We all know the story of the prodigal son. We’ve heard it hundreds of times and we probably know the story by heart but we'll still try to learn something from it. The younger brother leaves the house and goes out to have fun and then realizes how stupid he is and the gracious father that is God accepts him back with open arms. But this parable is so much more than just that, there is also the older son, who is a forgotten character. Looking at who Jesus was talking to, the Pharisees, the older son is an important character, especially with how his story does not resolve but ends with a cliffhanger. Many times we just focus on the younger son and the beautiful story of redemption there, but we also need to compare and contrast with the older son as well. Both sons are equally lost just in different ways.
I’m first going to start with the younger son. Let’s read verses 11 and 12. “Jesus continued: There was a man who had two sons. The younger one said to his father, ‘Father, give me my share of the estate.’ So he divided his property between them." Now what the younger son was doing was crazy. He was literally saying to his father “Yo give me my inheritance. I don’t want to wait till you die.” This was the ultimate disrespect. He did not care about his father, or how he was tearing his life apart and land apart, or that he was ruining his father's honor and standing in the community. He was asking the father to sell his land and everything he had worked for his entire life. He was selling his life and his blood, all those years he had put into it. But why did the father agree? Any sane person would have just said no. But what did the father in the story do? He divided his property and gave the younger son what he asked for.
In this story the father represents, God the Father and the younger son a sinner like the tax-collectors and prostitutes. They are the people who are obviously sinners, who are shunned by the rest of Jewish society. Everyone looks down upon them as sinners and unclean, because they have left the Jewish customs and traditions for money and pleasure, just like the younger son left the father God’s household.
But why did God the father give him what he asked for? Like Mary said in her message it is because of God’s crazy love that just doesn’t make sense. He loves the son so much, and just wants a relationship with him no matter the cost or the consequences. God loves us and the son so much that he is willing to tear his life and himself apart for us.
Now let’s read verse 13. “Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.” Here the younger son is trying to find his own independence. As he is finally free from his father he thinks that he will have the best time of his life by partying and doing whatever he wants.
I really identify with him here. All my life I’ve wanted to just get out from underneath my parent’s control and just do whatever I want to. Whether is going to parties or girls or whatever, I hate being told by my parents what I can and cannot do.
In the same way, I have been like the younger son in my relationship with God. I haven’t wanted a relationship with God thinking that God is just like my parents. I just want to do whatever my heart and my flesh want and have the most fun I can.
However, look at verses 14-16. “After he had spent everything, there was a severe famine in that whole country and he began to be in need. So he went and hired him himself out to a citizen of that country, who sent him to his fields to feed pigs. He longed to fill his stomach with the pods that the pigs were eating, but no one gave him anything.” The younger son at this point is at the very bottom. He is living in a pig pen, surrounded by mud and filth and dirty animals, without food or money. All the wild living, the partying, and the trying to have as much fun as he wants brought him here to the lowest point in his life. He had no self-control and had wasted everything he had.
You may be thinking to yourself, “Hey I’m not the younger son, I don’t want to party or do any of that stuff. I’m a good kid.” But the younger son mentality is about wanting your independence from God, thinking that you know what’s better for your life than God does. It’s about trusting in yourself more than you trust God and his plan for you. The younger brother mindset is about self-discovery. It is the idea that “I’m going to live however I want to and that I will find my own true happiness without anyone else. And we all have that in us. We don’t want to listen to authority or especially God because you want to do whatever you want to do without anyone telling you otherwise. But this parable tells us that if you do, do that it only leads to destruction and filth. Just doing whatever we want leads to only misery because we have no self-control, it’s just a part of our sinful nature. Once we start sinning, without a reference point, we start a spiral of sin one we cannot get ourselves out of. This way of living is encouraged by our society so when someone does not do it, it seems weird. We’ve been lied to by Satan who says that the only way for us to be happy is if we control our own lives and not listen to anyone, but it only brings pain and suffering.
The younger son is lost; all he wants from Father God is his possessions without a relationship, he just wants his money so he can live however he wants. His lostness is obvious; he ends up in a pigsty, with no food, no money and most importantly no relationship with the father. He only wants God’s things and not God himself.
However, look at the younger sons change in heart. Let’s read verses 17-20a. “When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants. So he got up and went to his father.” Here we finally see the younger son realize how much of a selfish idiot he has been. He realizes that the way he is living is wrong, and that he is now longer worthy to be called his father’s son. He comes up with a plan to go back to the father and earn his way back into the family. And we think that, that idea sounds good. That by doing good deeds we earn our way back into God’s family. But in Isaiah 64:6 God says our deeds are like filthy rags to him. They cannot possibly compare to all the sin and evil we have done. That idea of thinking, that we can work our way back into the family is wrong and minimizes God’s grace.
But look how the father responds in verses 20b- 24 “ But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, “Father I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate.” The father God’s crazy love is on example again here. He does not care about what society will think and runs to his son, something dignified men do not do. He also fully reinstated him back as his son, even though he came back for the wrong reasons God didn’t care, all he wanted was the relationship with him.
On the other hand, there is the older son who is basically the complete opposite but the same still. Let’s read verse 29-30. “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.” Look how he talks about himself. He uses the word “slaved” to describe his relationship with the father. He only sees his father as someone to work under and not as a relationship. Like the younger son he is lost, he is far away from God and does not know how to get back to him and have a relationship with him. Even though the older son has done perfectly and followed everything the father has told him to do for years, he is still lost. He does not know his relationship with the father. He sees himself not as a son who is loved by the father, and has everything that the father has. He sees himself as a slave working for his father in order to earn a pay, like the hired hand that the younger son wanted to be. He is expecting God to give him what he wants because he believes he deserved it and so God owes him.
Both the younger son and the older son want the same thing. They want God’s things. The younger son just asks for it straight up, but the older son takes a different approach. He works for the father this entire time to earn the possessions of the father. Look how he talks about his brother. He complains that he never received even a young goat, he also complains about how his brother squandered the father’s property and how the father killed the fattened calf for him. In all of his complaints he only cares about the possessions, goats, property and the fattened calf. There is no sign of a relationship anywhere in what he says, whether it is to the father or to his brother. The older son thinks he is better than the younger son and so he deserves more than him.
The older son is furious at his father; every single word he speaks is dripping with hate toward his father. He says “Look!”, that is not the proper way to address your father especially in this highly patriarchal society. The older son was disrespecting the father in his anger, and attacking his standing in society. He has no love for his father, he only hates him and is waiting till he dies so he can take his inheritance and property as well.
The older son is a metaphor for the Pharisees, he represents their lifestyle of following the law to the letter. But Jesus is saying something crazy to them, he is saying that these people who have followed every single one of God’s rules are lost, just as lost as all these sinners they look down on. The Pharisees like the older son are trying to gain their salvation by their works and on their own goodness and their own righteousness. However, they are lost because they lack a relationship with the father God. They think that they do have righteousness because they follow the rules so well but that’s all it is, they only follow God as a slave master. They also do not see anything wrong with this, as they are righteous in their own eyes and in the eyes of society. They think they are perfect and live in accordance to God’s will when in reality they harbor a deep hatred and resentment toward him.
Often times members of the church have the older son’s mindset. We think that if we do all the things that we’re supposed to do that God is supposed to bless us. If we have perfect HBF and Sunday worship service attendance than God will bless us. But that isn’t how it works. Our perfect actions can make us lost like the older son. We feel that God owes us because of everything we have done for him when in reality God doesn’t care about all those things. What he wants like the father in the parable is a relationship. God isn’t our master telling us what to do and forcing us to do his will, he is our father.
I find myself judging others and thinking that I am better than another person because I act better than someone else, because I am smarter than someone else or because I go to church or I don’t participate in the activities that they do. I see myself as above others, that I am better than them because of my less wicked actions. But like the Pharisees and the older son I am lost, I am far away from God because of my habitual way of doing things. I only do things for my parents and others, hoping that people see me as holy, when my heart is far from whatever I am doing, whether it is HBF or Sunday Service or whatever. I am like the older son, seemingly enslaved by God, doing what I perceive is his will so that he will bless me, and so that others think highly of me, while I am secretly cursing and hating God in my heart. But there is hope, God wants me to come to a place like the younger son, where my heart is broken for him and I realize how much I need the father. Then God can draw me in just like the younger son came home and was reinstated. I pray that God may really draw me close to him so that I can come back into his family and be reinstated as his son. One personal struggle I have in my own life is about college. My parents really want me to stay in Chicago and go to either UIC or IIT, and so I can join their ministry. But because of the younger son side of me I honestly have no desire to stay and want to run away as far as possible, possibly going out to California or the East Coast. But if I stay, and live under my parents will I just be the older son and habitually continue to do religious things without putting my heart into it? But I’ve been thinking of my college decision the wrong way. It isn’t whether I stay or go, because I can be equally lost in either decision, it is that I need to dedicate my college years to growing in my relationship with my father in Heaven, but I’m so scared of giving up what I want with my own life. I’m scared of giving up my desires for freedom and independence, from God and my parents. I struggle with the idea of giving up my life to God, because I really do not want to, I just want to live however I want. This college decision process has been a real struggle for me, but I pray that through the next four years of life, I can use them wherever I am to build my relationship with my Father God, not that I use this decision to run away from God or begrudgingly obey my parents.
I want to ask you, which son are you? Are you the younger son who wants to run away from all his responsibilities and live his life however he pleases? Or are you the older son? A person who just does things because he thinks he has to, with no real love in his heart, just going through the motions to please people in his community? Or like me are you a mixture of both sons, trying to run away from God but also grudgingly doing the things that we think we have to? Whichever son you are, you are lost, not knowing the true love of the father, thinking that you can save yourself by your obedience or lack of it. But there is still hope, in our lostness we need to find the Son of God, Jesus, the true elder brother, who came on earth to seek the lost and bring us back into God’s family.
The younger son is lost; all he wants from Father God is his possessions without a relationship, he just wants his money so he can live however he wants. His lostness is obvious; he ends up in a pigsty, with no food, no money and most importantly no relationship with the father. He only wants God’s things and not God himself.
However, look at the younger sons change in heart. Let’s read verses 17-20a. “When he came to his senses, he said, How many of my father’s hired servants have food to spare, and here I am starving to death! I will set out and go back to my father and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired servants. So he got up and went to his father.” Here we finally see the younger son realize how much of a selfish idiot he has been. He realizes that the way he is living is wrong, and that he is now longer worthy to be called his father’s son. He comes up with a plan to go back to the father and earn his way back into the family. And we think that, that idea sounds good. That by doing good deeds we earn our way back into God’s family. But in Isaiah 64:6 God says our deeds are like filthy rags to him. They cannot possibly compare to all the sin and evil we have done. That idea of thinking, that we can work our way back into the family is wrong and minimizes God’s grace.
But look how the father responds in verses 20b- 24 “ But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him. The son said to him, “Father I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son. But the father said to his servants, Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate for this son of mine was dead and is alive again; was lost and is found. So they began to celebrate.” The father God’s crazy love is on example again here. He does not care about what society will think and runs to his son, something dignified men do not do. He also fully reinstated him back as his son, even though he came back for the wrong reasons God didn’t care, all he wanted was the relationship with him.
On the other hand, there is the older son who is basically the complete opposite but the same still. Let’s read verse 29-30. “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.” Look how he talks about himself. He uses the word “slaved” to describe his relationship with the father. He only sees his father as someone to work under and not as a relationship. Like the younger son he is lost, he is far away from God and does not know how to get back to him and have a relationship with him. Even though the older son has done perfectly and followed everything the father has told him to do for years, he is still lost. He does not know his relationship with the father. He sees himself not as a son who is loved by the father, and has everything that the father has. He sees himself as a slave working for his father in order to earn a pay, like the hired hand that the younger son wanted to be. He is expecting God to give him what he wants because he believes he deserved it and so God owes him.
Both the younger son and the older son want the same thing. They want God’s things. The younger son just asks for it straight up, but the older son takes a different approach. He works for the father this entire time to earn the possessions of the father. Look how he talks about his brother. He complains that he never received even a young goat, he also complains about how his brother squandered the father’s property and how the father killed the fattened calf for him. In all of his complaints he only cares about the possessions, goats, property and the fattened calf. There is no sign of a relationship anywhere in what he says, whether it is to the father or to his brother. The older son thinks he is better than the younger son and so he deserves more than him.
The older son is furious at his father; every single word he speaks is dripping with hate toward his father. He says “Look!”, that is not the proper way to address your father especially in this highly patriarchal society. The older son was disrespecting the father in his anger, and attacking his standing in society. He has no love for his father, he only hates him and is waiting till he dies so he can take his inheritance and property as well.
The older son is a metaphor for the Pharisees, he represents their lifestyle of following the law to the letter. But Jesus is saying something crazy to them, he is saying that these people who have followed every single one of God’s rules are lost, just as lost as all these sinners they look down on. The Pharisees like the older son are trying to gain their salvation by their works and on their own goodness and their own righteousness. However, they are lost because they lack a relationship with the father God. They think that they do have righteousness because they follow the rules so well but that’s all it is, they only follow God as a slave master. They also do not see anything wrong with this, as they are righteous in their own eyes and in the eyes of society. They think they are perfect and live in accordance to God’s will when in reality they harbor a deep hatred and resentment toward him.
Often times members of the church have the older son’s mindset. We think that if we do all the things that we’re supposed to do that God is supposed to bless us. If we have perfect HBF and Sunday worship service attendance than God will bless us. But that isn’t how it works. Our perfect actions can make us lost like the older son. We feel that God owes us because of everything we have done for him when in reality God doesn’t care about all those things. What he wants like the father in the parable is a relationship. God isn’t our master telling us what to do and forcing us to do his will, he is our father.
I find myself judging others and thinking that I am better than another person because I act better than someone else, because I am smarter than someone else or because I go to church or I don’t participate in the activities that they do. I see myself as above others, that I am better than them because of my less wicked actions. But like the Pharisees and the older son I am lost, I am far away from God because of my habitual way of doing things. I only do things for my parents and others, hoping that people see me as holy, when my heart is far from whatever I am doing, whether it is HBF or Sunday Service or whatever. I am like the older son, seemingly enslaved by God, doing what I perceive is his will so that he will bless me, and so that others think highly of me, while I am secretly cursing and hating God in my heart. But there is hope, God wants me to come to a place like the younger son, where my heart is broken for him and I realize how much I need the father. Then God can draw me in just like the younger son came home and was reinstated. I pray that God may really draw me close to him so that I can come back into his family and be reinstated as his son. One personal struggle I have in my own life is about college. My parents really want me to stay in Chicago and go to either UIC or IIT, and so I can join their ministry. But because of the younger son side of me I honestly have no desire to stay and want to run away as far as possible, possibly going out to California or the East Coast. But if I stay, and live under my parents will I just be the older son and habitually continue to do religious things without putting my heart into it? But I’ve been thinking of my college decision the wrong way. It isn’t whether I stay or go, because I can be equally lost in either decision, it is that I need to dedicate my college years to growing in my relationship with my father in Heaven, but I’m so scared of giving up what I want with my own life. I’m scared of giving up my desires for freedom and independence, from God and my parents. I struggle with the idea of giving up my life to God, because I really do not want to, I just want to live however I want. This college decision process has been a real struggle for me, but I pray that through the next four years of life, I can use them wherever I am to build my relationship with my Father God, not that I use this decision to run away from God or begrudgingly obey my parents.
I want to ask you, which son are you? Are you the younger son who wants to run away from all his responsibilities and live his life however he pleases? Or are you the older son? A person who just does things because he thinks he has to, with no real love in his heart, just going through the motions to please people in his community? Or like me are you a mixture of both sons, trying to run away from God but also grudgingly doing the things that we think we have to? Whichever son you are, you are lost, not knowing the true love of the father, thinking that you can save yourself by your obedience or lack of it. But there is still hope, in our lostness we need to find the Son of God, Jesus, the true elder brother, who came on earth to seek the lost and bring us back into God’s family.
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