The Older Son

One of my favorite parables (if God will grant me the grace of choosing a favorite from among his stories) is the one in Luke 15: 11-32. We often call it the story of the Prodigal Son, but really, it is SO much more.

It is a story of a family – a story of two sons. One leaves home, in effect telling his father that he wished the father were dead. He is lost. The other son stays with the father, and while his physical location is known all the time, he is also lost. Who among us is not lost?

Someone in class a week ago said that while the older son worked hard for the father, he only did it out of selfishness, out of a desire for recognition. Is that true?

It is true that when the older son saw the radical love lavished on the returning younger son, he was jealous. He didn’t keep that jealousy to himself; he told his father about how he was feeling. Is there a lesson there? Can we tell the father how we are feeling, about anything? Do we trust him that much? This older son is an example of how we should be in prayer – honest, trusting. This is a lesson that the older son can teach us; God wants our honesty.

But is it true that the only motivation that the son had for his good works is a selfish desire for what he could achieve from the father? I don’t think so. There is nothing in the parable to indicate that the older son was that selfish. In fact, by saying that, we are jumping to a conclusion that is not supported.

Why would we make that statement? I think that we often see ourselves in the older son. We see a “church-going,” faithful child who works hard for the father, and yet is still lost. We want to believe that there is something else wrong with him; otherwise, if he is lost, then so are we.

What can we learn from the way the father reacts to the older son? First of all, he goes out to him. God doesn’t wait for us to approach him. He comes out to us. Even when we’re not ready for him, or not prepared for him, or even if we haven’t asked him to visit with us. He comes anyway.

Even when the son wasn’t listening, the father was talking. How humbling is that? God is not waiting for us to pay attention; he’s talking to us now, and we’re ignoring him.

What did the father not do? He wasn’t angry with the older son, even though the older son was angry with the father. God can take our anger. It’s OK.

I really like the phrase, “everything that is mine is yours.” Everything. We have nothing to fear. We have no reason to be jealous of the younger son, even though the father lavishes everything he has on him. God’s love is radical, and one of the ways in which it is radical, is that it is limitless. Limitless. Just because God gives all of his love to one lost, returning son, the love he shows to us is not depleted. Why do we seem to want to hoard the infinite to ourselves? One of the radical characteristics of God’s love is that every bit of love he has he gives to each of us. He doesn’t cut it up like cake. It rains on us in limitless quantity.

The father celebrates when the one who is lost, returns. We don’t see the end of this story, but if it were written, when the older son walks into the house, no longer angry, but returning to his father, his father is as happy to see him as he is to see the younger son.

We are all lost. We are all loved in a radical way. God celebrates each time one of us returns to him.

Image: Yellow weed flower from Spring Heights, May 2007