Friday, February 25

Luke 15:25-32

“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.’”

So we come to the end of the week – and the end of the story – and the story does not end well for the older brother. The younger brother, the one whose rebellion and sin are so obvious, returns home confessing that sin and rebellion and begging to be taken back as a hired hand. He is embraced by the father, and the party begins! The older bother, whose outward life is one of model obedience, harbors his sins of pride, self-righteousness and hatred deep within his heart. When his father comes to him with the invitation to join the celebration, the sense we get from the parable is that he refuses.

What’s Jesus trying to say?

Remember that Luke says that the audience for this particular parable included both “tax collectors and sinners” as well as “Pharisees and teachers of the law.” It’s easy to see that the “tax collectors and sinners” would have identified with the younger brother in the story. They are people who have, in a sense, thumbed their nose at God and done their own thing. They are rebels; they are lost – spiritually speaking – and they know it. Some may not even want to be found yet! The “Pharisees and teachers of the law” were good people. They kept God’s law; they were sure to observe all the proper sacrifices; they did not see themselves as sinners and likely resented Jesus insinuating that they were as much in need of God’s forgiveness and grace as the tax-collectors and sinners!

And that’s the point. Younger brothers know they are lost; older brothers don’t. Younger brothers sin outwardly. Older brothers sin inwardly. Younger brothers don’t pretend to love God. Older brothers pretend. When younger brothers “come to their senses” – they repent. Older brothers refuse to repent because they don’t believe they have done anything wrong.

I believe Jesus is saying, among other things, that it is possible for an “older brother” to be in church every weekend and be every bit as lost as the “younger brother” who is still eating with the pigs.

So, as we come to the end of the week – have you discovered any “older brother” tendencies in your heart? My guess is that most of us, if we have spent most of our lives as Christians, have a little “older brother” in us. We keep score; we tend to judge – even if just a little; and we sometimes forget how to receive and offer grace. My God use the truth of this parable to remind us again of who we are, who he is, and to be sure to join the party!

Brian Coffey