JESUS AND THE ELDER BROTHER

Text: Luke 15:25-35

Introduction:

There’s symbolism throughout the story of the prodigal son. The prodigal represents the sinners that were so often drawn to Jesus. The father shows the heart of Jesus to welcome the outcasts of society into the kingdom of God. The elder brother reflects the critical spirit of ancient and modern-day Pharisees. He is the forgotten person in the Luke 15 parable, and we need to refocus on him. Everyone who reads the story is faced with the searching question: Where am I in this parable? Am I a wayward son or daughter? A forgiving father? A critical Pharisee?

The elder brother was angry not only about the party and the calf, but also about the money his brother had blown. He reproached his father: “As soon as this son of yours came, who has devoured your livelihood with harlots, you killed the fatted calf for him” (v.30). The verb devoured in the original text is kataphago. W. E. Vine in his Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words defines it as “metaphorically, to squander, to waste.” So the inheritance was squandered on harlots. The elder brother was so angry about the past that he was blind to the present. He refused to go into the party and celebrate the transformation of his brother. No, he chose rather to hang the past over the head of his father and “this son of yours.” In the text, we find a profile of this brother.

The Elder Brother’s Profile

• Angry—“He was angry” (15:28). He pictured himself as loyal to the father and his brother as wasteful.
• Killjoy—“He . . . would not go in” (15:28). Joining the party would indicate approval of his brother’s bad behavior and a welcoming spirit.
• Performance Driven—“Lo, these many years I have been serving you” (15:29). He was saying that he had been slaving for the father. There was no joy in his heart.
• Rule Keeper—“I never transgressed your commandment at any time” (15:29). In contrast to the reckless behavior of the “bad boy,” he was the good guy.
• Superiority Complex—“This son of yours” (15:30). He refused to call him his brother. He didn’t acknowledge that the prodigal belonged in the family.
• Critical—“Devoured your livelihood with harlots” (15:30). It was not just that a third of the inheritance has been blown, but that it had been wasted on wild living.

The 21st-Century Application

Most of the preaching I have listened to or delivered on Luke 15 has centered on the prodigal son. It is helpful to return to the first two verses of the chapter and to be reminded that the point of the parable is to answer a criticism about eating with sinners. The elder brother passage (Luke 15:2-35) is very important. If we miss him, we miss the point of the story and the take-home lesson. The words and actions of the older son not only appear in the story but show up too often in today’s churches. Jesus is pursuing “sinners” because He loves them and died for them. The outcasts and losers are welcomed with open arms as we see a father running down a dusty road. That is the answer of Jesus for the critics!
So this passage can become a mirror to expose our “elder brother” tendencies. Critics of the increasing number of social ministries that reach out to the homeless, the poor, the hungry, the imprisoned, and the addicted are modern-day elder brothers. I suggest that it is impossible to read the four Gospels and miss the compassion of Jesus for those labeled as “sinners.” Is there a finer mission statement for Jesus than Luke 4:18-19: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon Me, because He has anointed Me to preach the gospel to the poor; He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted; to proclaim liberty to the captives and recovery to the blind, to set at liberty those who are oppressed; to proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord.”

When Dan Kimball wrote his book They Like Jesus But Not the Church, he focused on the perception of the church by many in today’s culture. And one of those perceptions was the tendency to be judgmental. The elder brother in this parable symbolizes the judgmental attitude found in the first-century Pharisees and recurring in 21st-century attitudes found in many churches today. This critical spirit becomes a turn-off in any attempt to reach this generation for Jesus.

Tim Keller, in his recent book The Prodigal God, wrote this about the elder brother: “There is a third group of people who need to understand elder-brother lostness. There is a big difference between an elder brother and a real, gospel-believing Christian. But there are many genuine Christians who are elder-brotherish. . . . If you’ve become a Christian out of being an elder brother, you can even more easily slide back into elder-brother attitudes and spiritual deadness. If you have not grasped the gospel fully and deeply, you will return to being condescending, condemning, anxious, insecure, joyless, and angry all the time” (p.70).

When I read Tim Keller’s words, it reminded me that about 20 years ago I had a grace awakening. I was elder-brotherish, to use Tim Keller’s expression. A number of things were coming together and pushing me to see myself. Swindoll’s book Grace Awakening, along with Philip Yancey’s What’s So Amazing About Grace? gave me a big push. Chapter after chapter convicted me as I saw myself in the stories written by Yancey. I married a grace wife and we led a church pursuing grace in life-practice. The outward appearance of Christians, which I had majored in, was replaced with matters of the heart. Acceptance, unconditional love, and relationships evolved as the major topics of my teaching ministry.

The lasting value of allowing this story to be used by the Holy Spirit to search our hearts is to not only find ourselves in the parable but also to act upon the self-discovery. If you have left the Father’s house and are far from God today, turn your heart toward home. If you have wayward children but you’re missing a forgiving heart, pay attention to God, the “runner.” He is pursuing, not waiting. If you find yourself elder-brotherish, as I did, experience a grace awakening. It will set you free from joyless judgmentalism.