Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them.” So to them Jesus addressed this parable: “A man had two sons.” (Luke 15.1-3, 11)
Most often called the parable of the prodigal son, the story that Rabbi Jesus tells the Pharisees and scribes more rightly should be called the parable of the younger son and the parable of the older son. They are two distinct stories, each with a principal character–a son—the two parables held together by, as the scriptures say, “a man who had two sons.” The father is the link between the stories and between the sons, the one that holds together the two stories and the one who tries to hold together the two sons.
Surely one of the most famous of all of Rabbi Jesus’ parables, the story of the prodigal son is well-known and much loved. Its central message–that God loves us regardless of our errant ways–brings us comfort, easily putting ourselves into the shoes of the son who follows his impulses rather than his good sense, and finds himself making a mess of his life and his relationship with his family, only to learn, in the end, his father still loves him, regardless of how far in the mud he has wallowed.
We find in that story all of Luke the Evangelist’s favorite talking points, especially mercy, repentance, and restoration. Part of a triad of stories with a similar theme—the lost sheep, the lost coin, and the lost son—the parable of the prodigal son amplifies the point made by the other two stories of lost things now found, that is, the joy that results when something that is lost is found. As the father says to the elder son at the end, “Now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again; he was lost and has been found.”
In this last of the trifecta, Luke pulls out all the stops, emphasizing first the depths of lostness that the younger son sinks to–separating himself from his family, shaming himself by acting as if his father is dead, throwing away his inheritance on free living, finally epitomized in the son having to care for pigs, the uncleanest of animals to the Jews.
But just as extreme as the depths of the son’s fall from grace are the depths of the father’s forgiveness. The evangelist leaves no doubt as to the father’s love for his son, however many his sins, however far he has fallen short of his hopes. The evangelist presents the father as waiting at the door for his son’s return, staring down the road, hopeful for the day that his son comes to his senses.
When that day comes, the father races towards the son, not waiting for him to make the walk of shame, but running to meet him, an utterly unseemly thing for a grown man to do in Mediterranean culture. And when the son begins his apology, ready to accept his punishment, the father interrupts his confession of sins and calls for new clothes to be brought for him, sandals to be put on his feet, and a ring slipped on his finger, all of which symbolize his full restoration as a member of the family.
And were that not enough, the father demands that a banquet be held to celebrate his son’s return, slaughtering a calf, a rarity in those times, done only when there was a big cause for celebration, one that called for a big crowd of attendees. Normally, for ordinary celebrations, there would have been the butchering of a lamb or a goat, if that, since meat was not an everyday part of the menu. But to butcher a calf signifies a large and a public celebration, emphasizing that all is forgiven, all is forgotten, the sounds of merriment the only sounds heard in the father’s house.
Again, it is easy to see how people find much to like in this story, especially those with enough self-awareness to know that we’re all prodigal sons, all of us falling short of who our Father calls us to be, none of us without cause to crawl back to our Father shamefaced and bowed down by our stupidity and by our cupidity. It brings great comfort to hope that our Father waits at the door for us, happy to see us back in the fold, wiping off the dirt and stains of our reckless and wayward days.
And, for the most part, that is where most of us choose to stay, with the story of the younger son, because it is the story that brings us comfort and hope, Luke putting before us a God who loves us unconditionally, who forgives us unconditionally, and who welcomes us home unconditionally. His arms are a good place for us to rest.
But, however good we feel with the story of the younger son, it is unfair of us to ignore or to short shrift the story of the elder son because, when all is said and done, this is the story that Rabbi Jesus intended to take center stage, not the story of the younger son. That point is crystal clear when the evangelist presents to us the cause of the double stories in the first place.
As Luke writes, “Tax collectors and sinners were all drawing near to listen to Jesus, but the Pharisees and scribes began to complain, saying, “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them. So to them Jesus addressed this parable.” In other words, the intended audience is not the sinners–who will identify with the younger son–but the Pharisees, who are forced to identify with the elder son because of their discontent and harsh judgment of Rabbi Jesus for his welcoming sinners.
And, while we are quick to claim the story of the younger son, finding ourselves in it to one degree or another, we are much less quick to claim the story of the older son, not wanting to see ourselves as judgmental and self-righteous, as he was, preferring to believe we’re not grumpy old men or pearl-clutching dowagers.
But, uncomfortable and unwelcomed as it might be, the story of the elder son is the one that Rabbi Jesus wants us to direct our attention to, knowing us better than we know ourselves, understanding that we are quick to judge and slow to forgive, putting us squarely in the shoes of the elder son, a surrogate for the Pharisees in the story.
Luke does a masterful job of painting the elder son for us, capturing his foul disposition and his discontent, his argumentativeness and his unforgivingness. The first thing the evangelist says of the elder son is that he was angry and refused to go into the party, both actions indicative of his hostility and harsh judgment. He sees himself as better than his brother and won’t step foot in the same room as his sibling, separating himself physically and morally from his brother.
His radical refusal to join in the party results in his father coming outside to beg the elder son to put past grievances behind him and to embrace his younger brother. Here, we see the elder son now addressing his animosity towards his father, accusing him of being as blind to his younger son’s faults as he is to his—the older son’s—own virtues. “These many years I have served you and I have never disobeyed a commandment of yours but you never gave me a goat that I might celebrate with my friends.”
His implied superiority is followed by his trashing his younger brother with venomous words, “But when this, your son, came, who has devoured your living with prostitution, you killed the fatted calf for him.” Sadly, the elder son never acknowledges his brother, calling him instead, “your son.” And he is quick to assume the worst of him, saying he had wasted his money on prostitutes, although that has not been mentioned.
If that were not bad enough, the elder brother throws in his father’s face that he would have enjoyed a party with his friends, but he will not enter a party for his brother, a damning admission, a split in the family he willingly chooses, setting himself apart, not only from his brother, but also from his father, whom, we happen to see, he never calls father.
With this separation from his father, the elder son commits a sin as grievous as the younger son, following his willfulness in the same way as his brother did, distancing himself from his father, ignoring his father’s desire to have his family together, not apart. Choosing to see himself as better than his brother, he divorces himself from his entire family, a billboard for the Pharisee’s treatment of sinners.
The story does not end as it began. As we heard at the beginning, “a man had two sons.” But now, a father does not have two sons. Once again, he has lost one of his sons, now because his elder son refuses to see his brother as a brother, choosing instead to judge his brother as inferior to him and as not deserving of any relationship with him.
It is important that we see that Rabbi Jesus does not give his listeners any clue as to the outcome of the story. The reason is simple. He doesn’t know if the Pharisees will join the party or if they will remain outside, judging those they see as beneath them, erecting walls and boundaries that divide them from their presumed inferiors. That decision, like the decision of the elder son, is one that the Pharisees will have to make for themselves, Rabbi Jesus unable to say what they will choose to do.
And that, for all intents and purposes, is where the two stories end, with a father still standing outside, begging one of his sons to rejoin the family. As he had stood in the doorway hoping his younger son would return home, now he stands in the doorway, hoping his elder son will return home. He waits with the same longing, the same desire to have all his children under the same roof, but the same inability to force his sons to see one another as brothers, not as enemies.
The father does not love one son more than another son. He loves the one who left his side to sow his wild oats, but who came to his senses and returned home. And he also loves his elder son who has stayed at his side through the years, but who has become an angry and unaccepting person, unwilling to accept his brother. He prays that as the younger son repented, that is, found his way home, so his elder son will also repent, that is, find his way back home. But it is unclear if he will.
What is clear as the story ends is that the father stays at the doorway, looking into the distance, longing for the son he lost to be found, hoping for the first sign of his return, ready to race down the road in jubilation, because he who was dead has come to life again, he who was lost has been found now.
Perhaps, in the end, that is what Rabbi Jesus asks us to do–to stand in the father’s shoes, seeing how impossible it is for him to choose to love one son and not the other, asking us not to break the father’s heart by splitting the family apart by our self-righteousness and judgmentalism.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 