The Elder Brother
The parable of the prodigal son is driving home the point Jesus has been making through chapter after chapter. God accepts those the religious reject; and in their rejection, the religious should begin to see their own pride and rejection of God’s grace.
The younger son has demanded his share of the inheritance before the father’s death, tantamount in their society to calling for the father’s death. It would have been a sign of the greatest disrespect for the father. The inheritance in their day was not in money but in land. Claiming his inheritance meant selling off the third portion of the father’s land that would otherwise have been given to the son on the father’s death.
The son has sold the land. He’s taken the money to a foreign land. He’s spent the money in immoral living. He’s feeding pigs and eating what they eat. He’s done everything a Jew must never do and he’s become everything a Jew must never become – yet, he’s welcomed home.
While the prodigal son is the prime focus, the parable tells a lot about two other family members – the father and the elder brother. In recent years this story has become central to a new emphasis on God’s fatherhood and rightly so.
But the elder brother is characteristic of another part of Jesus’ listening audience. The ‘Pharisees and the teachers of the law’ are there (Luke 15:2) as well as the ‘tax collectors and sinners’ (Luke 15:1).
This elder brother has done everything right. ‘All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders’ (Luke 15:29). The Pharisees would have agreed with this son’s answer; but they don’t seem to have picked up on the father’s compassionate nature. They can’t understand it. It doesn’t fit their carefully constructed religious template.
The parable obviously speaks of God the Father and His enormous heart for the broken and hurting, for those the Pharisees and teachers of the law commonly called “sinners.”
In the parable the elder son dishonours his own father by refusing to obey his request to come and join the party (Luke 15:28). He cannot handle his father’s gracious heart.
This parable teaches what has been a recurring and increasing theme in Jesus’ teaching at this time. God is opening the door to those the religious reject, and closing the door to those who think they alone have earned the right to enter.
The church has to take this to heart. We look more and more like the elder brother. God has countless prodigals who belong back home but will we (the elder brother) receive them?
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