Chapter fifteen of the gospel of Luke begins like this: Many sinners and corrupt people came to listen to Jesus. The believers, who thought they were the good ones, criticized saying: “Look at that! He hangs out with sinful people! What a great testimony, huh!”
In response to this, Jesus tells three stories:
- The story of a Lost Sheep, that the shepherd goes after.
- The story of a Lost Coin that is found by a woman who turns the house upside down until she finds it.
- The story of a Lost Son, whom no one ever goes after.
It’s interesting to observe the audience to whom Jesus tells these stories. There were of course the sinners, who came to hear them, and the Pharisees and Teachers of the Law. The latter are the ones who make the comment above.
The story makes the mistakes of the younger son clear. A lover of prostitutes, he spent all his wealth with false friends, comes back home repenting of the bad things he did, proposes to the father to work to pay back what he took away, is accepted as a son again, invited to dinner, the party is starting to happen.
This part of the story is clear and easily understood by the sinners who were there around Jesus. But he doesn’t end the story at this part, He continues:
“When the older son came back from work, he saw the party and got all upset, because the father was throwing a party for his brother who blew everything on prostitutes. He said that if anyone deserved a party, it was him who never disobeyed the father. And he didn’t even want to come into the party.”
The younger son didn’t want to be part of the family anymore because he wanted the things of the father. He wanted bad things and that’s why he distanced himself from the family.
The older son wanted good things, the practices of good. His code of conduct. And so, he decided he wouldn’t be part of the family anymore. “I’m not going to have dinner with you. I won’t go in and be part of this family’s party.”
To return to dinner with the father, the younger son had to repent of the bad things he did; the older one needed to repent of the good things he did. Let go of that, to be part of the family.
Both had attitudes, good or bad, based only on the interest of having the things of the father.
It’s important to observe that the return of the younger son implies a loss for the older son. To restore one third of everything to the younger son, someone would have to lose. This offends the older son, after all he was “deserving” of everything he had.
We are the younger son and the older son. Some of us choose to live life as we want, far from home, enjoying what we received from the father in any way we see fit. Others choose to live life following the code of conduct, doing everything according to the playbook and thus having the “right” to the things of the father. Both are the same, with a slightly different exterior, but the same.
Jesus is the perfect model of an older son. He lived with the father when we were born, he watched us use everything the father gave for our own pleasure. He followed every wrong step we as humans took, and Paul says the following about Him:
“although he was God, he didn’t snub it in any way in the human’s face, but made himself weak as a man, taking the place of serving instead of being served, like any common man.” (Philippians 2:7)
He chose to come here, pay our bills and offer us a place at the table again, sharing everything He has with us.
Jesus is our opportunity to start over. Have you ever wanted to start over? Think: If I could live two lives I would do it differently. I would be different in school; I would eat differently; I would exercise more — Jesus is that second chance. He is the one who gives us the opportunity to be what we should have been, to be what we were planned to be.
It doesn’t matter which character of the parable we fit into, whether as the younger son or the older son, you can repent of everything good and bad you did. You can open your understanding to the fact that we are all sinners and need the grace of God.
“Do you really think we are better than the others? Haven’t we already explained so many times that both the people of God and the pagans are all under sin? The Scriptures already said that there is not one righteous person. No one understands, no one seeks God. Everyone has abandoned the path and become useless. There is not even one wretch in the world who does good. – Romans 3”
Whether our actions follow the playbook or are completely wrong, the love of the father and the real older son opens the door for us to come back home.