Luke 15:11-32 June 20, 2004
The Older Brother
We’ve been looking at the story of the Prodigal Son for many weeks now – we began by talking for 4 weeks about our call to become the Father in the story. But last week I talked about how taking up the call to become the father without dealing with our prodigal son nature, or our older brother nature is actually dangerous, because we just end up passing on our brokenness to those we are trying to father. Last week we looked at the prodigal son, this week the older brother.
For those of us who have been around church for a long time, this story is well known and well loved. We call the story the parable of the prodigal son and we concentrate our gaze on the son that runs off to a far off land. It’s understandable, we actually love redemption stories of people being raised up from the gutter. We often forget the older brother in the story, ending our telling at verse 24, but Jesus tells the story for the sake of the “older brothers” in the crowd.
Luke 15:1-3 “Now the tax collectors and “sinners” were all gathering round 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:…
God’s heart for the lost::
The lost coin – She sweeps the whole house & Rejoices
The lost sheep – he leaves the 99 to find the one & rejoices
The lost son – he waits expectantly, forgives & rejoices
It might be enough to present God’s heart for the lost as a rebuke against their judgmental and uncompassionate attitudes toward the sinners and tax collectors, but Jesus, in an amazing show of grace, reminds the Pharisees of God’s heart for them too. He invites them into the party, into the celebration, into right relationship with the God they thought they were serving.
Let’s look at The older brother
He stayed home, but he too was lost.
25"Meanwhile, the older son was in the fields working. When he returned home, he heard music and dancing in the house, 26and he asked one of the servants what was going on. 27`Your brother is back,’ he was told, `and your father has killed the calf we were fattening and has prepared a great feast. We are celebrating because of his safe return.’
28"The older brother was angry and wouldn’t go in. His father came out and begged him, 29but he replied, `All these years I’ve worked hard for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends. 30Yet when this son of yours comes back after squandering your money on prostitutes, you celebrate by killing the finest calf we have.’
31"His father said to him, `Look, dear son, you and I are very close, and everything I have is yours. 32We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brother was dead and has come back to life! He was lost, but now he is found!’ "
Nouwen says:
“The parable might well be called “The Parable of the Lost Sons.” Not only did the younger son, who left home to look for freedom and happiness in a distant country, get lost, but the one who stayed home also became a lost man. Exteriorly he did all the things a good son is supposed to do, but interiorly, he wandered away from his father. He did his duty, worked hard every day, and fulfilled all his obligations but became increasingly unhappy and unfree.”
Lost in Resentment
The older son could be described well by Paul in Romans 1 when he describes the pagan nations
21For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened.
“For although he lived with the father he never really knew his heart, or gave him thanks for all his blessings, so instead he became bitter and morose.”
You can hear his bitterness in his words when he says: “All these years I’ve worked hard for you and never once refused to do a single thing you told me to. And in all that time you never gave me even one young goat for a feast with my friends.”
When the younger son returns he offers himself as slave to his father, and the father receives him as a son. The older son has always been a son, but he acts like a slave, not enjoying his father’s pleasure in his work.
His work is not out of love far the father, but out of a sense of duty to do the right thing. Although we love the story of the prodigal, there are probably more of us in church who relate more to the older brother than to the prodigal. Even if we were prodigal at one time, we have been home, working for the father long enough now that bitterness, resentment & judgmentalism could easily have set in.
Jesus tells other parables to help the Pharisees see themselves as far from God’s heart:
Luke 18:9-14 Pharisee & Tax Collector
9To some who were confident of their own righteousness and looked down on everybody else, Jesus told this parable: 10"Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. 11The Pharisee stood up and prayed about[1] himself: ’God, I thank you that I am not like other men--robbers, evildoers, adulterers--or even like this tax collector. 12I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’
13"But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ’God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
14"I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted."
Matthew 20:1-16 – Story of the Vineyard Workers
1"For the Kingdom of Heaven is like the owner of an estate who went out early one morning to hire workers for his vineyard. 2He agreed to pay the normal daily wage[1] and sent them out to work.
3"At nine o’clock in the morning he was passing through the marketplace and saw some people standing around doing nothing. 4So he hired them, telling them he would pay them whatever was right at the end of the day. 5At noon and again around three o’clock he did the same thing. 6At five o’clock that evening he was in town again and saw some more people standing around. He asked them, `Why haven’t you been working today?’
7"They replied, `Because no one hired us.’
"The owner of the estate told them, `Then go on out and join the others in my vineyard.’
8"That evening he told the foreman to call the workers in and pay them, beginning with the last workers first. 9When those hired at five o’clock were paid, each received a full day’s wage. 10When those hired earlier came to get their pay, they assumed they would receive more. But they, too, were paid a day’s wage. 11When they received their pay, they protested, 12`Those people worked only one hour, and yet you’ve paid them just as much as you paid us who worked all day in the scorching heat.’
13"He answered one of them, `Friend, I haven’t been unfair! Didn’t you agree to work all day for the usual wage? 14Take it and go. I wanted to pay this last worker the same as you. 15Is it against the law for me to do what I want with my money? Should you be angry because I am kind?’
16"And so it is, that many who are first now will be last then; and those who are last now will be first then."
If you want to scream out “that’s not fair!” then you probable have a bit of the older son in you.
Grace is not fair grace treats people far better than they disserve. But if we think that we have earned our place with God by being the good boy, the good girl, then grace to others is an affront to us. If we think that we have earned far more than God has given us, when God gives others a perceived greater blessing than us, our anger might top the Richter scale.
Those of you who have more than one child have likely experienced this when you dish out ice cream or some other good thing: “She Got More Than Me!!!” As we get older we get better at receiving lesser portions at desert – we at least do not throw as loud a hissy fit. But we still compare ourselves. Why did God give them that gift? That is the gift I wanted! Why did they get that position? I’m far more gifted and deserving than they are! Why did they get healed? I’ve prayed longer and harder for healing! Why do they get a party? I’m the one who deserves a party!
When we start to measure the gifts of God, we forget that grace is undeserved and that they are gifts for us to glory in, whether they go to us or not.
Because of the older son’s anger at the father’s treatment of the prodigal, which opened up the wound of past resentment, the son refuses to come to the party. He cannot join with his father’s joy, or his brother’s joy because of his resentment. We often talk about not letting the devil steal your joy – he doesn’t have to if we let resentment build up inside, we steal our own joy.
We ignore the older son because the story doesn’t have a nice neat Hollywood ending – Jesus leaves it wide open. He says to all the older brothers called Pharisees in the crowd, “Look, dear sons, you and I are very close, and everything I have is yours. 32We had to celebrate this happy day. For your brothers and sisters were dead and have come back to life! They were lost, but now they are found!’ come join the party!”
The difficulty is that in order to join the party, in order to feel the father’s love and embrace, they have to sit down to eat with sinners and tax collectors.
The story’s ending is for the Pharisees to write: Does the older son come to the party? What are you going to do?
Returning with our heart when our Feet never left.
Letting Go of Rivalry
Nouwen writes:
"In the house of my father there are many places to live," Jesus says. Each child of God has there his or her unique place, all of them places of God. I have to let go of all comparison, all rivalry and competition, and surrender to the Father’s love. This requires a leap of faith because I have little experience of non-comparing love and do not know the healing power of such a love. As long as I stay outside in the darkness, I can only remain in the resentful complaint that results from my comparisons. Outside of the light, my younger brother seems to be more loved by the Father than I; in fact, outside of the light, I cannot even see him as my own brother.
God is urging me to come home, to enter into his light, and to discover there that, in God, all people are uniquely and completely loved. In the light of God I can finally see my neighbor as my brother, as the one who belongs as much to God as I do. But outside of God’s house, brothers and sisters, husbands and wives, lovers and friends become rivals and even enemies; each perpetually plagued by jealousies, suspicions, and resentments.
God’s Grace does not have a zero sum – he doesn’t take some from me to give some to you – he lavishes his grace on all of us, and gives each of us more than we need, so we don’t have to look over our shoulder to see if our sister received more than we did.
Responding in trust
Nouwen writes: “Although we are incapable of liberating ourselves from our frozen anger, we can allow ourselves to be found by God and healed by his love through the concrete and daily practice of trust and gratitude. Trust and gratitude are the disciplines for the conversion of the elder son.
We need to first trust that the Father (God) wants us home. That even if we left in our hearts and not our feet as the older brother did, he will come looking for us, he will sweep the whole house until he finds us, he will leave the 99 to find us, he will wait expectantly for our return.
We must trust that God loves us as much as he does the prodigal. Just as the father says to the son “everything I have is yours, Jesus says to us Mark 11:24, Whatever you ask for in prayer, believe that you have received it, and it will be yours.
This is not a recipe for twisting God’s arm in prayer, but an understanding that we are the father’s child. He will give us what we need. We need to trust him.
The father is offering his hand to us and saying do you trust me – trust me that I love you as much in the field and in the house, that I am pleased with you when you are working for me and when you are resting in my presence, I love you with an unearnable love. You cannot make me love you more, you cannot make me love you less. Do you trust me?
Responding in gratitude.
Gratitude is the opposite pole to resentment – resentment grabs what it thinks it deserves, gratitude receives the gifts it is given knowing that the giver has decided that I am worth the gift. When we are truly grateful, we can give thanks even for the gifts that God gives others.
Nouwen writes:
There is always the choice between resentment and gratitude because God has appeared in my darkness, urged me to come home, and declared in a voice filled with affection: “You are with me always, and all I have is yours.” Indeed, I can choose to dwell in the darkness in which I stand, point to those who are seemingly better off than I, lament about the many misfortunes that have plagued in the past, and thereby wrap myself in my resentment. But I don’t have to do this. There is the option to look into the eyes of the One who came out to search for me and see therein that all I am and all I have is pure gift calling for gratitude.
Coming to the Party
You get to write the end to the story. If you see yourself in the older brother, you get to decide if he gives up his resentment and hurt and accepts the Father’s grace and enters the party.
To do this you need to give up rivalry, trust God to be good, and respond in gratitude. Will you join the party?
