‘Meanwhile, the elder 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 elder 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!”
Luke 15:25-30 NIVUK
Have you ever seen people who have completely misread a situation and got things totally wrong?
If you’re on social media, of course you have. It's full of it!
Isn’t it amazing how a single event can be perceived totally differently from different perspectives?
Many years ago, we had been home to the Philippines and put a picture online of us with our family. It was a really benign picture. Nothing in it for anyone to take offence. And people liked it.
Except one man. Who asked us to take it down.
We were puzzled and asked him why he felt that way. After all, he had no connection with our family at all.
He refused to say. So the picture stayed up.
Here we see the older son's perspective. And it is tough to see.
As we look at it, we need to remember that Jesus is using this man to represent the religious elite who are complaining about Him accepting and eating with sinners.
In other words, Jesus is turning up the heat on those who are religious, but have no loving relationship with their Heavenly Father. They are equally as estranged as the younger son, and equally as lost, but in a different way.
What is this oldest son’s perspective?
Firstly, that his work is slavery. The word used here is a bond-slave – someone who has no freedom to choose. It also means someone who suppresses their best interests in the favour of another. The older brother is quick to bring to the fore that he has never disobeyed his father. He has been conscientious.
But ask yourself: is this the response of someone who loves their father? Service motivated by love is never slavery or duty. It is instead a labour of love. The older son might have worked hard for his father, and produced much, but his attitude is way off.
And a bad attitude leads to bad quality service (see Malachi 1:6-14 for an example).
Secondly, we see that he believes his father is stingy – he didn’t even give his son a younger goat to celebrate with his friends.
This is just plain wrong. Look way back at the start of this parable:
Jesus continued: ‘There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, “Father, give me my share of the estate.” So he divided his property between them.
Luke 15:11-12 NIVUK
Did you see it? The father divided his estate among them. This means that the older son owns a double share of everything that the younger son had and everything the father now owns.
So who should give to whom a young goat?
The father isn’t the problem – it’s the oldest son who has not touched the inheritance the father gave him. He is too busy gazing enviously at the party thrown for his returned brother to realise that he has far more at his disposal.
Thirdly, he believes his father is unfair. And here we see his true colours, as he uses the strongest language of this whole tale:
But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!”
Luke 15:30 NIVUK
The word here for ‘squandered’ is stronger than that. It means ‘to consume’.
He is accusing his younger son of consuming his father’s wealth with prostitutes – and there is an added element of this for Jewish ears as these prostitutes often served at idol shrines.
So not only do we have the aspect of rampant sexual immorality and promiscuity, we also have an aspect of idol worship.
In all this, he is not wrong. No-one denies his younger brother has done all these things. But read these verses from the book of Ezekiel, written hundreds of years previously:
‘Son of man, say to the Israelites, “This is what you are saying: ‘Our offences and sins weigh us down, and we are wasting away because of them. How then can we live?’ ” Say to them, “As surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, I take no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but rather that they turn from their ways and live. Turn! Turn from your evil ways! Why will you die, people of Israel?”
Ezekiel 33:10-11 NIVUK
And if I say to a wicked person, “You will surely die,” but they then turn away from their sin and do what is just and right – if they give back what they took in pledge for a loan, return what they have stolen, follow the decrees that give life, and do no evil – that person will surely live; they will not die. None of the sins that person has committed will be remembered against them. They have done what is just and right; they will surely live. ‘Yet your people say, “The way of the Lord is not just.” But it is their way that is not just.
Ezekiel 33:14-17 NIVUK
The older brother cannot understand his father’s reaction. The younger son has taken a third of all his father owns and frittered it away on an immoral life, and then has high-tailed it back to daddy for a bail-out as soon as the reality of life has bitten.
There is no way the older brother would receive him, let alone kill the fattened calf and throw a party for him!
That is the opinion of the Pharisees and teachers of the law. 'Such people are disgraceful sinners', they would say. 'They are a bad influence. They deserve to be damned to hell.'
The funny thing is that one of their own prophets had the same opinion. We read about it in Jonah 4. Jonah had obeyed God (eventually), prophesied to Israel’s enemies in Nineveh (unwillingly) and they had repented (unexpectedly). And Jonah is livid! Everything he prophesied was not coming true. God was allowing the enemies of his people to live.
Jonah cared more about a plant that gave him shade than he did about the people of Nineveh.
But listen to God’s gentle answer:
But the Lord said, ‘You have been concerned about this plant, though you did not tend it or make it grow. It sprang up overnight and died overnight. And should I not have concern for the great city of Nineveh, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand people who cannot tell their right hand from their left – and also many animals?’
Jonah 4:10-11
There is a stern challenge here from us. Our culture seems determined to move further and further from God – just like the younger son. This means that it becomes further and further for them to come back to God. When they come, they will come like the younger son: bloodied, bruised and bankrupt.
They will carry with them a ton of regret over the wanton waste of their father’s resources.
They will feel contrite and ashamed.
So how will we treat people like that when they turn up at our door?
Will we be harsh and unyielding like the older brother? If we are, then this will only prove how estranged we truly are from our Heavenly Father.
Or will we welcome them with open hearts and open arms? Will we cover their shame and help them gain the life they should have lived?
But let me say one last thing. If you are lost and know you need to return to God, a reaction like this might put you off. You might justify your distance by telling yourself that you couldn’t bear it if this is how you were received.
Don’t be afraid. The older brother is not the head of the household, the father is. And He is longing for you to return home.
So why don’t you come back home to where you should be? Why not be found, today?
Prayer
Lord Jesus, after all I've done, I'm afraid of how others will react when I come home. I feel so ashamed. Help me realise that you love me as I am, but you love me too much to not help me to change. Give me the strength to come home, Lord Jesus. Amen.
Questions
1. Are there ways in which the older brother was right to act this way? Why?
2. But why was his reaction wrong? What was so wrong about it?
3. How will you react if a sinner who has hurt you repents and asks for forgiveness?
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