University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

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1. THE OLDER BROTHER

Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

A Sermon by Robert E. Dunham

University Presbyterian Church

Chapel Hill, North Carolina

Fourth Sunday in Lent            March 25, 2010

            Barbara Brown Taylor says that there is both a beauty and a problem with any really good parable – and especially this parable of the Prodigal Son, as it is called:

The beauty of a really good parable … is that it meets generations of listeners wherever they are: in first-century Palestine, in fourth-century Rome, in sixteenth-century Geneva, or in twenty-first century [Chapel Hill]. Everyone has a weird family. Everyone has at least thought of running away from home. And whether or not you happen to have one yourself, almost everyone knows what a pain a sibling can be – especially when there are only two of you, so that the “good child/bad child” thing hovers over you no matter which one you happen to be at any given time. For these reasons and more, the parable of the prodigal son stays young no matter how old it is, giving all kinds of people all kinds of ways to make the story their own.

The problem with a really good parable – especially one as beloved as this one – is that it can become limp from too much handling.  Like the velveteen rabbit, it can lose its eyes, its whiskers, and a lot of its stuffing, until it conforms to the arms of whoever picks it up. After a while, you hardly have to hold it anymore. You can just sling it over your wrist, with the head on one side and the body on the other, trusting it to stay put while you go about your business. That’s how you know you don’t have a live parable anymore, capable of leaping from your arms and leading you out to where you did not mean to go. You have a domestic pet instead, as captive as you are to your culture.[1]

            Across the years I have preached more than a dozen sermons on this parable, and in all of them I tried to press against the parable’s limp familiarity. My guess is that most preachers who tackle this parable spend the bulk of their pulpit time on the prodigal, and I have spoken of him as well.  But today and next Sunday I hope to spend some time thinking with you about the older brother and the father in this well-worn tale, because for most of us well-educated, mostly well-behaved Presbyterians, I think that is where our interest lies. Curiously, after I had decided to talk about the older brother this week, a friend posted a Facebook status update that said, “This week is First Child Appreciation Week: Post a photo of your oldest child as your profile picture. Let's show how much we appreciate the first-born kids in our families for all they go through and all they do!” As the first-born in my family, I want to say Amen to that suggestion.

            Earlier this year my colleague Michael Lindvall spoke a word in behalf of the older brother in the parable of the prodigal, after saying that he himself had always been an older brother par excellence. He chronicled his years of decent and orderly behavior, noting:

I totally failed to misspend my youth.  I never once got busted for underage drinking.  My mother said no to a motorcycle when I was a teenager, so I dutifully waited 15 years to get one.  I went to an economical state university, graduated in four years, went straight to seminary, married my sweetheart to whom I am still married, graduated on time, got a paying job and paid back all my student loans.  I am an older brother and proud of it.

So Michael said he thought it was time for a rewrite of the parable, this time leaning toward the older brother’s perspective. He called his new take “The Parable of the Older Brother and the Irresponsible Younger Brother.” His new parable goes something like this:

There was a man who had two sons; and the younger of them said to his father, “Father, give me the share of the property that falls to me.”  (In asking for his inheritance before the proper time, please note that this son was as good as wishing his father dead.)  But the father divided his living between them anyway.  Not many days later, the younger son gathered all he had and took his journey into a far country, and there he squandered his property in scandalously shameful loose living.  And when he had exhausted his inheritance, I mean every last penny, a great famine arose in that country, and he began to be in want.  So he went and joined himself to one of the citizens of that country, who sent him into his fields to feed swine.  And he would have gladly fed on the pods that the swine ate; and no one gave him anything.  But when he came to himself, he said, “How many of my father's hired servants have bread enough to spare, but I perish here with hunger.”  In his typical, self-serving manner, he said to himself, “Why, I will arise and go to my father and I will say to him, 'Father, I have sinned against heaven before you; I am not worthy to be called your son; treat me as one of your hired servants.”  He selfishly thought to himself, “My fate cannot be worse than this scene.  It’s worth the risk, and if I know my father...”

While he was yet at a distance, his father saw him through the window of the house.  He did not get up and run to him; rather, he remained at his writing table until his son was brought into him.  When he saw this wastrel son of his, he greeted his son with grim countenance.  He did not embrace him, but crossed his arms before his breast and waited for the boy to speak.  And the son said to him, “Father I have sinned against heaven and before you; I am no longer worthy to be called your son.”  And the father said to his servants, “Quickly, take this boy into the fields and there he shall toil side by side with his faithful brother for forty days until he proves himself worthy to be a son of mine.”

And after these forty days, the elder brother came and drew near to the house and his father ran and embraced him and kissed him.  The elder brother said to his father, “This younger son of yours, my baby brother, has indeed grown in spirit during these forty days of hard labor in the fields.”  And his father said to his older son, “Son, if you think your brother is truly repentant, I would desire to put the best robes on you both, and shoes on your feet, and rings on your hands.  Perhaps we should bring the fatted calf and kill it and make merry, for this your younger brother was dead and is alive, was lost and is found.  What do you think?”  And the older son said, “Let me ponder the matter of such a banquet, father; perhaps after another forty days, or maybe eighty days, we could consider a feast.”[2]

            Tom Long says, “By all rights, this story ought to end with the younger son sweating in furrows, eating in the slave quarters and spending his day serving the older brother.”[3] By all rights! That is what gets the older brother so agitated in this story. He sees it as fundamentally a story about what is right and what is wrong, and he is clear about why he deserves the father’s blessing and why his brother…er, his father’s other son...does not. He doesn’t like his brother. He’s not the type to call Troy Dunn, TV’s “The Locator,” to go track him down in that far country. As far as he is concerned, it was good riddance when his brother took off, given how he had insulted his father and broken the bonds of family.  And now that he is back, having squandered all that had been given him…well… the thought of a welcome-home party was more for his sibling than he could take.  Says Alan Culpepper, the older brother

represents all of us who think we can make it on our own, all of us who might be proud of the kind of lives we live. Here is the contrast between those who want to live by justice and merit and those who must ask for grace.  We cannot share in the Father’s eternal grace if we demand that he deal with us according to what we deserve. Sharing in God’s grace requires that we join in the celebration when others are recipients of that grace also. Part of [our] fellowship with Christ is receiving and rejoicing with others who do not deserve our forgiveness or God’s grace.  Each person is of such value to God, however, that none is excluded from God’s grace. Neither should we withhold our forgiveness.[4]

Many Presbyterians are uncomfortable with such an analysis, though maybe not this group of Presbyterians. Many Presbyterians identify with the dutiful older brother who has been responsible with matters of work and money. We know about duty. We know about living up to expectations.  We know about righteousness.  But there’s the rub. Indeed, in my mind the parable’s tragic turn and deepest poignancy lies in its final scene between the father and his elder son. The tragedy of the older brother is not only that he has failed to recognize his constant position of privilege with the father, but also that he is blind to the fact that even now the father is extending to him the same care and concern as toward the prodigal. His stubborn refusal to go into the house is a sad commentary on those who, like the Pharisees for whom the story is told, resent the extension of good news to those they consider sinners.[5] Such people presume too much on the judgment of God; they are “either/or” people who have difficulty dealing with a “both/and” God.[6]  And thus, they, too, need to repent.  It is not only the prodigal who has offended the Father and broken community within the family.  The older brother is guilty, too. In the end, one can hope that both sons came to themselves. We only know what we know, and that is that both sons needed to repent. As Alan Culpepper says, “If repentance for the prodigal son means learning to say ‘father’ again, then for the elder son it means learning to say ‘brother’ again.”[7] 

The parable leaves us with the question of whether the elder brother [finally] joined the celebration.  Did he go in and welcome his brother home, or did he stay outside pouting and feeling wronged?  The parable ends there because that is the decision each of us must make.  If we go in, we accept grace as the Father’s rule for life in the family.[8]      

It is one of the most difficult choices we ever have to make, and once we make it, it will make all the difference in the world for the rest of our days.

            The older brother stood outside in the dark, pondering his options. Now, forget about him.  What about you?