Always an Elder Brother
Rev. Eugene N. Nelson, Jr.
The Community Church of Sebastopol
April 11, 2010
Luke 15:1-2; 11-32
A few weeks ago Betty and I went to a restaurant in Santa Rosa for lunch, a nice sandwich shop where we like to go. We sat down, the waitress came and gave us some water and we sat for a while. Some other people came in and, then more people came in. Soon the waitress was over taking their order, but she hadn’t talked to us. Then she went and put in their order and finally, it seemed like days but was probably just minutes, she came to us and took our order. Those other people, who came after us, were half way through their lunch before our food came. It wasn’t fair! We were there first! I had places to go! I deserved to get my order first.
It reminded me of college. I always worked hard in college. It was a struggle to get through. I was a history major. I would work weeks researching and writing papers. Always, there was someone down the hall who basically spent all his time partying. About Saturday morning he realizes, “Oh, I think there’s a paper due.” He goes to the library does twenty five minutes of research, stays up all night writing the paper, gets it in just in time Monday morning. Inevitably this guy gets a better grade than me, who worked so hard. It wasn’t fair. I deserved that guy’s grade. He didn’t do anything! It was so unfair. I didn’t get my fair share.
I sometimes wonder if some of the angry and bitter debate going on this country today, some of the lack of civility, doesn’t come from this sense that somebody out there is getting something they don’t deserve. Somebody out there is getting a piece of my pie. I want to protect mine. There’s only so much to go around. I want to get mine. I want what’s fair. This and it leads to a lot of anger. But it’s nothing new – seems to me we’ve heard this before somewhere.
Now his older son was in the field and when he came close to the house he heard music and dancing, he called one of his slaves and asked, “What’s going on?” He replied, “Your brother has come and your father has killed the fatted calf because he’s got him back safe and sound.” And he became angry and refused to go in. The father came out and began to plead with him but he answered his father, “Listen, for all these years I’ve been working like a slave for you, I’ve never disobeyed your command but you have never even given me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends, but when this son of yours came back, who has devoured your property with prostitutes, you’ve killed the fatted calf for him.” “Dad, it ain’t fair. I’ve been the good one, I’ve been the responsible one, I was always to the restaurant on time, why can’t I have a party?” Someone once said there is no modulation of the human voice that can make a whine acceptable.
But I shouldn’t make fun of the elder son, because to tell you the truth, the hard truth actually, I sympathize with him. I’m the oldest son, I’ve been the good one, I’ve been the responsible one, what about me? What about my share of the pie. I don’t want a lot, I just want what I deserve. When I get to the restaurant first, I want to be served first. Darn it! It’s only fair. I mean, is it too much to ask for a little fairness?
And so today, as I said, I want to think with you a little bit about the older son, who feels so wronged, so unjustly treated by his father, by his brother, perhaps even by God and the world. God help him. God help all of us who understand his rage, who have felt excluded and whose hurt has run so deep that at time we have cut ourselves off from the ones whose love and acceptance we so desperately want. And as I said, the older son is out there working every day, out in the fields supervising the workers. He has paid the workers their daily wage and has dismissed them. As he comes near the house, maybe anticipating a tall, cool one after another long hot day, he hears music, he sees commotion. People milling around, what’s going on? Your brother has come and your father has killed the fatted calf because he’s got him back safe and sound. Come, join the party. Rejoice with us. Good news, right? Reconciliation and restored relationships, right? A new beginning for the family, right? Well, maybe not. “But he – the older brother – became angry and refused to go in.”
He’s angry. Now let’s remember, dad split the inheritance. The younger son spent it all. Everything left in the house, everything you see is legally now the older son’s. The father still maintains his authority, as he always does in that culture, and he will have authority until he dies, but the older son has possession. At the death of his father he will also get disposition. He can do whatever he wants with it. It’s all his. Yes, even the recently butchered fatted calf is actually his. That alone might have made him just a little angry. Dad decided to kill the fatted calf, my calf. But there is more going on here than just anger.
At a banquet, such as this, in that culture, the father sits with the guests. The older son is expected to stand and to serve during the banquet rather like a head waiter. It’s his job to make sure all the guests have what they need, no cup is empty, every plate is full. In this way he honors his father and he honors their guests. “It’s wonderful to have you in our home. You honor us by being here. What can I do for you?” This is what the older son does. And, of course, he must also look after the honored guest, but guess who that is? His brother! Remember him? Left home, wasted his money, humiliated the family. The very thought of caring and looking after his younger brother is intolerable to him.
Plus, the old man has reinstated his brother into the family with no penalty, no punishment. It violates the older son’s sense of honor, it’s all very shameful, he’ll have no part of it. Remember the power of honor and shame in this culture. You avoid shame at all costs. If his father wants to make a fool of himself, fine. But the older son will not be a participant in it.
Says New Testament scholar, Kenneth Bailey, who spent most of his teaching life in the middle-east, “Reconciliation and restoration without a penalty paid by the offender is too much to accept.” So the older brother refuses to enter the banquet hall, refuses to greet his father’s guests, thus insulting them and insulting his father. And everyone can see this. They know what the older son should do. They know what his family obligations are. So now it’s his turn to shame his father. Says Bailey, “The situation is very serious because it all takes place publicly during a banquet. This, the older son’s rebellion, is just as serious as the rebellion of the younger son. Everyone in the banquet hall tenses expectantly, awaiting the father’s decision. They assume the older son will be punished immediately or maybe ignored until the guests are gone. Then he will be beaten appropriately.”
But, much as he did when he ran down the street to meet the younger son, the father now does something equally shocking. “His father came out, left his guests, came out and pleaded with his son.” His father came out. Says Bailey, “It is almost impossible to convey the shock that must have reverberated through the banquet hall when the father deliberately left his guests, humiliated himself before all, and went out into the courtyard to talk to his older son.” He should have punished him. That’s what everyone expected. That’s what you do. Instead he pleads with him.
And so, for the second time in this parable, the father demonstrates a surprising, shocking, costly and unexpected love. He risks shame, humiliation and rejection – all the guests are watching – in order to reach out to the angry, older son. He holds nothing back. He will have a relationship with this boy, whatever it takes. This, says Jesus, is the same love God has for us. We turn away, we reject God, we go our own way, and still God seeks us out. “Amazing grace, how sweet the sound…” Or in the words of the country song, “I’ve done everything a man can do…everything to get a hold on you.” The message of the parable is that God will do everything, anything, to get a hold on, to have a relationship with us. Good news, right? This is what we need. This kind of love is what we need. So why does the older son reject it?
“But he answered his father, ‘Listen!’ “He insults his father yet again by omitting any title and just launching into the complaint. “Listen! For all these years I have been working like a slave for you, and I have never disobeyed your command; yet you never even gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends. But when this son of yours (he won’t call him his brother) came back who has devoured your prosperity with prostitutes, (we don’t know that actually, the older son tells us this) you killed the fatted calf for him!”
On one hand, even with the anger, this was a rather poignant speech. He wants his father to love him as he deserves to be loved because he is the one who has stayed put, followed orders, done the right thing. “I’ve earned your love.” And the father does love him. But not for any of that. For the father, love has nothing to do with what either son deserves. His love is bigger than that, it’s wider than that. But in his envy, his anger, his pride, his resentment and his self-centeredness, the older son fails to see this; fails to see or accept his father’s costly act of love. He grumbles about grace, about a love that transcends fairness or right or wrong or who deserves what. How could you possibly accept that son of yours back into our family? We’ve moved all the way around now. We are back to the complaint of the Pharisees against Jesus – “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” The older brother’s complaint against his father is an illustration of the Pharisee’s complaint against Jesus. Yes, God, your amazing grace is wonderful; wonderful, that is, until it is given to someone of whom I disapprove; until it feels unearned, undeserved, unfair. I’ve been waiting in this restaurant 30 minutes, and they got served before me? This piece of trash you call a son comes crawling back and you throw him a party? Who knew, who knew God was so radical, so extravagant, so reckless when it comes to love? What misers of grace we can become. As one pastor asks, “How does it feel to encounter the graciousness of God, the grace of a forgiving, loving God, when that graciousness is showered on someone who is a ‘sinner,’ an outsider, not one of us?” It is truly amazing how quickly God’s amazing grace can become God’s maddening grace. They don’t deserve it. Of course, what makes me think I deserve it?
This is where the parable leaves us. Just once I wish Jesus would finish a story. There is no conclusion. The son can accept his father’s offer of grace, or in his hardness of heart he can refuse the offer and only increase his father’s suffering. He can continue to insist, “Where is mine? I want my share” or he can choose to enter into a restored relationship, making a new beginning. What’s it going to be? The parable is left open-ended – and maybe that’s because Jesus wants to leave the decision with us. For you see, the offer made to the older son is also made to us. Do we continue to be misers of blessing, to insist on our share, to complain about a love that seems uninterested in our opinions about what is deserved and fair? Or is there an invitation here to move beyond the “accepted” ways of human thinking to the discernment of a new creation among us where there are no limits to grace and where always there are new possibilities for reconciliation and new beginnings. Says Barbara Brown Taylor, “It is up to each one of us to finish the story. It is up to each one of us to decide whether we will stand outside all alone being right, or give up our rights and go inside to take our place at a table full of reckless and righteous saints and scoundrels, brothers and sisters, united only by our relationship to one loving father, who refuses to give us the love we deserve, but cannot be prevented from giving us the love we need.” Ah Yes, “Amazing Grace how sweet the sound.”