forgive them for they know not what they do! He still invites older brother’s to his banquet to his feast. He wants to eat with them, with you! Jesus dies to pay the price both elder brother and younger brother type sinners should pay for their walking away from God. PRAY!
I
COMMUNION
In a moment we are going to celebrate communion, the Lord’s Supper, or the Eucharist. It symbolizes the meal we will share with God at the end of time! It symbolizes our accepting Christ death on the cross where his body was broken and his blood spilt for our sins—they ways we have walked away from God the Father as younger sons and older sons.
If you are a younger brother I invite you to eat and drink with Jesus. I ask you to come forward this morning and say I accept the gift you’ve given me in Jesus. I accept Jesus’ death for me so I can return to you! Come forward and talk with me so you can eat and drink with us in just a moment!
If you are a complete older brother I invite you to eat and drink with Jesus. I ask you to come forward this morning and confess that you have walked away from God the father by trying to earn your salvation with the good, religious, Christian things you do! He invites you to his feast. Come forward and tell me you are accepting Christ’s payment and work on the cross so you don’t have to! Wouldn’t it be good to know you don’t have to work for his acceptance and your salvation anymore?
Finally, if you are a partial older-brother, you know you can’t earn salvation with your good deeds, but you fall into elder-brother practices, cause you want God to love you more, or accept you more, a bless you more. I ask you to come forward and confess this. Confess they poor way you have treated your younger brother’s and sisters. Tell God how you want learn to welcome, them and love them, like Jesus did and the Father in this parable. Will you do this! Let me say this: our church will never grow as it should—if it is filled with elder brother
types.
