In Luke 15, Jesus tells two groups of people three stories. The first group designated “sinners and tax collectors,” is known for breaking rules. The second group, designated “Pharisees and scribes,” has largely established their identities by making and keeping rules. I don’t know about you, but I’ve walked both sides of that street for miles, seeking to establish myself with others in some seasons of life by breaking rules and in other seasons by making and keeping rules. I’m all too familiar with the trappings of each approach.
In the first two stories, a shepherd and a woman searched for and found something lost, then rejoiced. But in the third story, no one sought the young man who pressed his father for his inheritance then squandered it in a far away land. Why not?
Most of us offer an excuse for the absence of a search by suggesting it was the young man’s choice to leave, and he had to choose to return. We like to point out that the father saw him a long way off, suggesting that while he stayed home he was continually looking for his son’s return. But that might suggest that the sheep and the coin were just mere sheep and coin? Or did they too represent people who would have needed to choose to return? If the need to choose negated the search, why were they sought while the son was not?
The answer is hiding within the explanation of what the father did upon his younger son’s request for his share of the property. By the way, it’s important to note that the Greek word repeatedly interpreted “property” in this passage is not the word that specifically means “capital” or “savings.” It’s “bios” (think biology) meaning “life.” He’s asking his father for his share of everything the father has accumulated in his life, including land. Then Jesus continued,
“And he divided his property between them.”
Since, in Jewish tradition, the older son got twice the inheritance of the younger, the father gave the older son two thirds of all that he owned, and then gave the younger son the other third. What did the father have after dividing everything between his sons? The father was left to depend on his older son.
We miss the point of the story when we excuse the father for searching for the younger son with the excuse that the son had to choose to return. The responsibility to search for the younger son, was the older brother’s, not the father’s. The older brother had been given all the resources but lacked love and concern for his little brother.
So, who are these two brothers? I think Jesus told this story to remind the two groups of people listening, the rule breakers and the rule followers, that the rule followers can be as lost as the rule breakers. While the younger brother represented those defiant or rebellious people seeking to find and establish themselves apart from God, the older brother represented religious people who loved their religious ways more than they loved God or people that approached life differently than them. The older brother, while under the same roof as the father, and perfectly positioned to appear as though his love for his father ran deep, was as just far from the father relationally as the younger brother.
I shudder to think this story could be as applicable to the church today as it was to the Pharisees and scribes listening to Jesus in the first century. The older brother was comfortable, focused on meeting his obligations to the father, and feeling as though he was earning his keep. If thoughts of that younger brother even crossed his mind, they were most likely thoughts of contempt. He was appalled by the attitude and actions of his younger brother. Certainly, there was no action to suggest love or responsibility for his wayward brother.
Luke 19:10 says, “The Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.”
In our own story, the first son, Jesus, has sought and saved us on behalf of the father. So, are we following him? We, meaning the church, are the Body of Christ. If lost people are going to be reached on behalf of the Father, it will be through us, the Body of Christ. The Father has given us everything we need to reach lost people. But that means most of us must intentionally leave our comfort zone to do so. It means we’ll have to overcome our elder brother tendencies to focus on internal church preferences more than we focus on reaching lost people. That’s harder to do than it is to know, meaning most of us will acknowledge this as truth without acting on it.
So much of a life in Christ is navigating the path between the self-centered tendencies of the younger son and the equally self-centered tendencies of the elder brother. Most of us will, at times, slip into one tendency or the other, and justify our position by pointing to the shortcomings of those with the opposite tendency as we lean farther away from them. What’s important is our willingness to humble ourselves, admit where we are, and refocus on Jesus. That’s the message of repentance, to turn from those tendencies back toward Jesus. When we do so, we’ll find ourselves following him, doing whatever we can to seek the salvation of our younger brothers.
In Jesus’ story, the young rule breaker returned with his hat in his hand, while the story ended with the father’s pleas to the older rule follower left unanswered. Perhaps that’s because it’s typically much more difficult for the rule follower to see the error of his ways.
Jesus told amazing stories, and none had more angles and levels than this one. We’ll revisit it soon.