PAROUSIA THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST: LUKE 15- The Lostness of  the Two Sons

In Luke 15 we see that the older brother became angry and refused to go into the father’s feast, after the return of his wayward younger brother.

Jesus often speaks of sin and salvation under the metaphors of being lost and found.

Gratefully, in Luke 15 there are three parables that Jesus tells the religious leaders, the Pharisees and Sadducees. The first is about a shepherd who discovers that one of his sheep is lost, the second parable is about a woman who discovers that one of her coins is lost.  The third parable is about two sons who sadly, are in different ways both lost. Jesus would summarize his ministry as a rescue operation, in Luke 19: 10, “Jesus came to seek and to save that which is lost”.

This chapter is rich with spiritual discovery of the reality and self-deception of the human condition.

So, what does it mean to be spiritually lost? The self-indulgent, undisciplined, and foolish behavior of the younger brother ends up with him a Jew, hungry and in a pigsty. He returns home to try and rebuild his life. The father was waiting, anticipating his arrival.

In the elder brother Jesus wants us to see another very subtle but no less devastating form of lostness. Timothy Keller in his book The Prodigal God calls it “elder brother lostness, the brother that stayed home and did not spend his money on prostitute lostness, which also brings much misery and strife into the world. Younger brother lostness can be more readily understood, wasting one’s ill-gotten inheritance on drugs, women, wine and mirth. What was he thinking?  What an idiot!

After the younger brother comes home, the father declares a feast and the elder brother, rather than being happy that the lost brother has safely returned home, becomes angry filled with resentment, deeply angry and bitter. Unfortunately, elder brothers can believe that if they live a good life, they should get a good life. God owes them a smooth easy road if they can live up to the standards.  You see, being good, merits health and wealth. What happens if you are the elder brother, and things go wrong in your life.  What happens you get angry with God.  The elder brother’s inability to handle suffering arises from the fact that moral observance is results oriented. Being good is lived not for delighting in good and gracious deeds themselves, but calculated as ways to control, in this case the father. https://www.secondcoming.org

Elder brothers expect goodness to pay off if it doesn’t there is confusion and rage.  In the parable we see that the elder brother has a strong sense of his own superiority. He points out how much better his own moral record is than the lover of prostitutes. In language, “this son of yours”, he won’t even own his brother as a brother anymore. Elder brothers based their self-image on being hard working, moral members of an elite clan or extremely smart and savvy.

This leads to feeling superior to those who don’t have the same qualities.  Often competitive comparison is the main way elder brothers achieve a sense of their own significance, this veritably is a form of a self-salvation and self-righteousness. The elder brother’s self-righteousness creates societal racism and classism, but also deep at its core is an unforgiving judgmental spirit. He truly is just nasty and unhappy to the core.

The older brother cannot pardon his younger brother for the way he has weakened the family’s place in society. Imagine your younger brother, addicted to drugs, slept with an innumerable number of women. The word on the street is that the loser younger brother has squandered a portion of the family’s inheritance. The loser younger brother disgraced the family name and diminished the family wealth.  The loser younger brother has been with prostitutes, at sensually filled parties, while the older more apparently more circumspect older brother, has been living a chaste life at home.

“I would never do anything as bad as that”, he is saying in his heart. Why?  Because he does not see himself as being part of a common community of sinners. He is trapped by his own bitterness. His own vinegar. It is impossible to forgive someone if you feel superior to him or her. He is not the problem. He thinks  that clearly, the younger brother is the problem.

PAROUSIA THE SECOND COMING OF JESUS CHRIST: LUKE 15- Redefining Lostness of  the Two Sons