25“Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing. 26So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on. 27‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
28“The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him. 29But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends. 30But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31” ‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours. 32But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ ” (Luke 15:25-32)
The point of the Prodigal Son story is really not the prodigal son. It is the older brother. Remember Jesus is speaking this parable to the Pharisees. They are muttering because Jesus is showing compassion and spending time with “sinners,” with the less desirable. Jesus tells them three parables to reveal the heart of God, to show them God’s passion and love for the lost. The older brother is them.
The older brother is often us too.
The Pharisees get a bum rap today. But in Jesus’ day, they were the religious conservatives. They were the ones desperately trying to preserve Jewish identity and morals in the midst of a hedonistic Graeco-Roman culture. They were not “bad guys” from a human standpoint. But they had become self-righteous. They had gotten off track. They had forgotten how to love people, how to love God, and how to be loved by God. Their hearts had become hard. And, though they didn’t recognize it, they were just as separated from the father as those who were sinners and tax collectors.
How do you know if you are self-righteous? Charles Spurgeon called it the greatest sin and the greatest delusion. The greatest sin because it is rooted in pride and doesn’t need the Savior. The greatest delusion because those who are self-righteous never realize they are self-righteous.
Here are the characteristics of an older brother attitude:
- Deep abiding anger. “The first sign you have an elder-brother spirit is that when your life doesn’t go as you want, you aren’t just sorrowful but deeply anger and bitter. Elder brothers believe that if they live a good life they should get a good life, that God owes them a smooth road. …Their moral observance is results-oriented. Their good life is lived not for delight in good deeds themselves, but as calculated ways to control their environment” (Keller, The Prodigal God, 50).
- Duty without joy. The older brother sees his work for his father as “slaving” for him. There is no joy; it is all duty. It is done to get what he wants from his father not out of love for his father.
- A focus on others’ sins rather than your own. The older brother does not see any wrong in himself, but he imagines the worst in his younger brother. The older brother has no idea what his younger brother has done but he expects the worst in him (“he squandered your money with prostitutes”). Meanwhile he is convinced that he has never disobeyed his father’s orders. This is a different attitude than Paul’s which said, “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners of whom I am chief.”
- Condemnation rather than love. Notice he calls his younger brother, “this son of yours.” Keller makes a interesting observation in his book, The Prodigal God. He says that in that culture, the older brother should have been the one looking for the younger brother. But this older brother really doesn’t care when his brother leaves. It makes no difference to him. It just means he gets more of his father’s stuff and gets to deal less with the irritations of his little brother. Now that the younger brother is back, the older brother’s selfish heart is revealed.
The story ends with the door open. The Father has given His all for us. He has showered us with grace. Will we receive it? Will we allow God to love us? Will we enter into His joy? Or will we stand on our own self-righteousness, thinking God still owes us more and others don’t deserve near as much as we do?
Lord, deliver me from self-righteousness. May I preach the gospel to myself daily and always rejoice in Your grace.
