The Parable of the Two Brothers
(Rutgers, March 22, 1998; 4th Sunday in Lent, Year C
Psalm 103:1-14 (OT, p. 613); Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32 (NT, pp. 80-81)
With whom did you identify.
Raise your hands:
father,
younger brother,
older brother.
Most identified with one brother or the other.
If you identified with the younger brother,
your story has an unmistakably happy ending.
If you identified with the older brother,
it's not clear whether your story ends happily or tragically.
Before exploring this, let me flesh out a few cultural details of story.
Younger brother entitled to 1;3 of property.
probably all land goes to older brother and
liquid assets used for younger brother's share.
So entitled to ask for inheritance so can start off on own:
perhaps buy his own land,
develop his own trade.
He asks for his freedom, and he gets it.
The most unusual thing here is his going to a far country
rather than staying close and in touch.
He blew it.
He wasted everything.
Degradation of feeding pigs.
Decided to go home, for even his father's servants were better off.
Will go in penitence and practices his speech:
''I have sinned vs. heaven and before you."
''I no longer deserve to be called your son."
"Treat me like one of your hired hands."
So he sets out for home.
While still at a distance, his father catches sight of him
and is filled with compassion.
He runs to his son and embraces and kisses him.
The son then begins his rehearsed speech:
''I have sinned vs. heaven and before you."
''I no longer deserve to be called your son."
But before he can get out the third part of his speech,
about being treated like one of the hired hands,
the father interrupts him and commands his servants
to fetch the best robe and a ring and sandals for his son,
and to kill the fatted calf and prepare a banquet:
"For this son of mine was dead and is alive again;
he was lost and is found!"
One reading: father is a God-figure, and y. b. is a penitent sinner.
Message. God welcomes and embraces and restores sinners.
Y. b. had to have experienced immeasurable joy.
and if you identified with him, you, like him, can say to
yourselves:
"I'm not worthy of being treated as a child by God.
y et God insists on calling me child,
and God does so with no trace of bitterness,
resentment, or residual anger- only JOY!
God is so gracious! What a pleasant shock!
No long period of penance.
Yes, if you identified with the younger brother,
your story has a happy ending indeed.
To you this story offers the joy-inspiring message
that God loves us while we are yet sinners
and welcomes us home as beloved children
before we can even ask it.
But many of you said you did not identify with the younger brother.
rather you identified with the older brother.
This brother, upon learning-indirectly-that
his father had welcomed home his prodigal son with a banquet,
did not feel glad; he felt mad.
And if you identified with this brother, your shock
was not a shock of joy, but a shock of outrage.
Parents should provide banquets for obedient children,
not for those who waste a fortune.
In his anger, the older brother is not even able
to go in to the banquet.
So his father comes out to him and begs him to come in.
And this son angrily splutters back
his indignation that the disobedient son is being treated better
than his father has ever treated him, the obedient son.
Did you notice that the older brother is so angry that
he cannot bring himself to call the returned prodigal his brother.
he angrily refers to his brother only as "this son of yours."
There is shock in this story.
The shock of the younger brother had been:
"I'm accepted; I'm loved."
The shock of the older brother is:
I'm unappreciated; I've been had by this kid;
I'm not loved by my father."
The father speaks kindly to his angry son, saying,
"Son, you are always with me, and all that is mine is yours.
you are appreciated; you have not been had; you are loved.
And this is a time for you to join me in a special joy,
for your dead brother is in fact alive,
and your lost brother is indeed found."
For the "older brothers" among us, Jesus poses the challenge:
"Does your righteousness have a negative side to it?
Do you get angry and resentful at God's graciousness to others."
For the "older brothers" among us, Jesus poses the challenge:
"Come on in and enjoy the party!"
Did you ever notice that this parable does not really end.
Jesus doesn't tell us what response the older brother makes.
Jesus leaves us free to imagine our own ending:
did he run off angrily, and maybe even leave home ?
did he stay outside, sulking and feeling sorry for himself'
did he go inside out of a sense of obedience
but without any real joy?
or did he go inside because his father's words
had transformed his anger into love and joy?
What is the ending of the story of the older brother?
Let's take another poll:
How many of you imagine:
that he ran off angrily, and maybe even left home ?
that he stayed outside, sulking and feeling sorry for himself?
that he went inside out of a sense of obedience
but without any real joy?
that he went inside because his father's words
had transformed his anger into love and joy?
All of you who identified with the older brother, and I'm one of you:
are we really reconciled to the generosity of God's love for all?
are we the kind of religious people whose faith doesn't really
make us warm and happy, but grumpy?
Well, we need to really hear and heed God's words to us:
"Come on inside and join the party. Share my joy. Be glad."
For God is saying to us that the ending of our story
can be every bit as happy and joyous as the ending of
our younger sibling's story.
Ours is a parable of two brothers:
one whose story reaches a happy climax;
and one whose story finds different endings in different lives.
This Lent, it's within our power to give that story, too, a happy ending
by responding to God's gracious love with joy.
Let us pray.
O God, You are like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child,
like a father who runs to welcome the prodigal home. You are faithful
in Your love for us and for all of humankind, even when we break
faith with You. May Your constancy in love toward us and others
always bring us joy. In the name of Jesus, the one who taught in
parables, we pray. Amen.
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