Luke 15:25-32 (NIV) “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. But he answered his father, ‘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. But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
“’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.’”
Oddly enough, the villain in this parable turns out to not be the younger brother, the prodigal son, but the “righteous” older brother, the one who faithfully obeyed the father through all of the younger brother’s reckless wasting of his inheritance. The younger brother had indeed brought disgrace to himself and his father by his self-centeredness, his rebellion, and his wild ways. But now he has come to his senses, has repented, humbled himself, and been restored to the father’s home. As noted above, this son represents the tax collectors and sinners, the lost sons, who are listening to and responding to Jesus’ message.
The older brother, representing the self-righteous Pharisees and teachers of the law, is in a completely different place. When he finds that the cause of the celebration is the return and restoration of his brother, he refuses to join in the celebration. Instead, he becomes indignant and haughty. He is completely unresponsive to the father’s entreaties to join in the celebration. Instead, he attacks his father, accusing him of favoritism toward this disgraceful son, using the celebration as evidence.
The older son, by causing the father to have to come out to him to plead with him to join the celebration, and by speaking so rudely, harshly, and accusingly to his father, is actually, to middle eastern minds, bringing just as much shame and disgrace on himself and his father as his younger brother had done before. But the older brother is so angry that he is blind to his own unrighteousness. He refuses to even acknowledge that the guest of honor at the party is his brother, referring to him as “this son of yours.” He won’t accept his brother back, he won’t join the celebration, and he is mad at his father for doing both.
This is a perfect picture of the Pharisees and teachers of the law. Jesus is celebrating with tax collectors and sinners the fact that they have repented and have come back into the Father’s good graces. But the Pharisees had written these people off as hopeless long before. They themselves had sacrificed and served for long years in order to be accepted by God, and they feel that He is being unfair to them by simply opening His arms to these prodigals and receiving them back. To them it feels as if God did not honor their devotion and service over all of those years.
The thing that they didn’t get was that God’s love for those lost souls who were now returning did not diminish His love for them in the least. And they had completely lost track of the fact that, as fellow Jews, these men weren’t merely God’s “sons,” but were their long lost brothers as well! The parable was designed to show them this truth, and some of them got it. But, unfortunately, the realization of their role in this parable only made those who understood it more angry.
Father, Jesus’ parables are absolutely amazing. They cut immediately to the heart of every issue, to show every open heart the deep things of Your kingdom. Help me to never become hard-hearted, like the Pharisees, so that I miss the point, or resent the points that I do get. Instead, help me to always learn and grow under Your teaching. Amen.