“And he said to him, ‘Son, you have always been with me, and all that is mine is yours.’” ~Luke 15:31
The Prodigal Son, found in Luke 15:11-32, in my opinion, is one of the riches stories in the Bible. God communicates more in these 22 verses than I could possibly unpack in a blog post. Timothy Keller wrote a whole book on this story (I don’t use affiliate links, so that’s just a link to Amazon and nothing more).
So what’s going on here? In context, this is the third of a series of parables that Jesus told to the tax collectors, sinners, Pharisees, and scribes (Luke 15:1-2). The first was of the lost sheep and how Jesus left the 99 righteous sheep to find the 1 lost sheep. The second was of the lost coin and how God doesn’t quit until He finds us. This is the third. It is the longest and most complex of the parables within the Gospels.
To sum this up, Jesus tells of a young man who demands his inheritance early, spends it, and comes home to ask his father for employment on their field. Instead, the father organizes a party and this young man’s older brother throws a fit.
Right at the beginning, this young man asked for his inheritance. The way this worked back then was that for two sons, the property would have been divided three ways and the eldest got a double portion. So this young man received a third of his father’s estate. I imagine one of the fears of the elder brother was that, when the younger returned, his dad would re-divide the estate and he’d end up with less.
Greed motivated the younger brother. He was sold on the money. Where did that money lead him? Poverty. Scripture says that this young man found a job in another field. He was so hungry that he was willing to eat with the pigs (Luke 15:16).
Employment worked differently back then. Now, we work for a paycheck, take that paycheck to the bank, and then we are each responsible for budgeting our own money. Back then, there weren’t banks. They worked, and their employer fed them. There was no way to save up or work harder to earn a higher place in the economy. A lot of the world still works this way.
So, this young man’s job was to feed the pigs, but he was so hungry that he was willing to eat with them. Perhaps he was a bad employee, or maybe he landed with a bad employer. Either way, once he realized his predicament, he left and went home. He remembered that his father treated his workers well and thought that maybe he could work the family’s field. Instead, his father greeted him with a party.
This guy had his “rock bottom” moment. He couldn’t get any worse, but that’s what it took for him to return home. Jesus was telling the people that God will always welcome us back no matter how badly we mess up.
That’s the part of the story we’re most familiar with. Of the two brothers, this is the story that is easier to tell. It’s less convicting. There’s drama and conflict – it writes a better story.
But we’re only halfway through.
Who was the older brother? He was the righteous one. He lived according to the rules. He worked hard. And he threw a fit when his little brother came home. Little Brother had gotten what he deserved: he spent all his money, so he deserved to be living among the pigs, right?
The older brother thought he deserved more because he had followed the rules. He was the straight A student who couldn’t get a job after college, the athlete who put in extra hours at the gym but was still cut from the team, the workaholic who was passed up for a promotion. He was entitled.
Not only did he sulk about what he didn’t have, but he accused his father of holding back on what he thought he should have had. “Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; but when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him (Luke 15:29-30).”
How would you have reacted if you were in the father’s shoes? I probably would have gotten defensive. In a parable, each character represents something. In this case, the bothers represent us and the different ways we approach life, and the father represents God. The father firmly but lovingly corrects the older brother. He reminds this son that everything he had belonged to him already. The younger’s inheritance was gone, so really, everything this father had would be passed on to the older brother. It was his and he could have enjoyed the benefits of it if he had chose to. This older brother had spent all his time working, assuming he was earning more favor with his father and thinking he was somehow better for it.
Read that last part again. Are we working for God’s favor? He’s already given us the kingdom. That doesn’t mean life will be perfect and wonderful – Jesus tells us life will be hard. But it does mean that God has given us the kingdom, that we have an inheritance for us in the form of eternal life. Are we working for extra favor? Trying to play “teacher’s pet” with God? There is nothing we can do to make Him love us any more than He already does.
The other point within this story is to ask, how are we looking at the “younger brothers” among us? In this parable, there is nothing wrong with any of the vocational positions presented. The older brother condemns the younger’s method of spending the money, but not his pursuit of a servant vocation. The father in this parable condemns that attitude of the older brother. It’s not about age or economics, or anything else that divides us; it’s about our attitude.
The point is, how are we treating those who are different than us? In our world of regular mass shootings, how are we treating those around us? When people come to church, are we asking them to be just like us before they are allowed in, as the older brother demanded that the younger be just like him in his self-imposed righteousness? Or are we welcoming them as they are? God changes us from the inside out; that’s His job, not ours. The father in this parable simply welcomed his son back. He didn’t ask him to prove himself first, just to be present and to live again.
How does that work when someone of a different race and different economic status walks in the door on Sunday morning? I am very middle class, as is our church. We wear jeans with nice shirts, play contemporary music, and enjoy our potluck lunches. What happens when someone completely ritzy walks in the door, or someone with torn jeans who hasn’t showered in a few days? Someone with a different color skin or someone using unfamiliar slang? Will we be like the older brother and think we can remind God why they don’t belong? Or will we celebrate with the Father and completely welcome them in?