THE WAYWARD SON AND THE WAITING FATHER PART II

LUKE 15:25-32

Now his older son was in the field, and when he came and approached      the house, he heard music and dancing, "And he summoned one of the        servants and began inquiring what these things could be." And he said    to him, 'Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has received him back safe and sound.'

But he became angry and was not willing to go in; and his father     came out and began pleading with him. But he answered and said to   his father, 'Look! For so many years I have been serving you and I   have never neglected a command of yours; and yet you have never           given me a young goat, so that I might celebrate with my friends; but         when this son of yours came, who has devoured your wealth with        prostitutes, you killed the fattened calf for him.

"And he said to him, 'Son, you have always been with me, and all that       is mine is yours. But we had to celebrate and rejoice, for this brother                 of yours was dead and has begun to live, and was lost and has been     found.'"

INTRODUCTION

          A prodigal son named Robert left home for Paris. Robert awoke one morning to the bitter realization that his money was gone. All his creditors were hounding him. Hurriedly he left Paris for a small town in Normandy. But his past caught up with him. Everything was repossessed. There was nothing to do but to seek work with one of the local farmers. In that environment something—the wooing of God’s Spirit in his heart—brought him back to himself.

          He thought of “Twin Oaks” and the gracious orderly life he had left behind. Wistfully he compared his days with those of the workers on his father’s plantation. Nostalgically he remembered Christmas back home. The roast turkey with chestnut stuffing, the platters of fried chicken, the beaten biscuits, watermelon-rind preserves, pecan pies, spoon bread, and cold floating island.

          He remembered the look in his father’s eyes as he had stood at the head of the table carving the turkey, the look of tender pride as he had surveyed his family. Once again he could feel his father’s strong arms around him . . . a big hand laid tenderly on a little boy’s head that day his puppy had been killed.

          Dimly he recalled certain moments of growing up when he had thought his father stuffy, old-fashioned. Now everything in him cried out for some of that old-fashioned love. That night he crept away from the farm, and on foot made his way to Cherbourg, where he worked his way back across the Atlantic on a ship. He was going home.

          What drew the boy back? What drew him home were the love of a father and the love of a home. Never once did the prodigal son in Luke 15 say, “I will arise and go back to my house.” There is little in a house to draw someone back to it. It is love that draws us home. (Peter Marshall, John Doe, Disciple)

          Last week, we left off the Parable of the Prodigal Son at verse 24, where the son started home. As soon as the father saw him he ran to embrace his son. The father’s heart was filled with two things: his love for the son and the desire to reach him before the judgmental villagers do. Suddenly, the villagers are startled by the sight of this dignified man bolting through town to throw himself upon a dusty, ragged stranger and to smother him with kisses.

          The son begins to pour out his well-rehearsed speech.  “Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.” The young man spoke the truth. He was no longer worthy because of his past. He had forfeited every right to sonship. However, the father does not allow the son to complete his well-rehearsed speech. The father knew that his son has returned with a repentant heart. That is all the old man needs to hear. Amazingly, the father says nothing in response to his son’s words of contrition. His action will say it all. “Quick! Bring the best robe and put on him.” That robe would have been the father’s festival robe worn on special occasion; the boy was to be the guest of honor! “Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.” The ring symbolized authority, so everyone could see that the son had been reinstated. Of course, the son was given sandals to indicate he was a freeman. In those days servants, slaves, and poor people went barefoot. Therefore, the father is not just clothing his son; he is covering him with honor and acceptance. “Bring the fattened calf, kill it, and let us eat and celebrate.” The fattened calf was prepared for a special occasion. The father explains the purpose of this celebration in verse 24. Any person no matter who you are, if you have not given your life to Jesus Christ, you are estranged from God and you are dead spiritually. Moreover, if you have not been reconciled to God through the death of our Lord Jesus Christ on the cross, the Bible says you are lost.  In the realm of grace, repentance means the passing from the death of sin to the life of righteousness. Jesus seldom called people sinners; He called them lost. The joy of the father of the prodigal son is full because his son who was dead is now alive; he was lost and is found. Therefore, nothing is to be ordinary. The prodigal son is to receive the highest honor. Countless multitudes are still lost in sin, but our God is the God of the lost, and longs for their return. No matter what you have done, if you return to God, He will receive you back as a son/daughter.

          The father’s reception of the wayward son is a picture of grace. It is not a parable about merits. Here is a God who not only accepts the dry-cleaned and sanitized, but who also runs to the filthy and wayward son who turned his heart toward home. Here is a God who, as time will make clear, gives not His best robe but His only Son, Jesus Christ. Here is a God who shouts to the returning rebel, “Welcome home.”

          The second part of the parable has to do with the respectable brother and the rejoicing father. The parable of the prodigal son could have concluded with the words, “So they began to celebrate.” But then the introductory sentence, “There was a man who had two sons,” would have had little or no significance. The story would be incomplete without further reference to the older son. The father was not only the father of the younger son but also of the older. The firstborn had been a faithful son who took a personal interest in the farm. Of course, the son knew that he was the heir. He was out in the farm when everyone else in the village celebrated the return of his brother. He served his father well, and his father appreciated his son’s diligence. The parable does not explain why the old son was the last person to learn about his younger brother’s return. Perhaps he had gone to inspect a piece of land that was a long distance from home and that caused him to return home late in the evening.

I.                  THE ANGER OF THE SENIOR BROTHER VV. 25-28A

          When the older son returned and heard the music and dancing, he asked one of the servants, “What is going on?” Within seconds he learned that his younger brother had returned home and that his father had killed the fattened calf because he had his son back safe and sound. The sounds of celebration fall on very unsympathetic ears as the elder brother returns home. Music and dancing are not what he desires in his father’s house. The news he hears confirms his worst suspicion. That good-for-nothing brother whom he despises has returned and his father has gone off the deep end in his celebration.

          According to the custom of those days, the older son was to be the master of ceremonies. This implies that he would have to mingle with the guests, monitor the supplies of food and beverages, and keep the celebration going throughout the evening and into the night. He has no intention of playing such a role. Instead, became angry and refused to go in. He grumbled that no one ever expressed joy and happiness about him as the firstborn; no one had a party for the one who stayed home and served his father. Therefore, he would have nothing to do with his irresponsible brother, who upon his return had everybody running for him. Jealousy and envy have set in. His refusal to enter the house is a studied insult to his father. Publicly he makes clear his disapproval of his father’s actions. Like a teenager picking a fight with his parents before a house full of guests, he behaves in a way that is not only hurtful but also humiliating. But there is even more here; this son would rather not have fellowship with his father than accept his father’s treatment of his brother. He will not accept someone who has been a companion of pigs and prostitutes. If that cost his fellowship with his father, so be it. As the prodigal had insulted the father by asking him for the inheritance, so the older son offended him by staying away from the feast.

          The relevance of this section of the parable to the context of Luke 15 is as obvious. The Pharisees would not have fellowship with Jesus because of His treatment of people the Pharisees considered prodigals. Thus, they were putting themselves outside the Father’s house. Refusal to accept all those whom Jesus Christ accepts is no small sin. It reveals your relationship to God Himself.

  

II. THE APPEAL OF THE SEEKING FATHER V. 28B

          The father could have sent out a servant to order his son inside. Certainly a father in the Middle East has such authority. “We will talk about it later, but not now. Get inside, smile, and do your job. But do not do this—

not now, not this way. We deal with matters like this behind closed doors.”

          However, the father who humbled himself to run to the returning prodigal humbles himself to plead to the angry older brother. “He went out and pleaded with him.” His love for this son is no less profound than his love for the other son. The first one received a welcome home, but so did the second. He treated both alike. However, the older son did not want equal treatment; he took it out on his father, humiliated him in public, even though the father continued to plead with him.

III.           THE COMPLAINT OF THE OLDER

           BROTHER VV. 29-30

          The older son had only contempt for his father’s response to his younger brother’s home coming. In the light of the appeal of the father, the son’s heart is exposed. He speaks angry words that reveal who he really is. Appearances suggest a son respectful of his father, completely different from his rebellious brother; anger unveils attitudes every bit as contemptible as the attitudes that led his brother to leave home. In fact, what we learn about this older brother may explain why the younger brother wanted to go to the far country! It is not a pleasant thing to live under the same roof with a self-righteous person. You can never please or win his/her approval.

          The older brother has an attitude of contempt for his father. The “look!” of verse 29 is full of disrespect, as is the litany of complaints. Clearly he has rehearsed these in his mind over the years, carefully calculating and storing up his grievances. He has stayed home not because he loves his father, but because working in his fields was a way of getting what he wanted. He has shared his father’s house but not his father’s heart. At the same time he is full of contempt for his brother. “This son of yours” says volume. He will not accept him as “my brother.” In his heart, the older brother has written his younger brother out of the family and out of his life. However, despite his protests, complaints, and accusations, this older brother is more like his younger brother than he realizes. He is full of concern for himself. He is selfish. He is intensely self-centered, judging things only by how they satisfy his own interest. He cares nothing for his father’s longings or his brother’s needs. He is self-indulgent and resentful, angry that his father has not catered to his wishes. Most of all, he is no better than a servant. The self-righteous son saw himself as a servant and not a son. Listen to what he says, “All these years I have been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders.” He did not understand what sonship meant and thus failed to see what fatherhood implied. He knows nothing of the joy of being a son. The younger brother was willing to become a servant; this son had been one in heart all along. He now stands exposed. This respectable son is in fact, a rebel, lost in his father’s house. He is so close to his father and yet so far from him.

          He accused his father of not giving him anything of worth, not even a young goat to have a feast with his friends. His words to his father were sharp and bitter. He refused to address his father as “father” and to refer to his brother as “brother.” The absence of the title father in the address is meant as a deliberate affront. Second, to call his brother “this son of yours” is both a continuation of the offense to his father and a definite break in family relations. In effect he is saying, "I am not his brother and you are not my father." Third, he accuses his brother of squandering his father’s property, but the misused money was inherited and rightfully belonged to his brother. And last, to shame his brother he imputes sexual immorality to him even though he was not there to witness the way he lived his life in the far country. With such scathing words, he grieved his father as much as the prodigal son had done by his wild living. What a penetrating portrait of the self-righteous and the religious! Morally respectable and publicly approved, such a person may be much farther from the Father than the prodigal in the pigpen.

IV.           THE CHOICE OF THE OLDER BROTHER 

        VV. 31-32

          The father’s grace persists despite this outburst. A normal father would be furious at such an attack. However, this father is different. He explains carefully, and says in effect, “We had to celebrate and be glad; we had no choice. Because of who I am, a father, I rejoice over lost sons who return. Joy is the only possibility. Not to rejoice would be to deny who I am.” The father is clear. He will not cancel the party, because he cannot. He is a gracious father who rejoices over lost children that are found.

          Neither will the heavenly Father cancel the celebration. His heart aches too, over the lost son, whether he is partying in the far country or working in the family’s farm. When sinners repent and come home, He must welcome them with outstretched arms, and He must share a joyful meal with them. What Jesus is doing with the tax collectors and sinners is what the Father does in heaven.

          Both the elder and younger were sons of the father, and the father addressed the elder son as tenderly as he had addressed the younger son. The father taught his son the significance of sonship; to be always in the presence of the father as heir. The father was saying to his older son, because you are my child, I am your father, and because the prodigal son is my child, he is your brother. The father’s words link the brothers inseparably to each other and the father.

          The parable of the prodigal begins with the younger son away from home, and his elder brother staying at home, although he was never at home. But the parable ends with the younger son home, and the elder one refusing to enter the home. Actually, the older brother was as much a prodigal as the younger. The younger son came back from a far country to a father’s heart and home. The elder went into the far country of smug self-satisfaction and sullen resentment.

          There is a fascinating omission in the parable. There is no ending. Did the older brother enter or not. You may be attending church regularly but your heart may be as far away from the heavenly Father as the older brother. Or you may be in the far country scattering what God has given you. Perhaps the money has run out and famine has set in. The heavenly Father is saying to you the door to your Father’s house is wide open. To all such people the Lord’s story invites you to “Come home.”

          The bottom line is this. What you know of God is seen in how you view yourself as lost and how you deal with others as lost. God’s heart aches over those who are lost; God’s heart rejoices over those who are found. How well you know Jesus Christ is revealed by whether or not you rejoice as He does. In this parable we see that the attitude and conduct of the Pharisees and the scribes were similar to the older brother than they realize. We who are Christians today have to be careful of the way we treat lost people who are coming to Christ, else we become just like the elder brother who refused to come home to celebrate with the family.

          No matter your background, what you have done, how far you have gone in sin and no matter your condition in life, the Heavenly Father with outstretched arms is inviting you to return home.