Now, the older son had been out in the field and, on his way back, as he neared the house, he heard the sound of music and dancing. . . He became angry and when he refused to enter the house, his father came out and pleaded with him. . . “My son, you are here with me always, everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again, he was lost and has been found.” (Luke 15.25, 28, 31)
We have one of Rabbi Jesus’ most well-known teachings for our consideration today. Called the parable of the Prodigal Son, the story continues to comfort and to challenge its listeners, pulling us into the conflict presented in the story, forcing us to see ourselves in one or all of the characters, in the end revealing to us some hard truths about ourselves.
As a rule, people gravitate toward the prodigal son, the errant brat who wants to take the first bus out of Smallville, only to learn that the Big World is not as great as he thought. Smart enough to know he had it better at home, he returns, ready to take a tongue lashing from his dad, only to find that his dad is too happy to see him to be bothered with berating him.
Overall, that is a feel-good story, offering us the consolation of knowing that we can always go home, however wild and wooly our youth, and that God–played by the father in the story–tends to overlook our stupidity and cupidity, or, at least chooses to see us in our best light, regardless of the dirt on our hands and the smell of a pig sty on our clothes.
Even if we aren’t quite as bad as that bad boy in the story, we still like his story, because everybody likes a happy ending and a family reunion. The problem, of course, is that the story of the playboy who grows up–a biblical version of Ronnie McDowell’s song, “You’re Going to Ruin My Bad Reputation”–is only the first half the story and, while the reformed man child may be sitting home on Saturday night sipping tea and watching TV, the second half of the story doesn’t end with kumbaya vibes.
And, frankly, the second half is the real reason that Rabbi Jesus tells the story; the first half just sets the stage, giving us a sense of relief, reassuring us that all is well on the home front, so long as we eventually get back on the right road after a few wrong turns and a few too many bad ways. It would be nice if we could stop the reel there, but this is not the end of the movie, so we have to stay in our seats. And put on our seatbelt.
The clue is at the start, before the story even begins, which is why we didn’t pay much attention to it, eager to get to the story. Had we been more attentive, we would have known this story was not a happy-ever-after type of story. Whenever we have the Pharisees and scribes in the same zip code with Rabbi Jesus, we can expect friction. And that’s exactly what prompts the parable that the Rabbi tells: it’s a story directed towards his antagonists.
Should we have missed the intro, Luke the evangelist sets the stage by telling us that “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 he addressed this parable. A man had two sons.’” It’s clear, then, that Rabbi Jesus has faced criticism from the religious leaders for his association with sinners.
The evangelist says they complained, but the Greek word has more of a bite, indicating that it’s not what we do when we don’t like the choice of desserts on the menu. Better words that carry the sense of grievance that is contained in the word are mutter or grumble or murmuring greatly. Our word “bitching” comes closest to describing what they were doing, but Luke wasn’t familiar with that word when he wrote his gospel. Or, if he did, he was too polite to use it.
But the point cannot be overlooked. The Pharisees and the scribes are badmouthing Rabbi Jesus, muttering because he doesn’t have the good sense to stay away from ne’er-do-wells. If the religious leaders sound like the posh and proper pearl-clutching aristocrats of Downton Abbey, it is because they were. They had little use or little time for tax-collectors, heathens, or call-girls.
And, for whatever reason, they weren’t satisfied to keep their distance from the riffraff, they also wanted Rabbi Jesus to do the same. Maybe the reason isn’t all that difficult to find. We never like somebody who makes us look bad, or who throws into question our beliefs, or who suggests we’ve got it wrong. We can stay on our high horse only so long as nobody annoys the horse.
Obviously, as the Rabbi begins his story, the Pharisees know they aren’t playing a part in it because they’re nothing like the profligate son, an impulsive, hedonistic, incorrigible bad apple that fell far from the tree. As the story proceeds and the son stumbles home, hung-over and smelling like a brewery, they’re still more or less comfortable, although they’re getting nervous when the father runs out of the house to greet his wayward offspring. To them, that doesn’t look right or sound proper. Oh well.
And they probably can live with the story of the homecoming party, although they’d never kill the fatted calf until they had the son pay for his crimes, working on a chain gang in the fields, dressed in black stripes. And they’re not so obtuse as not to figure out that the younger son looks and acts a whole lot like every other sinner in the crowd. Still, so far no finger is pointed at them, because obviously, certainly, unquestionably, they are not the younger son.
But, as we should know, the story begins with “a man had two sons.” So, where is the other one? And what role does he play in the plot? Here, the rubber hits the road, so to speak. And if nobody had egg on their face up to this point, except the younger son and his kind, well that’s about to change. Enter the older son, an angry, resentful, burn-the-bridge-type person if there ever was one.
Having finished his work in the field–he is a dutiful son to his credit–he returns home, only to hear music blasting through speakers in the backyard. When he sees one of the catering crew, he stops and asks what is going on. The guy, unaware of the bad blood between the brothers, says, a smile on his face because he is making some change with this party, “Your little brother has returned and your old man had us grill sirloins for the shindig.”
Again, the word choice here is not on the mark. The translation says he became angry, but, closer to the Greek, he erupted and became enraged. All his pent-up hostility and his stewing resentment towards his useless brother erupts and, as we might say, he saw fire. Obviously, he thinks, his dad has lost his mind, or, worse, is playing favorites one more time.
Enough is enough and the older brother refuses to go inside the house. He won’t step foot near his brother and he really doesn’t want to see his dad either. He stays outside and stews, his rage growing by the second, his fury just needing a match for it to explode. And then the father reappears. For a second time, the father comes out of the house and goes to another of his sons, eager to embrace, hoping for peace in the household.
The father pleads with his son, begging him to come inside. But the older son is having none of it, laying before his father all the examples he can think of where his younger brother got away with murder, while he had to clean up the mess. “When your son returns, who swallowed up your property with prostitutes, for him you slaughter the fatted calf.” If there was any doubt about how angry he was, it’s clear now. He won’t even acknowledge his kinship as a brother, instead choosing to call him “your son.”
The ever-patient, ever-loving father tries to talk sense into his older son, “My son, you are here with me always; everything I have is yours. But now we must celebrate and rejoice, because your brother was dead and has come to life again, he was lost and has been found.” And that’s where the story ends. If there ever was a cliff-hanger, we find it here. Did the older son get over his outrage and go inside? Or did he stay outside, putting the story right where it began, with one son lost and another son found?
There is every reason to believe the older brother stayed angry and stayed away, refusing to be anywhere near his brother. And how do we know this? Because of the example of the Pharisees and the scribes. The older brother is simply a stand-in for them, his attitude the same as theirs, his intolerance mirroring their intolerance of sinners.
And if we’re going to get the full import of this story that Rabbi Jesus told, then we’re going to have to take a break from seeing ourselves as the younger son–a much easier role for us–and see ourselves as the older son, someone who is quick to condemn, slow to forgive, the first to build a wall between us and them. If we allow ourselves to look in the mirror to find the face of the older son there, we will have come to understand this parable in a new way, a deeper way.
Of course, Rabbi Jesus offers us another way to live, as he always does. We don’t have to be the older brother. There is the option to be like the father, a person whose love is so generous he can welcome into his warm embrace those who are good and those who fall short of good, those who cause no problems and those who are a problem, those who are lily white and those who are black as tar.
And we can get there, but it requires that we stop seeing ourselves as better than others, holier than others, a higher quality than others. Because, as the story should make clear to us, neither son is without fault. Both have issues. And the father is well aware of that fact. But he loves them both, seeing them as more alike than different. And that is the road back home for us–to see all of us as more alike than different. When we’re able to do that–as the father does–then we will be able to walk through the open door of our father’s house and join in the party with all our other brothers and sisters.
–Jeremy Myers
Sunday Brunch 