Luke 15:1-3; 11-32; March 30, 2025; Fourth Sunday in Lent
—–
At Bible Study this past Wednesday, our good friend Chip Rupert said that “The Prodigal Son” more or less sums up the entire Gospel.
And I think he might be right. After all, it is the parable that’s got it all: envy, anger, greed, forgiveness, redemption, love.
It’s remarkable, really.
Think: a father’s unyielding embrace of his son, despite that he went far off, whored away his inheritance, and only came back after he coveted what others were making in their wages.
Honestly, if I were smart, I would have just preached on this. This amazing story of grace and redemption.
But whoever said that I was smart?
Instead, I have chosen to focus today on the other son. This elder son. The brother who stayed home. This dude, who grumbled like the pharisees and the scribes at his perceived slight.
For, after all, this guy’s story just hits closer to home. Doesn’t it?
This guy was so upset that he didn’t get his own robe and sandals that he just couldn’t allow himself to be happy to see his brother find his way home.
He more or less says: “I’ve done everything the right way, while my brother has done everything the wrong way. So, why should he get anything at all? I’m the one who deserves the fatted calf! Not him!”
Oh yes, my friends, this hits closer to home indeed.
For this sounds a lot like us, a lot like me.
See, I was also the eldest child at home watching my brother seemingly get away with everything, while also receiving everything without question.
Show of hands, who here is the elder sibling in their family?
Now, am I speaking the truth or a lie? Did your younger sibling(s) seemingly get away with murder too? With destitute living? While you were dealt with more strictly, though you lived more humbly?
It’s ridiculous, right?
Yeah, these younger siblings out there have had their moment in the sun for too long! Us eldest deserve some recognition today for our hardship! For our toil and labor. Amen?
Except, that we probably don’t.
We likely don’t deserve any such recognition, especially if we acted anything like me; like this elder son, pharisee, and scribe.
If we complained and grumbled along our way, unhappy for anyone else at any grace they might have received.
Pointing fingers still. Judging. Deeming others unworthy, hoping that their perceived sins might cancel them right out of existence.
Yes, too often my friends, we have been and are like Costanza. George Costanza. Yes, the one and only Costanza. See picture below.
There in the background, scowling in the picture of other people’s happiness. At them having a good time. At their embrace, redemption, and love. Thinking “this should be our moment. Our picture. We’re the ones who deserve it. We’re the ones who have followed the rules!”
I know I’ve told you a little about this before, but when I was younger, I was an angry, ugly, Christian. I was like this elder son. A pharisee. A scribe. Who could quote a book and a verse and therefore believed I was better than all of my peers.
More than that, I prided myself on such things like not cursing. Not partying. Like, not really doing much of anything besides rapping (and yes, I said rapping – I was a rapper, but that’s for another sermon at another time).
But man, how I loved to judge others from inside my ivory castle, and boy, did I get upset when it felt like these others were rewarded, receiving greater attention and popularity for their “destitute living,” while I on the other hand garnered less recognition for my more “righteous” way of living.
Was or is this perhaps you too?
But the truth is — the truth was — I was a coward. And I didn’t deserve recognition.
For I stayed home on Friday nights because I was afraid. Afraid to sin. Not because I was sure of myself. Or my faith. But because I believed the rigidity of the rules “protected me” from possibly messing up, and would reward me in the end.
I was the elder son then who watched so much of life, indeed most of youthful adventure, pass me by because I imagined I would be celebrated, with fatted calf and all.
I was exactly who the Psalmist was talking about in our Call to Worship today when he wrote, “don’t be like a horse or mule without understanding…”.
For even though I could quote it, I didn’t understand anything about scripture. Neither at all what my faith was about, or, what it should be about.
And so, I behaved like a mule dragging along the heaviest barge of false piety.
What’s that quote by Mark Twain? “Broad, wholesome, charitable views of things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.”
How perfect is that? And how accurately, sadly, did it describe me, and perhaps, you too.
Twain goes on to say, “Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts.”
And boy, does that sum up both the younger and elder son’s stories, doesn’t it?
For there the elder was vegetating in a corner like a weary little hermit, and instead of becoming more righteous for it, he became more narrow-minded, prejudiced, and ugly, while it was the younger who went away, who ultimately turned face and repented, and who in the end was rewarded and celebrated.
Jesus is telling us today, my friends, through this parable, that we need to get out and live a little. And that we’d all be better off for it.
That we’d be more wholesome and charitable if we dared to step outside of our bubbles, our echo chambers, and tried on another shoe from time to time. Going on an adventure or two. And learning that there is often another way, another thought, another treasure of the Spirit that we could all learn and benefit from and be amazed at.
Maybe then, if we left some of that hard rigidity behind, that false piety, we’d actually start epitomizing the gospel that was in fact Jesus’ good news.
Living like the Father who runs towards his children, celebrating them rather than scolding them, especially if all they’re doing is just trying their best to find their way home.
“There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.” – Luke 15:7
Amen.
