Written by Gary L. Clendenon
Inspired by a sermon by Pastor Kevin Hughes at Evergreen Christian Center, November 27, 2011.
Maybe you too, like me, relate more to the Older Brother than the Younger Brother. We have worked hard all our lives: Doing the right things. Following all the rules. Denying ourselves over and over again. Going the extra mile to make sure everything has been done the right way. We have worked very hard to be good, to be righteous, because we understood that is was important, maybe even our Eternal Life counted on it!
I have struggled with this story most of my life. And with the "Thief on the Cross". And "Deathbed Conversions". How is it fair that they get to go out and live a wild life and party and have all that fun and then, at the last second, coming sliding in to Home Plate—clearly “Out”—and GOD pronounces, with a twinkle in His eye and a pause for dramatic effect, "SAFE"! That is just so "Way NOT Fair"!! They were clearly out and everyone watching knows it!!
What's going on here? I see two answers to that question. The first answer is that whether by getting stuck in a childhood understanding of what GOD wants from us and not maturing spiritually or by getting stuck by a personality that favors and feels more comfortable in this line of thinking, either way, we, along with the "Older Brother", have missed something important about this God: GOD values and cherishes above anything that we can do or say—or not do or say—the love of our hearts.
Yes, GOD wants us to do the right things and highly values our self-sacrificing service to Him, BUT, and it's a big but, more than anything He wants us to serve Him and Others because we want to—because we love to, not because we have to! As Paul so eloquently points out in I Corinthians Chapter 13, "If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love." (The Message Bible)
Those of us in this "Older Brother" mentality might be wise to learn to turn our focus to GOD's love and what that looks like. For too long we have memorized and categorized all the rules and regulations of GOD's Kingdom. We have found comfort and shelter in their structure, peace and safety in their boundaries, but we have put the cart before the horse!
We must understand this: Although rules and regulations have their place and their purpose, the Number One Rule is LOVE. GOD values loving relationships more than rules. Don't get me wrong, the rules still matter, but matter in the context of a loving relationship.
Evidence for this can be found in the somewhat confusing story of King David. He coveted another man's wife, committed adultery with her, attempted to create a lie to cover up their affair, then had her husband killed when he wouldn't go along with the lie. Four of the big 10 Commandments broken in just that one story!! And yet, and this is what gets us "Older Brother" types, he was declared to be "a man after God's own heart". What??
Either GOD's heart is really messed up, or there is something else going on here as Samuel shows us when he quoted what GOD said to him about David, "The LORD doesn't see things the way you see them. People judge by outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart." (I Samuel 16:7) The heart. When David's heart was shown terribleness of his sin, he instantly recognized it and repented. This is what made David a man after God's own heart.
We are blessed to see evidence of David's repentance in the psalm he wrote after GOD spoke to him through the prophet Nathan, and in this most eloquent psalm we fellow sinners can cry out with David these most famous words, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit.” (Psalms 51:10-12, KJV).
Not only was David a man after GOD's own heart, but even further evidence that David understood GOD's heart can be found in that same psalm, verses 16 & 17: "Offerings and sacrifices are not what you want. The way to please you is to feel sorrow deep in our hearts." (CEV) David understood and expressed that GOD values our hearts much more than our behaviors. That who we are is more important than what we do.
If the Older Brother in the story of the "Prodigal Son" had understood this, he likely would have responded differently to his Younger Brother's return. Yet, the fact that he responded in the way that he did shows us that the Older Brother's heart was just as far from his father's as his brother's. Although the outward behavior was much different, on the inside both brothers proved to be "Prodigals".
Maybe you, like me, have felt the self-righteous indignation of the Older Brother against the unfair treatment of the "lost" son and believed that he was right in his anger. It wasn't fair. I admit to relating just a bit too strongly to the Older Brother, but thankfully, now I have a better understanding.
There is a reason why there are two brothers in this story entitled "The Prodigal Son". At some point in our lives, we must all realize that whether we are the "Older" or the "Younger", the "Lost" or the "Saved", the "Good" or the "Bad", the "Sinner" or the "Saint", we all are, in our own way, prodigals—far from the Father's heart.
The second answer to my original question "What's going on here?" can be found in the fact that the Older Brother was not aware of and therefore did not understand his father's overall plan. Or did he? He had to know that his father was watching for the lost son's return. It is possible that seeing his father waiting for his Younger Son's return only fueled the Older Brother's anger more.
He was already angry that his brother got his inheritance early and was away having fun while he was stuck at home working. And then to see his father pining away after his lost son. The Older Brother had probably run through the scenario in his mind—what happens if my brother comes back? How will father receive him? Chances are that he was already suspecting that his father would go all soft on him and accept him back as if nothing had ever happened!
Sure enough—that is exactly what happened! The possibility that the Older Brother had imagined had come true. If it happened that way, it would help us even more understand his anger. The Older Brother had had a pre-meditated resentment that he had been stewing on and now it had come to pass. Now, he could say, "I knew this would happen!" and be "justified" in his anger. Nice how that works out, isn't it!
His obsession with fairness led to resentment, which led to anger. This was a choice that he made. It was not a choice that followed his father's heart. As an "Older Brother" type myself, I am willing to admit that I have been jealous of those who have gone astray and wished destruction on those who have acted in evil ways. It is so much easier to do that than to love our enemies! They don't deserve love!
Here is where we get back to the misunderstanding of how Our Father operates. We get stuck in confusion when we create GOD in our image. We try to make GOD live by our rules instead of really trying to live by His! By our rules, GOD's grace is not fair, but here's what we need to understand: GOD's grace is fair by GOD's rules and it's His rules that run the Universe!
GOD's grace is fair because it was His life that He freely gave to Death in exchange for the ownership rights to every human life. GOD's grace is fair because His blood, as the Law required, was bled out to cover every possible sin that could ever be committed. GOD's grace is fair because he purchased the rights to be extravagantly foolish with His Love!
We have a choice. We can choose to accept GOD's "Universal Rule of Extravagantly Foolish Grace" or continue working with our man-made rules of fairness. As I think I have laid out, if we choose to continue with the "Older Brother" mentality, we will end up like the Older Brother—obsessed with fairness, living with resentment when "fairness" doesn't happen, eventually building to episodes of erupting anger.
If that's your choice, I will make my best effort to give you grace, but I will always be asking you the question that was asked of me: "How's that workin' for ya?"
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