He is hardworking, out in the fields keeping everything running as it should. He is loyal, living under his father's roof and caring for the family livelihood. He is obedient (well, we don't have any evidence of that, only his word, but let's believe him.) He sounds like every one's dream.
Yet he has a dirty secret: there are calluses on places other than his hands. It appears that all that diligent, loyal, obedient hard work has developed a callus or two on his heart as well.
When his younger brother decides he needs 'his space' and 'wants to find himself' he diminishes the family's wealth, and disrespects their Father. Then he runs off to live the wild life, leaving good old Elder Brother to take up the slack. Somewhere in all of this, he begins to resent his brother, and just possibly, his father as well.
Boy do we understand this Elder Son. We get why he feels put upon; why he thinks he deserves a break; why he is a little bit annoyed at his father for being such a chump in the first place. We understand his sense of entitlement. So when he hears from a slave that his Father has thrown a huge party just because that ne'er do well son had showed up at his door, well, the Elder Son had reached the end of his patience. Or perhaps his ability to forgive. Or perhaps his storehouse of love.
We are outraged right along with the Elder Son. Truly he deserved better than this, a little reward perhaps. It truly isn't very fair and that Younger Son is suspiciously close to taking advantage of the Father's mercy. The Father should understand that the Elder is the good son, just like we are good people, working hard, trying our best, deserving of a party, deserving of your love.
Oh my, oh my. I have been guilty of this line of thinking more than once in my life. The Father does all he can to persuade the Elder to join the great celebration of life, but the story closes with an angry man standing in a field feeling entitled. An angry man who has disrespected his Father, treated him as a stranger, refused to take his position in the family....and who has decided that the love being poured out on the lost one was love stolen from him.
He has decided he knows better than the Father who deserves the Father's love and invitation to the table. Often we agree with this Angry Son; something is not right with this Father.
So if the Father in the parable is intended to give us a picture of God the father of Jesus, then what are we to do? As much as we want to rely on God's mercy when we are in need, do we not also want to be entitled to God's mercy the rest of the time? God's desire that all should come to his table and know him and the life that he offers is somehow perverted in our minds to mean......just us? Somehow it isn't as open an invitation as we sometime pretend.
We are fairly certain we didn't bargain for a God with a love that is as big as all that.
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