The Prodigal God: The True Elder Brother

Pastor Burcham’s Sermon

Sunday, March 21, 2010

William Butler’s work, and he’ll actually be here to display it for us, has portrayed for us Luke 15 as we’ve tried to capture these three stories Jesus has told.

I have a question for you this morning. How many of you are the eldest in your family? Do we have any of the older ones? Yeah. You have “special duties and privileges,” right? I’m not the oldest. I’m the youngest. Yeah, that means my older brothers, they always got the duty. I’m sure those of you who are oldest, you know this duty. “Now you take care of your brother. You make sure you watch out after him. In fact, why don’t you take him with you and your friends as you go out?” I thought that was great. They didn’t. No. No, they didn’t think that was too wonderful.

Even though they didn’t think it was so great that I got to go along with them and they had the responsibility of caring for me, they never let me down. Especially my next older brother. He’s eight years older than I am. He always looked out for me, even if it was begrudgingly. He always protected me, kept me out of trouble, kept me from doing some really stupid stuff every now and then, always brought me home safe and sound because, after all, that’s what older brothers do, right? That’s what older siblings do. They care for and they watch out for their younger siblings.

Except for the older brother in Jesus’ story. It’s another twist in this final parable that Jesus tells in Luke 15. The older brother doesn’t watch over and protect his younger brother. In fact, if anything, he gets angry with him and wants to have nothing to do with him and would just as soon toss him out to the dogs, another twist that Jesus does in this story to really illustrate His point. In essence, there is a missing elder brother, at least a real true elder brother.

Let’s back up for a moment and let’s take a look at 15 as a unit. You know it starts out where the tax collectors and sinners are gathering around Jesus as they always do. Then you have the Pharisees and the teachers of the law. They are muttering about Him. “How could He associate with these people and how disgusting?” And so Jesus seeks to answer the Pharisees and teachers of the law and their mutterings, and He does so by three stories or three parables. They’re meant as a unit. Jesus hardly takes a breath between each of the stories. He rolls from one to the next to the next. And each of those stories has a pattern to them, a pattern that follows through.

For instance, each one of them starts out with something lost. We have the sheep, which is lost. Then we have the coin, which is lost. And we have the son, which is lost because he goes off into a distant country and he’s separated from his family. The next element of the story the first two parables have, ah, but here’s where it’s missing in the third one. In the first two parables, there is a relentless search for that which is lost. Someone goes out to find it and not just to have a haphazard way of finding it but will search until it is found. Listen, Jesus uses the exact same language in the first two parables. We have the shepherd. He says, “Does he not leave the 99 in the open country and go after the lost sheep” when? “Until he finds it.” Not until he gets tired, not until he gets hungry. He searches until he finds it.

The same thing with the woman and the lost coin. “Does she not light a lamp, sweep the house and search carefully until she finds it?” She’s not going to give up. There’s a relentless search that goes on for that which is lost.

And then the third and final element of each of the stories is their celebration with that which is found. But now if you’re Jesus’ original audience or the first time that maybe you heard these three stories and so you hear it’s lost, someone goes out and searches for it, it’s found, celebration.

Jesus gets to the third story. There’s a son who is lost. He goes off into a distant country and he’s squandered away. Now you’re expecting, “So who’s going to search for the missing son?” Now culturally for us, we could interject any number of people, right? We can think of teenagers, young adults that go off and do dumb things and I’d say, more than likely, usually one or both of the parents go in search for them, right? I’m guessing some of your friends or maybe even your family, maybe the dad goes off because the kid went to a different city, sort of grabs him, knocks some sense into him and brings him back home. Alright?

Culturally, for the people who are listening to Jesus, immediately they would think, “This is what the older brother is supposed to do. It’s his responsibility.” It’s part of their culture that dates back really actually to the beginning of time. We can go all the way back to the first set of brothers, Cain and Abel. “Then the Lord said to Cain, ‘Where is your brother, Abel?’ ‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’” The insinuation is, “Yep, you are. You are, Cain. You are your brother’s keeper.” That was the job, that was the responsibility of the older brother to keep the family unit in place. That’s why the eldest always got the lion’s share of the inheritance. When the patriarch passed away, the eldest son would become the new patriarch of the family. So even while he was growing up, he knew all along that he carried this responsibility. If there was a rift in the family, if there was distension, it was the eldest son’s responsibility to bring things back together.

So Jesus’ original audience, as they’re listening to Him tell the story, would have fully anticipated Jesus to say, “So the younger son goes off to a distant country and squanders away his wealth. And the eldest son comes to his father and says, ‘Father, I don’t know what’s up with my younger brother. He’s being very foolish and stupid. I will go after him at my own expense, both financial and emotional, and I will bring him back and restore him to the family.’” But that doesn’t happen. We get the end of the story, and we find out that the elder brother actually is angry about the fact that younger brother even came home. You have to ask the question then why? Why isn’t the older brother living up to his responsibility? Why isn’t he concerned about bringing the family back together?

It’s because it’s going to cost him. It’s going to cost him a great deal. The only way that the younger brother can come back into the family is at a great expense to the older brother. This is something we can miss from the parable, once again, if we focus on the younger son. If we focus only on the first half of the parable, then we can miss all of this. Focusing on the first half of the parable, we say, “The younger son comes back free and clear. There’s no punishment. There’s no retribution. There are no stipulations for him coming back.” And that’s led some to conclude then, if the father in the story represents God, well then we come back to God and that forgiveness is completely free, that we’re just sort of let off the hook and God sort of forgets about all of the sins that we have done and He welcomes us back into the family.

We’re missing something, though, because the rest of scripture teaches that we have a just God and a righteous God. And when we go against God, it says, “The wages of sin is death.” There has to be payment for sin. There has to be atonement for sin. That’s what it means to be a just and a fair and a righteous God. So is Jesus teaching something different in this story that no, no, God just forgets about the sin and forgiveness is completely free?

Well, forgiveness is free for the younger son but it only comes at great expense to the older son. The younger son is freely welcomed back into the family but only at the cost to the older son. Do you remember what the father said to the older son at the end of the parable? He said, “Son, you are with me always and everything I have is yours.” That’s not only a true statement, it’s a literal statement. Beginning of the story, the father divides up his property among them. One-third goes to the younger son. The remaining two-thirds of the estate belonged to the oldest son. When the patriarch passes away, now the remaining entire estate will be passed on to the eldest son. So everything that the father owned truly belonged to the older son. So the robe, the ring, the fattened calf, the great big celebration that’s going on, that’s all at the expense of the older brother. This extravagant thing that’s going on that the father is throwing in recognition and celebration to the son who has returned is all chipping away at the estate that belongs to the older son. So the younger son’s salvation is not free at all, but it comes at a great expense to the older brother and he doesn’t want to pay.

In the story, the elder brother doesn’t want to pay for the younger son to be reconciled into the family. In fact, he doesn’t want the younger son reconciled into the family. He’d just as soon that he stayed in some distant country someplace else, and he becomes angry and bitter at the fact that his father has welcomed him in and spent part of his estate in doing so.

If we translate that into the message that Jesus is speaking to us, if the father is God in heaven and we are the younger sons who are coming back, we don’t want the older son from the story because the elder brother in the story, if he’s our older brother, we’re lost because he’s not going to pay. We need a true elder brother, an older brother who lives up to his responsibility, an older brother who is willing to pay the price so we can be back into the family again.

I would hope by now, if you’ve been listening to the messages that you’ve been able to interject yourself into the story and you’ve seen, at times, that you are the younger son and that we are lost, that we are alienated from God, our sin separates us from Him and we need an elder brother to come and search for us.

In the gospel of John, Jesus puts it this way, “I tell you the truth. Everyone who sins is a slave to sin and a slave has no permanent place in the family. But a son belongs to it forever.” Do you remember when the younger son comes home? He says to his father, “I’m not worthy to be your son anymore. I’ve been disqualified to be part of this family anymore. If I could be a hired hand, if I could be a servant,” Jesus is echoing that in His very words here. He says that we are a slave to sin and a slave has no permanent place in the family. It’s not considered a son or daughter in God’s family and so, left on our own, by nature, we are slaves to sin and that whole imagery of slavery, meaning that we are entrapped by it, that we cannot escape from it.

Think about it in your own life. I’m guessing you don’t have to really think that long to realize the things that have enslaved you. Try to tell just one lie. It doesn’t work because if you tell one lie, then you’ll have to tell a second lie to cover up for the first lie and then you’ll probably have to tell a third lie to cover up for the second lie and it’s never ending. You’re a slave to sin.

How many of you do something that you know absolutely, positively that God says it’s wrong? And you do it and you regret it and you feel bad about it and you say, “I’m never going to do it again.” And then you do it again and again and again. You’re a slave to sin. We cannot escape it. I don’t care how hard you try. I don’t care how hard you concentrate and you focus, by nature, we are separated from God and we are lost. We’re slaves to sin and we have no permanent place in the family.

That’s why we need an elder brother, a true elder brother who comes to us, who seeks us out, who’s willing to pay the price to bring us back into the family. The scriptures reveal for us that Jesus is our older brother, the older brother who accepts His responsibility. The father in the story said to the son, “Everything I have is yours.” Jesus says, “The Father and I are one. Everything that the Father has,” Jesus says, “I have.” Jesus has been around since eternity. He was there at creation. He ruled with His Father in heaven above.

In the story, the son wouldn’t leave his estate and go off to a distant country to find his younger brother. In reality, Jesus leaves heaven itself, all of its glory, all of its majesty, all of its power and He travels into His own creation and He takes on flesh and blood in search of us. The scriptures put it this way, if we go to Galatians 4, “But when the time had fully come, God sent His Son, born of a woman, born under the law, to redeem those under the law.” Why? “So that we might receive the full rights of sons and daughters.”

He goes on to say, “So you are no longer a slave but a son. And since you are a son, God has made you an heir.” Jesus traveled from heaven, took on flesh and blood, would forever be changed. He would no longer just be God, but He would be the God-man, Jesus Christ. Forever for eternity, he took on humanity. That’s what he was willing to do. That’s how far he was willing to go so He could seek us out, so He could be that elder brother, to rescue us and bring us back to the Father.

And He’s willing to pay the price. He doesn’t just open up His pocketbook and pay for a great feast like in the story, but He opens up His arms and lets His own creation nail Him to a cross and He pays with His very life. Again, the scriptures testify to that. Romans 5, “You see at just the right time when we were still powerless,” the younger brother in the story is powerless, is he not? There’s no way he can earn his way back into the family. There’s no way he can pay his father back for all the debt he’s incurred and all the hurt that he’s done. “While we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly.” God demonstrates this in His own love for us. “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. For when we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to Him through the death of His Son.” How much more have we been reconciled shall we be saved through His life?

Jesus, our older brother, gladly, willingly pays the price. He lays down His life for us. He dies so we don’t have to die. He literally goes through hell and takes on the punishment that you and I deserve, but He makes the atonement for us so we can be reconciled to our Father in heaven. He is the true elder brother.

For those of you who are the eldest, you didn’t get to experience what it is to have an older sibling. And maybe some of you are only children. Maybe you didn’t experience what I experienced with my older brother. He never let me down, always watched out for little brother. He was always there to protect me, always there to get me out of trouble. And to this day, he still kind of keeps an eye on little brother. If you didn’t have that, this morning I want you to know that you do. You have an older brother in heaven who walks beside you, who watches out for you and protects you, who lives up to His responsibility. He left heaven itself in search of you and He gladly, gladly paid the expense so you could be part of the family again. Amen.

Copyright 2010 Gloria Dei Lutheran Church