A Story in Two Acts
We come today to one of the most famous stories in the Bible, what’s often called the parable of the prodigal son, in Luke 15. There’s a problem with this designation, however. Jesus’ parable is about two sons, not one (v. 11).
The parable of the two lost sons has two Acts. Act 1 is about a lost younger brother. Act 2 is about a lost older brother. We’ll look at each Act then think about two kinds of people in the world today, and who the True Older Brother is. Next week, we’ll look at this parable again and see how Jesus redefines sin, redefines lostness, and redefines hope.
Act 1: The Lost Younger Brother
In verses 11-24, we meet the lost younger brother. The story begins with a short request, “Father, give me the share of property that is coming to me” (v. 12). In those days, it was common for the oldest son to receive a double portion of what the other children inherited. So if a father had two children, the oldest would receive two-thirds of the estate and the youngest would receive one-third. But this would only happen after the father died. This would’ve been shocking to the original hearers.
The younger son asking for it now is a massive sign of disrespect. It’s essentially him saying that he wishes his dad were dead. The younger son wants his father’s stuff, not his father. He’s weary of the relationship and just wants the wealth. He wants out, and he wants out now.
Amazingly, the father says, “Okay,” and “he divided his property between them” (v. 12). Rather than driving the younger son out and disowning him for dishonoring him, he grants his request.
Jesus’ listeners would’ve never seen a Middle Eastern patriarch do such a thing. He willingly endures the loss of honor and the pain of rejected love for the sake of his son. Normally, we respond to rejection with anger or aggressiveness, passive or otherwise. But this father maintains his affection for his son even while his son rejects him. In love, he absorbs the agony of rejection.
The Younger Brother’s Plan
You could say verse 12 is Scene 1 of Act 1. Then in verse 13, Scene 2 of Act 1 begins with the younger son gathering his newly inherited wealth and journeying to “a far country” where he wastes everything he has in “reckless living” (v. 13). After he spent everything he had, there was a famine, which meant food would be even more expensive, and “he began to be in need” (v. 14). So he goes and finds a job with a local farmer feeding pigs (v. 15).
He was so hungry that he wanted to eat the pigs food, but he was so alienated from his new community that “no one gave him anything” (v. 16). How bad do you have to be for people to deny you food when you’re hungry?
While in the pigpen, he finally comes to his senses (v. 17a). This is what often needs to happen for younger-brother types to come home – they have to hit rock bottom. A pastor friend once told me that he sometimes prays that the bottom would come quickly for those spiraling down. Sometimes it does. But sometimes it takes years and even decades.
He remembers how well-fed his father’s servants are and wonders why he’s choosing to starve when they’re eating well (v. 17b). Notice that his initial motive to return home was hunger, not love for his father. Sometimes we think our motives have to be perfectly pure before God will accept us. But this story teaches us otherwise.
He comes up with what he’ll say to his dad (vv. 18-19). He’ll admit he was wrong and that he’s forfeited his right to be his son. But he also decides to ask his dad to make him one of the “hired servants” (v. 19). This is a very specific request. Servants worked and lived on the estate. But “hired servants” were paid by the owner of the estate but lived in local villages nearby. So the son is planning to tell his dad, “I know I don’t have a right to come back into your home or into the family, but I’m willing to be a hired hand and earn some money so I can begin to repay you what I owe you.”
The Father Runs!
Then comes the dramatic final scene of Act 1 (vv. 20-24). When the younger son is in sight of the house, his father sees him and runs out to meet him (v. 20). Middle Eastern patriarchs didn’t run – children and women and young men ran, not the patriarch. But this father runs! He felt so much love and compassion for him that he “ran and embraced him and kissed him” (v. 20).
The son begins his rehearsed speech of repentance to his dad (v. 21). But his father interrupts him and ignores his plan and does the opposite of what he was going to suggest (v. 22). The best robe would’ve been the father’s robe, so giving it to his son was an unmistakable sign that he was being restored to the family. The father is saying, “I’m not going to wait till you’ve paid off your debt to restore you. You don’t have to earn your way back into the family, I’m simply going to take you back, cover your nakedness, poverty, and rags with my own robes.”
Then the father tells the servants to kill and prepare the fattened calf (v. 23). He’s going to throw a feast in his son’s honor, and beef will be the main course. At that time, meat wasn’t served at most meals because it was expensive, especially beef. Throwing a feast like this would’ve only happened on very special occasions. The entire village would be invited. The father says there must be great food, music, and dancing to celebrate the return of his son.
Amazing and Free Grace
Act 1 of this story tells us that God’s love can restore anyone, that his forgiveness can pardon the worst sins. It doesn’t matter who you are or what you’ve done. It doesn’t matter if you’ve deliberately hurt people, taken advantage of people, abused people, even murdered people. In the father’s house, the younger brother learned that there’s food and grace to spare, that there’s no evil the father’s love can’t pardon and cover. That there’s no sin bigger than his grace.
Hopefully you can see how Act 1 displays the lavishness of God’s grace. The father’s love was there for his son before he had a chance to clean up his life and provide evidence of a changed heart, even before he could recite his repentance speech. Nothing can merit God’s love, not even the most desperate contrition. The Father’s love is absolutely free.
Act 2: The Lost Older Brother
Many think that the main point of this story is God’s amazing love for younger brother types. But if that were the case, Jesus would’ve ended his story here. But he didn’t, because that isn’t his main point. Act 2 in verses 25-32 shows us the true climax of the story.
When the older brother hears that his younger brother has returned, been reinstated to the family, and a party in his honor is underway, he’s furious. Now it’s his turn to disgrace his father.
He refuses to go in to celebrate his brother’s return (v. 28a). By remaining outside, he’s publicly declaring that he doesn’t agree with his father’s decision. It’s a vote of no-confidence in his father, publicly dishonoring him.
This compels the father to come out to speak with him, to plead with him to come in (v. 28b). This would’ve been a demeaning thing to do for the master of the house and host of the feast. But he does it because he desperately wants his oldest son to come inside.
Why is the older brother so upset? First of all, he’s upset about the cost of the party. He says, “You’ve never given me a goat for a party, but you give him a calf!” What the father had done was actually more costly than just a calf. By welcoming the younger son back into the family, he’s made him an heir again with a claim to one-third of the now diminished family wealth.
The older brother calculates all this on the spot. He’s saying to his dad, “I’ve worked myself to death and earned what I have, but my younger brother has done nothing to earn anything. In fact, he’s only earned expulsion from the family, yet you lavish him with wealth! How is this fair? Where’s the justice in what you’re doing?”
This is why he refers to his excellent track record, “I never disobeyed your command” (v. 29). He’s saying, “I’ve earned your wealth, my brother hasn’t. I have rights, he doesn’t. How dare you give him what he doesn’t deserve!”
The older brother’s fury leads him to dishonor his father by refusing to speak to him with deference and respect, especially in public. Instead of addressing him as “dear dad” or even just “father,” he says in verse 29, “Look,” which is equivalent to, “Look, you!” This was a humiliating way to speak to an elder in that culture. It’d be similar to cursing out your dad in a store if he doesn’t give you what you want.
The Father’s Gracious Response
How will the father respond to this public humiliation, to his older son’s open rebellion? What will he do? It wouldn’t have been unusual at that time for him to disown him on the spot. But again he responds to a rebellious son with amazing grace (vv. 31-32).
He says, “Son, despite how you’ve insulted me publicly, you’re still my son. You’re always with me and my wealth is yours. Despite how your younger brother acted, I’m not going to disown him, and I don’t want to disown you either. It’s good that we celebrate his homecoming. Please come in and celebrate with us.”
Will the family be reunited? Will the brothers be reconciled? Will the older brother be softened by his father’s remarkable and gracious offer? Just as we’re wondering what he’ll choose to do, the story ends!
Why doesn’t Jesus finish the story and tell us what the older brother decides to do? Because the main audience for his story is the Pharisees, the “older brothers” who were complaining about Jesus hanging out with sinners (vv. 1-2). He ends the way he does to challenge them to think about their own lives.
Two Kinds of People
Jesus doesn’t finish the story because he also wants us to examine our hearts to see which brother we are. Are we the younger brother or the older brother? Or maybe a bit of both?
The two lost brothers reveal the two kinds of people there are in the world, the two different ways of being alienated from God, and the two different ways of trying to be accepted by God.
Remember, the setting of the parable says there were two groups listening to Jesus that day. First, there were “the tax collectors and sinners” (v. 1). These correspond to the younger brother. They didn’t keep the moral or ceremonial laws of the Bible. They lived recklessly. They “left home” by leaving the traditional morality and religion of their parents and society.
Then there were “the Pharisees and the scribes” (v. 2). These were represented by the older brother. They kept the traditional moral and religious values of their upbringing. They studied and obeyed Scripture. They worshipped faithfully and prayed often.
Looking at the Older Brother’s Soul
Which kind of person do you think wanted to be around Jesus? Luke says in verse 1 that the sinners were “all drawing near to hear him.” The tense of the verb indicates that this was an ongoing pattern in Jesus’ ministry, not a one-off event. The irreligious continuously flocked to Jesus.
This shocked and angered the religious! Luke summarizes their complaint in verse 2, “This man receives sinners and eats with them.” Eating with someone in the ancient Near East was a symbol of acceptance. So the religious leaders were baffled by Jesus’ acceptance of irreligious people, saying, in effect, “How dare Jesus reach out to sinners like that!”
As I said last week, the three parables of Luke 15 are Jesus’ defense of why he chose to hang out with sinners. This means the parables are primarily directed at the second group of his listeners, the Pharisees and scribes. The parables are his way of responding to their attitude. The parable of the two lost sons is Jesus’ way of taking an extended look at the Pharisee’s soul. And it climaxes with a powerful plea for them to change their heart.
This means that the targets of this story aren’t the wayward sinners but the religious people who believe the Bible and do what it says. Jesus isn’t pleading with immoral outsiders, but with moral insiders. He wants them to see their blindness and self-righteousness.
It’s a mistake to think that Jesus tells this parable primarily to assure younger brothers of God’s amazing grace. This parable reveals the destructive self-centeredness of the younger brother. But it also condemns the elder brother’s moralistic life in super strong terms. With this parable, Jesus is saying that both the irreligious and the religious are spiritually lost.
A Pharisee for a Brother
This parable invites and challenges us to examine our hearts and see which brother we are. Jesus has laid out the two basic ways people pursue happiness and relate to God. And he exposes each as profoundly inadequate to give us what we’re looking for. The parable is meant to show us that there’s a better approach. But where do we find it?
We find it when we realize Jesus left someone out of the parable. Remember that Luke 15 has three parables, not just this one. In the first one, a shepherd goes out and finds his lost sheep. In the second one, the woman searches until she finds her lost coin. The similarities between the three parables are obvious. Something is lost, a sheep, coin, or son, and in each the one who loses something gets it back. And each one ends with a celebration when the lost one is found.
But there’s a profound difference between the first two parables and the third one. In the first two, someone “goes out” and finds the lost thing. But when we hear about the younger son being lost, we assume that someone will go out and find him. But no one does.
Jesus meant this to be startling. He wants us to think, “Who should’ve gone out to search for the lost son?” And Jesus knew that the Bible begins with another story of an older and younger brother, Cain and Abel (Gen. 4). In that story, the Lord assumes that the proud and resentful older brother, Cain, would be his brother Abel’s keeper. But instead he was his murderer.
There’s a story of a young man going missing in action in the Vietnam war. When the family couldn’t get any news about him, his older brother flew to Vietnam and began searching the jungles for him himself. Despite being in a war zone, he was never hurt because both sides had heard about what he was doing and respected his quest. He was simply called, “the brother.”[1]
This is what the older brother in the parable should’ve done. It’s what a true older brother would do. He’d say, “Father, my younger brother has made terrible choices, and his life is in shambles. But I will go look for him and bring him home. And if he’s spent his whole inheritance, which I expect he has, I’ll bring him home at my expense.” Indeed, it’s only at the older brother’s expense that the younger brother could be brought home because the father had already divided the property and everything that remained belonged to the older brother. When the father tells the older brother, “All that is mine is yours,” this is literally the case. Bringing the younger brother home will be costly for the older brother.
Forgiveness is always costly, though it is always free to the offender. If they have to do something to earn it, it’s not forgiveness. But forgiveness always comes at a cost to the one granting it. Act 1 of the parable showed us the freeness of the father’s forgiveness, while Act 2 shows us its costliness. The younger brother’s restoration was free to him but came at great cost to the older brother. The father couldn’t reinstate him except at the expense of the older brother. There was no other way.
But Jesus doesn’t put a true older brother like this into the story, an older brother who’ll pay whatever the cost to bring the lost younger brother home. “The younger son gets a Pharisee for a brother instead.”[2]
The True Older Brother
Thankfully, we don’t. Jesus puts a flawed older brother in the story to make us long for a true one. And in Jesus we have him. In him, we have an older brother who came all the way from heaven to earth and was willing to pay an infinitely high price to bring us home. As older and younger brothers, we’ve rebelled against the father and can’t afford the debt we owe. We deserve alienation and rejection. But our true older brother, Jesus Christ, paid our debt on the cross so we can come back home. The only way the Father could bring us home was at the expense of our true older brother.
When we realize he did that for us, when we’re moved by the cost he paid for us, the inner dynamics of our hearts begin to change. We move from fear and anger to love, joy, and gratitude.
Jesus had all the power in the world but saw us enslaved to things we though would make us free, so he emptied himself of his glory and became a servant and died on the cross for our sins (Phil. 2). All so that our hearts can rest, so that we can come home to the Father’s house.
His selfless love counteracts the mistrust in our hearts toward God that turns us into younger or older brothers. When we see the beauty of his love, we’ll be freed from the neediness and fear that creates either younger or older brothers. As William Cowper says,
“To see the Law by Christ fulfilled,
and hear his pardoning voice,
changes a slave into a child
and duty into choice.”[3]
[1]Ibid., 91.
[2]Ibid., 94.
[3]Quoted in ibid., 100.