Week 5: The resentful son
The local pastor was called in to the hospital to see John Smith—a man suffering from a terminal condition. John had grown up in a Christian home and had received a solid education in the faith, but later on in life turned his back on the church. When poverty and disease brought John low, his thoughts returned the church his parents had brought him up in, and he made a call to the parish office.
When the Pastor visited John, he proclaimed the Gospel to him—that whoever trusts in Jesus will not perish but have eternal life, and whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved. Having confessed his sins to the pastor, the pastor absolved him and blessed him, and the man fell asleep in Jesus, at peace.
As the pastor was making preparations for John’s funeral, a prominent member of the congregation asked: “Pastor you’re not going to bury that good for nothing scoundrel, are you?”
Shocked, the pastor replied: “Do you mean brother John Smith? Of course I am!”
The church member retorted: “Well if this man went to heaven, I don’t want to go there.”
“Never fear”, the pastor replied. “You won’t be!”
“What!” the good church member exclaimed. “That miserable wretch Jack Smith is going to heaven, and I am not to go there?”
“Not if that is the sentiment of your heart which you’ve just now expressed. Remember our Lord’s words: “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.” (Matthew 7:1-2)[1].
Tonight we focus on the character of the eldest son in the parable, who—with a resentful heart towards grace—presents much like the good church member complaining about the grace shown to John Smith.
We hear that the eldest son heads home after a hard day working in his father’s fields. We get the sense that this boy is not reckless and wasteful like his younger sibling. While the younger son has blown his share of the inheritance on worldly pleasures in a far-off land, the younger son has been working hard for his father each day.
As the eldest son draws near the family home, he hears the sounds of celebration—music and dancing. So he calls over a servant, to find out what’s going on. The servant informs him, ‘Your brother has come, and your father has killed the fattened calf, because he has received him back safe and sound.’
When the eldest brother hears the reason for the celebration, he is angry and refuses to listen to his father or go in to the feast. In this, his resentment toward his brother can be clearly seen. He doesn’t love his younger brother. He doesn’t even refer to him as his brother, but “this son of yours.” He had already written off his younger brother and didn’t care what happened to him. The elder brother would have known that the day of his younger sibling’s return was the greatest day in his father’s life—but he himself didn’t care that his younger brother had come back home.
The younger son had earlier publicly shamed his father with his cash grab before hitting the road. But the eldest son brings shame on his father too, having a spat on the front doorstep. He was resentful of his father’s love for his brother, and was self-absorbed, resenting the work he was doing for his father: “Look here, all these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders, yet you never gave me a young goat, that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours comes home, who has squandered your property with prostitutes, you kill the fattened calf for him!”
The eldest son considers serving his father as slavery; and he has slaved away for his father for what he perceives to be nothing! And so like the younger son before his return, he is focused only on himself, not his father. His hard work is to help himself, to get a reward—not to help his father. But what good has it done him! He’s wasted his life! He complains that he’s never been given a feast for what he has done.
The older son refused to go into the biggest feast his father has ever put on. This was a remarkable, deliberate act of disrespect. It was his way of saying, “I won’t be part of this family nor respect your headship of it.” This is not the language or behaviour of a son who loves his father. His resentment shows where his heart is towards his father.
Had the father publicly chastised his eldest son, he would have been completely justified. But again there is an unexpected twist: the father doesn’t treat the elder son as he deserves, but is instead patient and gracious with him. He comes and pleads with him: “You are always with me, and everything I have is yours. But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is now alive again, he was lost, and now is found.”
Jesus’ parable shows us there are two ways a person can be lost. One way is to break the rules and do as you please, like the younger son—living recklessly, extravagantly, only for the things of this life, leaving the Cross behind. The other way is to keep all the rules and to be good, like the older son—living righteously, morally, judgmentally, legalistically…leaving the Cross behind. Both paths lead to the same destination.
The Scribes and Pharisees are the audience to whom Jesus teaches the parable—not the ‘sinners’ and tax collectors. Jesus uses the character of the eldest son to challenge them—for them to explore where their hearts really are in relation to God. The younger son was lost in ‘the far country.’ The elder brother was lost in the father’s house. They are those who like the eldest son grumble about underserved kindness and favour shown to the unworthy: “This man welcomes sinners and eats with them!”
They are the ones who never left home. They are the ones who always tried to do the right thing. They are the ones who slaved all these years for their Father—thinking only of the reward they would get for their dutiful obedience, rather than how God wanted their hearts to change and beat with his own compassion for the unworthy and unlovely. What does the resentment in their hearts towards the ‘sinners’ and towards Jesus reveal about where their heart is in relation to the Father in Heaven? They would never lower themselves to enjoy table fellowship with Jesus and these ‘sinners’…now you see what the problem is, right? They’ve just judged themselves.
Jesus teaches this parable is to challenge the self-righteous, prideful heart that says: “I am morally and spiritually superior. I have measured up. God is pleased with my effort. I deserve God’s favour more than they.” In the parables the eldest brother is upset at the way in which his undeserving younger brother is being received. Is that worth missing this great party the father is throwing at his house? That’s what the scribes and pharisees had to figure out.
The parable doesn’t give us their response….maybe because its open-ended nature draws us in to the story for us to reflect deeply too. For by nature we are all lost and dead in sin. None of us, by our own performance, could have life with God. But in the Person of Christ, God shares his life with us. God forgives us because his son, Jesus, paid the price for the sins of the whole world with his suffering and death on the Cross. Through the Cross, the Father turns to us. Like the father in the parable, he seeks us, even though, like either son, we don’t deserve his gracious favour. He frees us from the natural human condition; the way of the flesh, that looks to effort and morality and outward appearance as the benchmarks for divine favour, rather than looking to Jesus and his righteousness alone.
This is what Paul discovered, after God sought after, and found him on the Damascus Road, and Jesus changed his life forever. Formerly Saul, a Pharisee, Paul knew that all the religious rules and traditions were nothing in God’s sight, and only Christ will do. In the letter to the Christians at Philippi, he wrote:
For we…who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus and put no confidence in the flesh—though I myself have reason for confidence in the flesh also. If anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more: circumcised on the eighth day, of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of Hebrews; as to the law, a Pharisee; as to zeal, a persecutor of the church; as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—that I may know him and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” (Philippians 3:1-11).
The grace of God, the gospel of God, has been poured out, overflowing, and pressed down to fill the flesh and bones of the Son of God, from head to toe. He is the other Son—the truly righteous Son, the Son full of grace and truth, the Son who brings divine compassion, favour and blessing to all those who hear his call to repent and turn to him with their sin, that he can take it upon himself. He has washed and redeemed us by his holy and precious blood and clothed us with his own righteousness, that we would not just know things about God; but know God—personally, closely, relationally.
We were once dead, but now alive, once lost, but now found. Now it is us fitted with the best robe, a ring on our finger, and sandals on our feet, dressed us ready to be seated in the place our Father has reserved for us, to share in his lavish, extravagant blessings forever. There is great rejoicing among the heavenly multitude over every sinner who repents, because everything that is the Father’s is now ours also.
This is the same rejoicing, the same celebration that the angels in heaven sang and danced at on the day that your Heavenly Father sent Jesus to search for, and find you. Amen!
[1] Illustration adapted from Burgess, David F (comp) (1988) Encyclopaedia of sermon illustrations (St Louis: CPH) P112
