The Prodigal Son and His Elder Brother, Part 3

The elder brother is not talked about too often. People love the feel-good story of the younger brother and seem to ignore the elder one. The problem is that I believe the story was told at least as much for their sakes as for the sinners' and tax collectors' sakes.

In the two parables before this, a shepherd loses a sheep, goes out to look for it, finds it, and brings it back; and a woman loses a coin, searches her whole house for it, and finds it. Both stories end with celebrations over the lost object being found. This parable has those same elements, but doesn't end with the feast. The elder brother refuses to go in. In those days, eating with someone was a sign of unity and togetherness. The elder brother is separating himself from the father because of how the father is treating the younger brother.

When the father goes out to plead with the elder brother, something that he was not required to do at all, we see the elder brother's heart. He says that he has served the father faithfully all his life, never once doing anything wrong, and yet feels he was given nothing. He then points out that the father is now giving a grand feast to welcome back "this son of yours" (he refuses to even acknowledge him as his own brother), despite what the son has done. He's saying that he deserves more than the younger brother because he has served the father. He, too, is after the father's things and not serving the father because of a love for the father. His goal for his service seems to be getting a young goat to eat so he can have a small party with his friends, rather than enjoying being with the father. Service has become a way for him to earn things and not a way to show his love.

Essentially, he, too, is saying he wishes the father were dead so he could have his things.

The father here responds with as much grace and kindness as he did when his younger son said the same thing. He doesn't dispute the son's claim to perfection, though we know that no one save Christ has ever been perfect. This was done to show the Pharisees that even were a man perfect in the law, he can be separated from God if his motives are not to love and serve God from that love, but to get things from God. The Pharisees all knew they had sinned and so were worse than this son, yet the message that the son was separated from the father still was unmistakable.

The father then goes on to say that, because the son is with the father, all that the father has was always his. He could have simply asked for the goat to celebrate with his friends. He probably could have had the fatted calf if he'd wanted it. He could have had money or property, too. The father didn't withhold anything from him. "All that I have is yours." The father was still offering both his presence and all that the son was working for.

Notice also, that the father never said, "Because you served me so well," or, "If you continue to serve me," he said, "Son, you are always with me." That was the only requirement to get what he wanted, to be with God. The son's right to the father's things was an act of grace on the father's part and not due to any service the son had performed or any disgrace he had shunned.

It was his pride and self-righteousness, though, that were separating him from the father's feast. He thought he had more of a right to the father's things than his younger brother did. The Bible doesn't say this specifically, but you get the feeling that the elder brother, had he been in charge would have either made the younger brother grovel and beg and plead for forgiveness or dismissed him altogether and, if the younger brother had been accepted, that it would not have been the full acceptance of a son, but the semi-acceptance of an unworthy indentured servant.

A lot of us have been in the church for a long time, some of us since we were children. Some of us can tend to side with the elder brother because we haven't gone through a stage of raucous partying, have been saving ourselves for marriage, haven't dismissed God, haven't gotten into trouble with the law, haven't tried drugs, and have honestly tried to live according to the Scriptures. If our motives for doing or not doing these things are so that God will bless us, we are just as lost as those who have gone and lived however they wanted. We may be even more lost, for when we view ourselves as righteous because of our works, we mean that we view those who have not matched our works as unrighteous and, therefore, as less worthy than we are. We look down on those who have fallen, particularly on those who should have known better.

In doing so, we separate ourselves from God and his loving mercy. The Lord's prayer says, "And forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us." There is no room for unforgiveness for a true Christian. That doesn't mean a true Christian has to be everyone's doormat and can't stand up for themselves, but no one will ever sin against you as much as you have sinned against the Father. He has forgiven you willingly and eagerly and you are to forgive others just as willingly.

Furthermore, notice that the first two parables had one element that the third one did not: a search for what was missing. The shepherd searched for his sheep and the woman searched for her coin. There is no search in the third parable, but there should have been. The elder brother should have gone out after his younger brother and tried to bring him back. His pride made it impossible to love his younger brother as he should have, though. His self-righteousness made him feel that he and he alone deserved the father's blessings, and so the son who rejected the father had no right anymore to anything. In truth, neither the holy or sinner deserves anything from God, for none of us are truly holy and, when we think we are, we prove conclusively that we're not.

If you are an elder brother type, put away your pride and self-righteousness. Remember the times that you have rebelled against the Father. Think of how your world has been changed by His mercy and kindness. Remember that He owes you nothing, that "all of [your] works are as filthy rags." You are his child only because of His mercy, and you are dependent on Christ just as much as someone who has been a drug-addicted prostitute who's had multiple abortions, just as much as a child-molesting murderer.

If you are an elder brother type, remember how wonderful it is to be with God. And how much the younger brothers are suffering out in the world. It may look like they have it all, but without God, they really have a huge hole in their lives. The wages of sin is death. They have no future, no hope, no chance if they don't receive Christ.

If you're a younger brother type, remember how great the cost of salvation was and avoid turning into an elder brother. "For by grace you were saved through faith..." It is not anything you have done or could ever do that saved you and, because of that love shown, you should try to live as God wants you to rather than repenting only when at the end of yourself.