A Place in the Son

The parable Jesus tells in Luke 15:11-32 is not about the "Prodigal Son." Well, it isn't completely about him. There is an aspect of the story that we seem to simply read over, either because it's confusing or because it makes us uncomfortable. This part of the parable is about the older brother. But even if we carefully study the area detailing the older son and his reaction to his younger sibling, we're still missing the point of the story. Jesus told this parable because He wanted people to see the father in the story (who represents God) and his grace in a way that the older son didn't.

You see, both the older and the younger son just didn't get their dad. This is understandable, because this man was a complete culture shock. We can see the first example of this when the younger son asks for his inheritance before his father is dead. This son is practically saying "I can't wait for you to die." The father gave it to him, but that's not the whole story. Luke 15 reads, "So he divided the property between them." He gave not only the younger son his inheritance, but also the older son his. The father gave up everything he had! The younger son went off to live a little, but the older son stayed home like nothing ever happened! It was as if he didn't realize the gift he'd been given.

The next shocking part of the story comes when the father sees his son coming home from his escapade into depravity, and runs to meet him. This doesn't really mean much to us if we don't know the culture of the day. Let me explain, this man was obviously a wealthy Jewish farmer, and, as speaker Mike Pilavachi said, wealthy Jewish farmers "ran nowhere." He then acted as though his son hadn't just spent the inheritance on prostitutes and wild living, and he threw his son a party. He forgave and forgot before the son could even apologize.

This is where the older brother comes in. He had never left his father's home, and he was returning from working his father's field when he heard the celebration in the house. When he heard the party was for his brother, his blood boiled. The older son had some twisted, self-righteous idea of fairness, and throwing a party for the son who hated you and waisted your money didn't agree with that idea. In his mind, he was the perfect child who deserved the celebration, but his idiot of a father gave it to the black sheep of the family.

The older son really didn't understand his dad. I think he might have actually been embarrassed by him. The father in the story did do irrational things. But those irrational things could have blessed the older son just as much as the younger. The inheritance had been divided. He had a double portion of what his younger brother had, and he was sitting on it! He refused to go into the party, so his father came out and begged him to. The son answered, "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" (Luke 15:29). This son thought he had earned something from his father. He thought he was perfect.

"'My son,' the father said, 'you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found" (Luke 15:31-32). The older son couldn't earn his father's wealth, he wasn't perfect. But he had the inheritance because he was a son. The father had given him his portion; everything the father had was indeed the son's. But the older son didn't understand that, it didn't agree with the way he thought things should be. He couldn't let go of his idea of fairness and justice and embrace the father's love and forgiveness. The house in this parable, I think, represents grace. In the beginning of the story, the prodigal left grace. At the end of the story, the older son refused to enter grace. He couldn't go in because he wouldn't forgive the one already there, the one who hadn't even wronged him. May we never be this way, so unwilling to give grace that we cannot ourselves receive it.